BE.Americas

ACHIEVING BUSINESS EXCELLENCE ONLINE INCLUDING

CHUM: goldcorp mexico: AMERICAS EDITION Issue No.51

alma:

Cerrej贸n:

The maximum

possible

The world has little to teach Cerrej贸n about CSR and environmental management

special Focus: petrotrin oil and gas company

business excellence

Business John O’Hanlon Editor johanlon@bus-ex.com Will Daynes Editor wdaynes@bus-ex.com Matt Johnson Art Director mjohnson@bus-ex.com Louise Culling Production Designer lculling@bus-ex.com Richard Turner Director of Sales rturner@bus-ex.com Vince Kielty Director of Editorial Research vkielty@bus-ex.com

Business Excellence brings you content from leading business influencers and strategic thinkers providing inspiration and guidance to help you and your business grow.

We showcase some of the best examples of successful organisations from around the world giving you a unique insight into how they operate.

HINT: For the best experience, click the fullscreen icon

Sharon Rooke Administration & Operations srooke@bus-ex.com Matt Day Head of Technology mday@bus-ex.com Andy Turner Chief Executive aturner@bus-ex.com

Contributors Tom Butler & Josef Skoldeberg World Bank Group Thomas R. Cutler President & CEO - TR Cutler, Inc George F. Brown, Jr. Consultant & Author David Walton CEO of Bestoutcome Kevin J. Duggan Entrepreneur Gary Kunath Founder of The Summit Group

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Jacquard House, Queen Street, Norwich, NR2 4SX. England

Infinity Business Media Ltd

The content of this magazine is copyright of Infinity Business Media Ltd. Redistribution or reproduction of any content is prohibited. Š Copyright 2013 Infinity Business Media Ltd.

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features

12 18

12 Q&A

World Bank Group

We talk to Tom Butler and Josef Skoldeberg about the issues facing the mining industry and how ethical, sustainable mining can be the key to alleviating poverty in developing countries.

18 supply chain

24

Reducing Customer Lead Time

How implementing lean technologies into your supply chain can reduce lead times from 15 days to less than two.

24 Operations

Picking Productivity Kept Simple

When it comes to choosing a warehouse picking solution, accuracy beats complexity every time Pick-to-Light systems are easier to learn too.

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contents

30 strategy

Does Your Firm Have One Hand Tied Behind its Back?

30

Partnership with third-party suppliers works best when they are really brought into the team.

36 operations

Operational Excellence in Human Resources

Employees are invariably a company’s greatest asset, but what can you do to ensure your HR process creates the best results?

36

44 people

Elevating Loyalty, Productivity and Innovation in your Workforce Treat your organization’s most valuable resource with care, says former Businessman of the Year.

44

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business showcases

48 62

Mining & Minerals: 48 Cerrejón

The maximum possible

A mantra of Cerrejón is we do the maximum possible not the minimum necessary: in the matter of CSR and environmental management the rest of the world has little to teach Colombia.

62 Goldcorp mexico

The precious heart of the Americas

Goldcorp’s Mexican operations provide an ever-growing pipeline of gold, silver and other metals.

72

72 Antamina

Reaching new heights

Operations Vice President, Jorge Ghersi discusses the continuing development of Antamina, site of the largest mining investment programme in the history of Peru.

82 Argex Titanium

On the path to production

The Canadian junior exploration company completes its transformation into a top quality supplier to the pigment industry.

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contents

92 Dartel Electricidad The electrical experts

Commercial manager, Claudio QuiĂąones discusses the rich history of Dartel Electricidad, its support of the mining sector and its plans for the future.

98 Devex

92 108

Introducing tomorrow’s smart mine Devex has rethought mine automation, taking it beyond the traditional fleet management mindset.

108 Pesco

The tools for the job

Over little more than a decade Pesco has emerged as a major player in the Chilean economy, supporting mining and a host of different industries.

120 PBE group safety first

PBE’s transformation into an international mining solutions provider and the continued diversification of its product suite.

120

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business showcases

Special focus: petrotrin

128

128 petrotrin: The business Energy based – people powered As Trinidad’s national oil and gas company approaches its 20th birthday it is reassessing its position in the regional and global O&G market – and investing in its future.

152

152 petrotrin: the people People first at Petrotrin

170

It’s too easy for a small country with good resources to lose its best people as the industry develops: good training needs to go hand in hand with incentives for talent to remain – or at least return.

170 petrotrin: Sustainability Energy on the side of life

It is hard for a business based on hydrocarbon extraction and beneficiation to claim green credentials – or is it?

Petrotrin does so much for the people and wildlife of the Caribbean that the stereotype should be rethought.

