Milestones

Awards · Announcements · Appointments

ONSHORE GAS PLANT AWARD

SAUDI ARABIA A Bechtel-led joint venture will provide engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, and startup services for a greenfield onshore gas processing plant at Khursaniyah, Saudi Arabia. The project, for Saudi Aramco, consists of two trains of gas conditioning and ethane and natural gas liquids recovery with a capacity of 1 billion cubic feet per day.

INTERGEN SOLD

USA Bechtel Enterprises Energy B.V. and Shell Generating (Holding) B.V., a subsidiary of The Royal Dutch/Shell Group, have agreed to sell InterGen N.V. and 10 of its power plants to a partnership involving AIG and Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan for $1.75 billion. The plants are located in the UK, the Netherlands, Mexico, the Philippines, China, and Australia. The transaction does not include InterGen’s assets in the United States, Turkey, and Colombia.


WIRELESS SITE CONTRACT

USA Bechtel has been awarded a contract to upgrade a significant number of wireless sites across the United States, as part of an advanced universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) network deployment by Cingular Wireless. Bechtel has been a strategic partner of Cingular since 2002, and of AT&T Wireless, which Cingular recently acquired, since 2000.

ALUMINA REFINERY COMPLETION

AUSTRALIA Bechtel has completed a A$1.5 billion alumina refinery in Gladstone, Queensland, three months ahead of schedule and within budget. The refinery will produce 1.4 million tonnes per year of alumina, which will be used at Comalco Aluminium Ltd.’s smelters in Australia and New Zealand and sold to others. Bechtel is also completing an expansion of Comalco’s Weipa bauxite mine in Far North Queensland.

SAFETY FIRST

STELLAR SAFETY RECORDS
In Ukraine, the team that is constructing a concrete shelter to cover a damaged reactor building at the Chornobyl SIP project has completed 2.8 million job hours without a lost-time accident. Other notable safety achievements worldwide include 3.8 million accident-free hours at the Yucca Mountain project in Nevada, 5.5 million hours at the Egyptian LNG project, 1.3 million hours at the Springerville power project in Arizona, and 1.1 million hours at the PTT-JDA Pipeline project in Thailand.

OTHER SAFETY NEWS

The United Kingdom’s Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has presented Bechtel Ltd. with its Gold Award for Occupational Safety. It’s the society’s highest award, and requires at least four consecutive years of excellent performance. Bechtel’s Channel Tunnel Rail Link project team was presented with the Project Safety Award at the Construction News Annual Awards ceremony in London. The rail project was cited for its proactive approach to health and safety and its employee involvement programs. The judges included officials from the UK government and construction industry. The project recently completed 9.1 million hours without a lost-time accident.

TOP THIS

USA The Tacoma Narrows Bridge south of Seattle, Washington, is taking shape. The bridge’s two 155-meter-tall towers will be topped off less than a year after their construction began in August 2004. The towers will support a main span stretching 853 meters across Puget Sound. A joint venture of Bechtel and Kiewit Pacific is designing and building the bridge—the longest new suspension span in the United States since 1964.

MANAGEMENT MOVES

Jim Haynes, principal vice president and project director for Tube Lines, the consortium that is upgrading London Underground’s Jubilee, Northern, and Piccadilly lines, has been named a senior vice president of Bechtel Corporation. Mike McLemore takes over as corporate manager of Six Sigma from Mary Moreton, who continues as corporate manager of Human Resources.


CLOSER

Reality Check
Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, is the first all-women’s college to launch an undergraduate degree program in engineering. And, like future doctors who train in medical school with real patients, Smith’s engineering students conclude their training with a yearlong senior clinic that addresses real-world design challenges.

This year, three Bechtel volunteers helped with a student project to incorporate sustainability features into stations in Virginia that will become part of the Washington, D.C., Metro system. “Team Bechtel” brainstormed and evaluated design alternatives, performed cost-benefit analyses, and researched opportunities to include the work of local artists in station designs. Along the way, they gained valuable engineering and business skills.

On a recent site visit, the students rehearsed their final presentation before the Bechtel project team, which gave them top marks for “a thorough and detailed job.”


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