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contents

178

oil & gas: 178 National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC )

Growing gas – a two-way flow

Speaking to company president Mr Indar Maharaj, we discover how the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC) looks to fulfil a new mandate to extend its influence internationally.

188 Petrojam

A finer refinery for Jamaica

The Petrojam refinery at Kingston Jamaica is being upgraded and should be complete by the beginning of 2016.

196 The Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica

188

Caribbean treasure trove

The PCJ exists to make this idyllic island nation self sufficient in energy: to this end it is engaging other oil producing governments and offshore exploration companies to develop the oilfields that surround it.

Construction: 204 René Lagos

Our work is here to stay

204

The structural design firm of René Lagos has worked on more than ten million square metres of building: after 36 years it is recognised and respected for its expertise in realising the aspirations of architects to build tall in challenging environments.

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business showcases

project focus: alma

218

234

218 ALMA

Searching the cosmos

The history behind the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and the significant enhances it is helping bring to the scientific community.

234 Thales Alenia Space Reaching new heights

How Thales Alenia Space has helped ALMA achieve its potential.

242 Thales Geodis Freight and Logistics ( TGFL) Trusted transportation

242 10 | BE Americas

TGFL’s role in bringing the ALMA project to life was one of the more complex and demanding of the whole undertaking.

contents

250

manufacturing: 250 Coresa

It’s in the bag

Managing director Jose Ignacio Arrate talks about Coresa’s range of plastic packaging solutions, and the company’s opportunities for expansion in South America.

transport & logistics: 260 Panama Canal Expansion Program

A global game changer

The expansion of the Panama Canal is on course to change the world of maritime trade forever.

270 LLX (Açu Superport Project ) A gateway to the future

260

LLX is the driving force behind the development of the Açu Superport, one of Latin America’s most important investment projects in recent history.

healthcare: 288 CHUM

New CHUM for Montreal

Montreal is soon to benefit from a $2.5 billion state of the art teaching and research hospital that anyone will be happy to visit – or work at.

302 ESACHS

A clean bill of health

288

General Manager, Javier Fuenzalida, discusses the vital contributions ESACHS makes towards Chile’s well-respected health care system.

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Q&A

World Bank Group International Finance Corporation (IFC) Mining We talk to the Global Head of IFC Mining, Tom Butler and IFC Communications Officer, Josef Skoldeberg about the important issues facing the industry today and how ethical, sustainable mining can be the key to alleviating poverty in developing countries Words by

Will Daynes

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From your position within the IFC, what is your perception of the global mining sector today?

Butler: Obviously the industry today is facing a lot of pressure when it comes to the commodity downturn that we have seen and the subsequent need to cut costs and shelve a number of projects because of the market environment. From my perspective within the IFC, I think for the most part the industry has shown in recent times that it understands the need and importance of having what has been called a social license to operate, and this means conducting activities in a way that is acceptable from an environmental and social perspective. Whereas some 10-to-15 years ago a large number of companies would have admitted that such issues would not be high on their

list of priorities, today the vast majority have made it a top priority – many are getting it right on environmental matters – that is what engineers are good at, and mining companies are full of engineers – but on social aspects and community interactions, many companies are still struggling to get it right.

How would you define the IFC’s role in the mining sector today?

Butler: Today we are involved in some really big landmark transactions, which will significantly impact the host countries when they finally start producing. That is one strand of our business and it is a key strand for us to be involved in. The other strand of our business is what we call our Early Equity Strategy, which is to invest in junior mining companies that are still in the exploration stage and that is something we have built up in the last six or seven years.

We only used to look at financing projects at a construction stage, whereas now we are engaging at a much earlier stage with companies, working with them to help get the environmental, social and sustainability aspects of their business right so that by the time they get to construction they have got a project that has the best possible social licence to operate.

In its role of adding value to clients in the mining sector, how does the IFC approach individual operations and is there a set of criteria you look for in a project before becoming involved?

Tom Butler

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Butler: IFC is the private sector part of the World Bank and in many ways we

Q&A

“One of the main things we do is run an annual event called the IFC Sustainable Exchange where we try to facilitate an exchange of information, knowledge and ideas� act like a commercial bank, with the difference being that we are prepared to go to places that a typical commercial bank may not interested in going. So the first thing to say is that any project we look at has to make sense from a commercial point of view, we are not a provider of soft funding or subsidised funding. The second thing we look for is sponsors, ownership and management who are committed to implementing our performance standards, which basically govern the environmental and social approach to a project and to developing the project in a sustainable manner.

There are lots of definitions that can accompany the word sustainable, but to my mind it means in a way that will maximise the positive impact of the project for all stakeholders.

What would you identify as some of the bigger challenges that mining companies are facing today?

Butler: What a number of companies are struggling more with is the social dimension of their operations. We have found that the expectations of local communities to be engaged are increasing, largely as a result of the globalisation of communications and the fact that people have instant

access to information and events connected to mining on the other side of the planet. This means that a lot of companies constantly have to play catch up with just how fast the world of communications is evolving.

We are putting a lot of effort towards this particular issue and are working closely with our client companies to make them aware of the importance of getting the communication aspect of their business right.

How exactly are you helping your client companies overcome this particular issue?

Skoldeberg: One area that mining companies are starting to focus more on is going beyond communicating with their staff, consultants and stakeholders, and ensuring that things can be communicated back up within the business itself. We help our smaller clients establish the processes and strategies for communication with their stakeholders that are appropriate for their size, and the business phase they are in. When it comes to our larger clients we take a look at how they are approaching the idea of communications in general and then offer any advice and assistance. We are also working on some studies on trends and best practices in

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communications with partners in the mining industry that we hope to complete in the fall of 2013.

issue has been dealt with elsewhere with the aim of reaching a positive conclusion for all parties.

The demand for mining companies to prove that they can conduct their operations in an ethical and responsible manner has arguably never been greater. Have you been encouraged by what you have seen from said companies when it comes to addressing these issues?

You touched on the concept of sustainability earlier and this is another core theme today.

How is IFC helping to facilitate positive developments in this area of the industry?

Butler: I think most companies do understand the importance of these issues, most companies are saying that they are doing it and most are actually getting it right on the environmental side. Where I see a number struggling however is on that social side of things that I mentioned previously, as this can be because the necessary cultural change within a company takes longer to be implemented or simply because achieving the commitments made by top management can be extremely difficult in a short space of time. Where IFC stands in all this is that we have a huge amount of experience of, and exposure to, a range of global issues and such we have the ability to look at a particular problem for a company in one location and highlight examples of the way that

Butler: One of the main things we do is run an annual event called the IFC Sustainable Exchange where we try to facilitate an exchange of information, knowledge and ideas. Through such gatherings and our work in general we are able to witness common themes across the industry. One such theme is the issue of water management, particularly in dry countries like Chile, in Mongolia where there is a water shortage and in countries like Peru where local communities fear that mining projects will negatively impact their own resources. One of the ways we are trying to help companies work through these issues is by exercising what we call our convening power.

Because of who we are we are able to convene discussions and working groups on these kinds of issues. We have got a multi-company group in Mongolia for example that is trying to work through

“The reason that the World Bank Group supports the mining industry is fundamentally because in a number of countries mining is the key to alleviating poverty and that is the core, underlying mission of the World Bank Group�

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Q&A

how to deal with the issues around access to water, communications around how much water a project will use and how much this will impact on the community.

Further to that, how would you describe the IFC’s agenda for the immediate future when it comes to mining related activities?

What do you feel will be one of the bigger issues facing the mining sector in developing countries in the coming years?

Butler: The reason that the World Bank Group supports the mining industry is fundamentally because in a number of countries mining is the key to alleviating poverty and that is the core, underlying mission of the World Bank Group. In a large number of countries mining is indeed going to be key to achieving that because the fiscal flows to government generated from a successful mine can be hugely significant. Therefore our continued priority will be to support mining projects in these developing countries where mining can really make a big difference to the lives of everyone.

Butler: One of the top issues which the G8 has decided to focus on this year is transparency within the industry.

While it is fair to say that a number of companies have taken a lead by voluntarily disclosing the nature of the contracts agreed with governments, there will certainly be a bigger push for this transparency to become much broader.

This will require developing countries that have big extractive industries to be much more open about what is being signed up to, what kind of payments are being received from mining companies and what that money is being used for.

We will hear even more about this in the next few years.

For more information about International Finance Corporation (IFC) Mining please visit: www.ifc.org/ogmc

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Supply chain

Reducing Customer Lead Time <<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<

How implementing lean technologies into your supply chain can reduce lead times from 15 days to less than two Words by

Thomas R. Cutler

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T

he future of lean technologies indicates that supply chain solutions will be increasingly required to meet the demands of the marketplace. Collaborative Supply Portal (CSP) must manage raw material replenishment, Lean Factory Management (LFM) will manage shop-floor schedules, and Collaborative Demand Portal (CDP) will be required to service distribution centers, dealers and OEMs all focus on the execution side of the factory floor. Lean planning must cross-over to procurement as well in the form of a collaborative request for quote (RFQ) module.

RFQ technology allows buyers and suppliers to collaborate easily and effectively in a bidding process. The iterative process tracks and traces the bids in real time until a winning bid is converted into a purchase order. The collaborative Planning Module integrates planning data with execution and establishes a feedback loop.

It is all about leaning the supply chain.

In the past manufacturing was vertically integrated and the suppliers were located within a short radius. Manufacturing today is less integrated and the suppliers are global. Only through supplier collaboration, and real-time flow of order, shipment and receipt information can be controlled and automatically computed.

The result is the next important step of lean—kaizen, or continuous improvement.

As a manufacturing journalist it was a pleasure to interview Narayan Laksham, Ultriva founder and CEO. He founded the company 1999 with a vision of building an organization that develops customer driven solutions which guarantee high value, quick deployment, and measurable return on investment. Laksham has written articles on several lean topics including “When Push comes to Pull Kanban wins.”

He is also a co-inventor of the patent pending “Inventory Optimization Tool.”

This recent conversation revealed how much has changed in the supply chain during the intervening conversation, when first interviewed six years ago.

Manufacturing is more competitive than ever with shorter lead times, higher service levels, exploding numbers of finished good SKUs (stock keeping units) and thinning margins. Laksham points out, “The focus of leaning in manufacturing was concentrated on streamlining the factory floor, alignment of production lines, optimization of space, and standardizing of operating procedures.

One key area which was not touched was the supply chain material replenishment.

Given that purchase parts could be as high as 60 percent of manufacturing costs, applying lean methodologies to this process is critical. As excess inventory eats the margins, part shortages reduce customer service levels and result in lost revenues.”

At an APICS (Association for Operations Management) meeting in Van Nuys,

“Manufacturing is more competitive than ever with shorter lead times, higher service levels, exploding numbers of finished good SKUs and thinning margins” 20 |

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Supply chain

CA, late last fall, Nicole Smith of Zurn SKUs are being manufactured using this Wilkins (a Rexnord Company) shared advanced process.” the company’s experience of reducing After the initial process, Rexnord customer lead time from fifteen days implemented the supplier kanban modules to less than two days. She also shared across several plants in the US, to ensure how the company was able to reduce the that the raw materials were available to raw material and WIP (work in process) meet demand. More than 22,000 parts inventory by twenty percent. are being replenished by 178 suppliers Rexnord is a diversified multi-platform across these plants. Finally Rexnord industrial company that manufactures implemented internal kanban to set up and markets power transmission and a pull system from its final assembly to water management products. Revenue upstream work centers. last year was $1.3 billion and the firm In an effort to better understand why employs nearly 7,000 people. supply chain managers are frequently Ultriva, based in Cupertino, CA, broadsided with wrong size inventory, implemented a demand driven Laksham explained, “The inability manufacturing model by providing full of current supply chain management visibility, scheduling, and sequencing systems to support true collaboration of production of customer orders at the and execution between manufacturers cell level for one of the Rexnord plant in and their supply chain partners result Indianapolis. Previously it took ten days in supplier whiplash, poor delivery before the order reached the factory floor; performance, and lost revenue.” orders were scheduled on a weekly basis, The mission of providing greater causing an overall lead time of fifteen days.

L a k s h a m commented about the • RYG dashboard indicators show inventory health Rexnord situation, • Built-in workflow & noting, “We facilitated business rules engine the orders to be • Complete order tracking directly dropped at the manufacturing cells within 15 minutes of receipt. If the order was received before 2 pm it was manufactured and shipped on the same • Automated email alerts based on pre-set business rules day; if after 2 pm, it • Daily/monthly business proces routines was shipped the next • Single version of the truth - buyers day. Currently over & suppliers see the same view from their perspective 30,000 finished goods

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transparency and visibility between manufacturers and supply chain partners allows manufacturing customers to experience an average 35 percent increase in inventory velocity. The across-the-board improvements in employee productivity and supply chain decision making has delivered even greater value through ultraresponsive, demand-driven supply chains.

Scott Harvey, vice president of Operations at CareFusion, another enthusiastic user of the technology remarked, “The cloud-based platform has a low barrier to entry and allows for an incredibly high level of standardization across all of our suppliers, which made it the obvious solution. As a medical device company working in a highly regulated industry, it is imperative that we maintain a high level of transparency and accountability.”

During the extensive interview with Laksham, he concluded that the shift for most manufacturing companies is becoming demand responsive. “Returning

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“The shift for most manufacturing companies is becoming demand responsive” to a more basic question of the objective of supply chain management is vital. The goal is to source, make and deliver the product from the point of origin to the point of consumption in the least amount of time at the lowest cost. Given that goal, the two most important attributes of supply chain management are responsiveness to the velocity of product flow, and the ability to move products quickly and with agility. These attributes enable the transition from push-based replenishment to pull-based replenishment. To focus on these attributes, it is vital to look toward the customer, the customer’s customer, or the end-user of the product.”

Since few companies can source material and produce all products in the volume required to meet a day’s production, the solution lies in consumption-based replenishment.

Consumption-based replenishment has its roots in lean manufacturing and “kanban” replenishment—a Japanese term for a card used to signal the need for inventory replenishment. Kanban now describes the “pull” method of keeping production lines optimally stocked with parts at the exact time and quantity needed. A simple analogy: Think of a carton of milk in the supermarket—as one carton is pulled off the shelf, another carton slides into its place, immediately restocking the inventory.

Supply chain

The cloud-based supply chain solutions streamline the production schedules with customer demand and synchronize the supply with shop-floor consumption. It uses the consumption-driven replenishment model to establish a true pull process across the value chain. The primary goal of the system is to right-size the inventory whether it is finished goods, work in process, or raw materials. Using a unique supply chain loop based architecture, manufacturing companies can establish real-time collaboration with their customers and suppliers. This collaboration allows manufacturers to carry the right mix of inventory at the distribution center, shorten the lead time to their customers and improve the service levels through elimination of part shortages.

The kanban principle can be effectively implemented with the use of technology, as consumption-based replenishment has evolved from its simple card-based roots into highly sophisticated software applications. These applications can help manufacturers determine the most optimal inventory levels for operations, and can rapidly recalculate efficient replenishment trigger points as demand

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The cloud-based supply chain solutions streamline the production schedules with customer demand and synchronize the supply with shop-floor consumptionâ&#x20AC;? varies over time. By taking a customercentric approach to daily operations, manufacturers focus investments on enabling operations to build only what is needed to replenish what the customer has ordered. This paradigm shift results in companies embracing a goal of delivering the products customers want, when they want them, and in the quantities they want.

Now, and for the next decade, efforts to eliminate waste will start by applying lean principles to supplier and customer collaboration. This combination will result in sensing demand changes and synchronizing supply resulting in rightsizing of inventory across the respective transaction points.

About the author Thomas R. Cutler is the President & CEO of Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based, TR Cutler, Inc., (www.trcutlerinc.com). Cutler is the founder of the Manufacturing Media Consortium including more than 4,000 journalists, editors, and economists writing about trends in manufacturing, industry, material handling, and process improvement. Cutler is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, Online News Association, American Society of Business Publication Editors, and Committee of Concerned Journalists, as well as author of more than 500 feature articles annually regarding the manufacturing sector. Cutler is the most published freelance industrial journalist worldwide and can be contacted at: trcutler@trcutlerinc.com

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Picking productivi

When it comes to choosing a wareho complexity every time: Pick-to-Lig Words by

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Thom

Operations

ity Kept Simple

ouse picking solution, accuracy beats ght systems are easier to learn too

mas R. Cutler BE Americas

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I

dentify the characteristics most needed for an effective picking solution may seem obvious.

Indeed high visibility, robust order pick displays, flexible mounting method allowing the system to easily adapt/ grow with warehousing operation and simple intuitive software must be part of the mix. Obviously highly accurate order assembly, orders handled by barcode scanning or manual selection and picking data interfaced with ERP/ WMS for real-time visibility are also must-have requirements.

These characteristics for picking solutions are a great starting point for finding a cost-effective and efficient solution. More is not better in the picking world. All the bells and whistles of costly complex solutions completely miss the actual value, picking the right product, at the right place, at the right time.

Very large multi-facility warehouses implement very costly WMS (warehouse management systems) often customized to their particular operation. More than 90% of all distribution center locations are single operations with less than 100,000 square feet. They cannot justify high-end multi-million dollar technology solutions to enhance warehouse productivity, accuracy, and exploding SKUs (stock keeping unit).

The need is just as great among these smaller distribution centers and single warehouse operators; too often these executives attempt to patch together a best-of-breed picking solution at an affordable price with mixed results.

Antonio Rodrigues, a senior manager at Pcdata, based in East Granby,

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Operations

“One size fits all certainly does not apply to getting the highest productivity out of a warehouse operation.

Different technologies are better-suited depending on the SKUs order frequency and value.”

Connecticut, suggested, “One size fits all certainly does not apply to getting the highest productivity out of a warehouse operation. Different technologies are better-suited depending on the SKUs order frequency and value.”

Analysis of most warehouse orders will show a Pareto curve, where a small amount of the SKUs being processed account for a large percentage of the orders. These fast-moving items are the “A” parts. Any small amount of efficiency gains in picking these “A” parts will have a relatively large impact on the overall productivity of the entire operation.

Too often vendors of picking products are wedded to (and clearly invested in selling) just their solution, whether it is (or is not) the right fit for the distribution center, 3PL (third party logistics), or warehouse. Comparing pick technologies, side by side, often reveals that Pick-to-Light solutions have a clear edge over other solutions when measuring picking accuracy. The light indicators make it difficult to pick from the wrong location, or the incorrect amount, when the light is both the pick instruction and location indicator.

There is also a clear cost-advantage

Units ordered

Units ordered/SKUs

SKUs A-parts (fast movers)

B-parts

C- and D-parts

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“Replacing a paper-based picking process with a single technology helps deliver significant improvements with efficiency and accuracy” and scalability to Pick-to-Light solutions according to Rodrigues who suggested, “The system’s cost is determined by the number of SKUs, as a display is required for each SKU picked. With voice or RF scanning equipment, the variable cost is determined by the number of operators picking.”

Better than Paper Replacing a paper-based picking process with a single technology helps deliver significant improvements with efficiency and accuracy. However to optimize warehouse productivity, deploying hybrid solutions in which Pick-to-Light is used for fast moving products, delivers the best possible operational solution.

Too many vendors have ignored the single warehousing operation because there was no reasonable ROI (return-oninvestment) for the proposed technology.

Investigating PickStar, Pcdata’s next generation Pick-to-Light solution, the company has designed an installation model with minimal operational impact; bottom-line ease of use and operational simplicity was the company focus will provided a rapid ROI. Most of the 550 systems installed worldwide in 30 countries (100 in North America) required nothing more than basic user involvement due to the intuitive GUI (graphical user interface.) By observing employees at full capability in days, rather than months, the cost-justification becomes clear (especially without the need for IT engineering staff.)

Warehouse Technology Comparison Chart Labor

$/SKU

Cost

Errors

Paper

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100% RF/Voice

Hybrid w P-t-L

Operations

Pick Strategy by Order Volume Picks/ manhr

0

100

200

300

400

A

500

600

700

800

900

1000

1100

Fully Automated Picking Solutions

A,B

Pick-to-Light Pick-to-Light

A,B,C C,D

Paper Picking

C,D

RF Picking Pallet Racking / Static Locations

Flowracks / Conveyors

Exponential Growth of SKUs With exponential growth in SKUs, the permutations of one product can be complex.

That variety and variability does not need to translate into the design, deployment, and maintenance of an effective picking solution. Rodrigues noted, â&#x20AC;&#x153;It is best when the hardware components are modular and user replaceable, minimizing maintenance and support costs. We have seen that in the right environment these Pick-toLight systems will outperform typical voice, RF scanning or paper based picking and order assembly processes.â&#x20AC;?

The industry sectors that are often

Automatic Transport Systems, Carrousels, Mini Loads, Robots, Sorters

most impacted by these simple, ready-toinstall, out-of-the box solutions, are fast moving item picks at any warehouse.

Assembly line processes are complex, particularly in food logistics, e-commerce business-to-consumer organizations, spare parts assemblies, and a wide variety of consumer goods distribution centers.

Low IT requirements, does not mean ineffective picking solutions.

Too many picking solutions require high powered servers or complex network infrastructure. Running from a standard Windows platform, allows the existing IT landscape to be utilized.

About the author Thomas R. Cutler is the President & CEO of Fort Lauderdale, Florida-based, TR Cutler, Inc., (www.trcutlerinc.com). Cutler is the founder of the Manufacturing Media Consortium including more than 4000 journalists, editors, and economists writing about trends in manufacturing, industry, material handling, and process improvement. Cutler is a member of the Society of Professional Journalists, Online News Association, American Society of Business Publication Editors, and Committee of Concerned Journalists, as well as author of more than 500 feature articles annually regarding the manufacturing sector. Cutler is the most published freelance industrial journalist worldwide and can be contacted at: trcutler@trcutlerinc.com

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Does your firm tied behind

Partnership with third-p when they are really b Words by

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George

Strategy

m have one hand d its back?

party suppliers works best brought into the team

e F. Brown, Jr.

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S

everal years ago, a company that produced capital equipment initiated a firm-wide project designed to gain an advantage against competitors in a market that cared about both product quality and cost. The firmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s leadership put pressure on basically every department in the organization to come up with new ideas that could translate into marketplace success. Their efforts yielded some results, but the outcome fell far short of what had been hoped when the project had been started.

What this firm failed to realize was that it had one hand tied behind its back. Third-party suppliers contributed on average just over 60% of the value of the firmâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s products as they left the

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warehouse. Years of aggressive supply chain management had ensured that the firm was paying rock-bottom prices for the ingredients purchased from those suppliers. While such supply chain contributions are important and valuable, goals such as those established by this firm require much more than low prices in the way of contributions from suppliers.

Today, many firms are in the same situation as the one described above, with a high share of their value added linked to ingredients purchased from suppliers.

Executives must realize that suppliers can contribute far more than just lower prices and security of supply. Suppliers must bring innovations to the table. They must identify strategies that improve

Strategy

manufacturing and other processes.

They must deliver ingredients and equipment that yield energy efficiency and environmental gains, and that address new regulatory challenges. In some instances, they must even contribute by easing the challenges of entering new global markets. And those examples are just a few drawn from the roster of contributions that I have observed strong suppliers making to their customers.

Almost every company that I have interviewed over the years can cite a â&#x20AC;&#x153;supplier success storyâ&#x20AC;?, describing an instance in which a supplier truly made a contribution. But a far smaller fraction of those companies can cite what they are doing to motivate future supplier success

stories. They are, unfortunately, like the firm described above, operating with one hand tied behind their back. They are failing to establish their position as a preferred customer, one that attracts best-in-class suppliers and motivates their strongest contributions.

Releasing the hand tied behind your back is not an easy process, particularly for firms that have managed their relationships with suppliers so as to promote competition with a singular focus on gaining price concessions. To tap the contributions that suppliers can make in other areas requires new approaches to key relationships and often a trustbuilding period to overcome suspicions.

The mindset of being a best-in-class

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“I don’t do things half-heartedly. Because I know if I do, then I can expect half-hearted results.” customer must become the foundation of the relationship with suppliers that are viewed as being in a position to make a strategic contribution. Not all suppliers are in that position, and a first step in the process involves identifying those suppliers that have the potential to make meaningful contributions. That potential depends on what they supply and also on the extent to which they have insights that can become critical to future growth and profitability. In my experience, the roster of such strategic suppliers is typically short. Two key tests that can help to identify strategic suppliers involve assessing how important their ingredient is in the eyes of your firm’s end customers and quantifying how many of your firm’s own

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processes and costs are linked in one way or another to the supplier’s product.

For those suppliers that have the potential to make a strategic contribution, a different approach to managing the relationship is required. Many firms serving business markets have long ago implemented a strategic accounts team, with a dedicated account team focused on important customer relationships and a distinct cadence and focus to those large, highly important customer relationships.

The same philosophy applies to strategic supplier relationships.

As one example of the difference in how strategic supplier relationships are managed, a best-in-class customer will actively involve strategic suppliers in end customer relationships. The supplier’s ability to deliver value along many of the dimensions cited earlier depends on their understanding of what matters to the end customers. Many times, suppliers that have been involved in end customer relationship see analogies to challenges they’ve faced – and overcome – in support of other customers in other business environments. Ensuring that suppliers are aware of your firm’s end customer challenges is prerequisite to their ability to help you solve them.

As a second example, in strategic supplier relationships, a “systems perspective” is required, with both firms being open to changes in the

Strategy

roles and boundaries between them and looking at how each of their decisions and processes impact on those of the partner firm. It’s a simple principle of optimization that when you focus on the whole system instead of its components in isolation, you have more options for improvement. This applies when suppliers and customers are confronting problems. Sometimes the solution requires a new way of doing things, shifting responsibilities from one firm to the other or making changes in processes in one firm that open the route to savings in the other. The gains from such collaborative efforts at problem solving can be substantial, and create a value pool that can be shared between the two companies.

Finally, three themes occur repeatedly in discussions with suppliers about their best customers. The first of these involves the information flow and the communications between the two firms.

Suppliers say that their best customers tell them what they need to know in order to be successful. The second observation is that suppliers feel their best customers accept them as part of the team, as opposed to keeping them at arm’s length. Such inclusion motivates suppliers to come to those customers with new ideas, even ones that are still “works

in process”. The third theme is that there is an openness to the relationship, with quite a few people involved across the various departments and functions in the two organizations. As a result of those multiple touch points, the people that have the potential to spot an opportunity already know one another and are easily able to connect with one another.

Today’s business environment will continue to challenge most businesses and require them to undertake initiatives like the one described at the beginning of this article. The firms that are able to bring all of the resources available to bear on these challenges – including the resources that can be provided by strategic suppliers – will be those that prosper and reward their shareholders. Basketball superstar Michael Jordan once said “I don’t do things half-heartedly. Because I know if I do, then I can expect halfhearted results.” Supplier insights and contributions are among the resources that must be tapped in order to avoid half-hearted results and one hand tied behind your back responses to business challenges. Identify those suppliers that can be a part of your firm’s success stories and implement the best customer practices that will enable them to do so. The payoff will be enormous.

About the author George F. Brown, Jr. consults with industrial firms on growth strategy. He is the coauthor of CoDestiny: Overcome Your Growth Challenges by Helping Your Customers Overcome Theirs and the cofounder of Blue Canyon Partners, Inc. George has published frequently on topics relating to strategy in business markets, including articles in Industry Week, Industrial Distribution, Chief Executive, Business Excellence, Employment Relations Today, iP Frontline, Industrial Engineer, Industry Today, and many others.

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Operational excel Human Res

Employees are invariably a companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s can you do to ensure your HR process c Words by

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Kevin J. Duggan

Operations

llence in sources

greatest asset, but what creates the best results?

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O

perational Excellence is not a continuous improvement initiative, nor a lean program where we seek out waste and eliminate it. It is very tangible and real, and has practical definition that applies to everyone in the organization: Operational Excellence is when, “Every employee can see the flow of value to the customer, and fix that flow before it breaks down.”

But Operational Excellence is not easy to achieve. It requires a designed, robust flow and a good deal of education on how that flow works, what normal flow is, and what abnormal flow is.

In manufacturing, the application of Operational Excellence is easy to understand. We design how a product flows through the factory and then create strong visual indicators to tell each employee how the flow between processes works, where to get their work from, where to send their work, and most importantly, what to work on next.

These visuals also communicate whether the flow is normal or abnormal. When the flow begins to become abnormal, the employees working in the flow take corrective steps to fix the problem before the flow breaks down. This makes the entire flow “self-healing”, meaning the flow can be fixed by the employees themselves, without the need for

“Every employee can see the flow of value to the customer, and fix that flow before it breaks down.”

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management intervention.

But a typical office environment is different. Office employees are normally “shared resources”, meaning they must fulfill many different roles and responsibilities throughout the day. Unlike manufacturing, it is also unusual for office employees to repeat the same task over and over again. In Human Resources (HR), for example, HR professionals spend time on benefit packages, resolving employee disputes, hiring new employees, and much more. But Operational Excellence can still be achieved.

Guaranteed response time: The key for hiring new employees For organizations that need to hire new employees to continue to grow and capture new opportunities in the marketplace, the charge largely rests with HR departments. And HR teams know that turnaround time to applicants is critical. However, due to the number of people and steps involved in the hiring process, response times to candidates can suffer, and the company can risk losing quality candidates.

That’s because the need for hiring first has to be approved by other managers in the business and then reviewed by HR, which places an advertisement. Résumés come in, which HR filters then presents to the relevant managers for review. Eventually, candidates are contacted and arrive for their first round of interviews. But in most organizations, there is no defined lead time, or “response time”, from the time the hiring need is approved until

Operations

candidates walk in the door. Instead, it all depends on the individuals involved and how they decide what to work on.

In fact, workflow in the office often varies so greatly, a meeting is required to get things prioritized and on track.

Operational Excellence enables a better way. By achieving Operational Excellence in the office, HR professionals can create short, robust guaranteed turnaround times (GTTs) by flowing work through part-time processing cells along direct, physical pathways. The result is that HR employees will always know if they are on time, enhancing their ability to recruit top job candidates from the field of applicants.

How to achieve operational excellence in HR The first step in creating Operational Excellence in HR is to create a process family matrix, in which we identify all the different activities for which HR is responsible for completing and attempt to leverage similarities among them to create flow. We typically aim for an 80 percent similarity in process content to form what’s known as a process family, and we create one flow in the office per process family.

Suppose that after examining all the activities in HR, we determine that we can create a process family for hiring new employees that consists of the following activities (while there are many more activities involved in hiring a new employee than just the ones listed here, all of these steps must be completed along the way as new talent is sought):

“Operational Excellence is achieved by applying a specific set of guidelines geared toward designing flow in the office” 1. Request for new hire.

2. HR review.

3. Place advertisement.

4. Seek out internal company resources for compensation review.

5. Receive and filter résumés.

6. Contact interested candidates.

7. Schedule interviews.

8. Conduct interviews.

9.

Schedule and conduct additional rounds of interviews as need.

10. Offer a candidate a position.

Once we have identified all the activities that must be completed to hire a new employee, the typical continuous improvement inclination at this point would be to identify the biggest problem we face, brainstorm ways to fix it, implement a decision, and then measure and monitor the results. When something else goes wrong or needs improvement, we repeat this process again, eliminating the biggest source of pain to our business at the moment.

However, this approach only leads to the optimization of certain areas of the flow at the expense of the flow overall, virtually guaranteeing that the customer (who, in this case, is the job candidate) does not experience any benefit.

However, Operational Excellence is

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not achieved through brainstorming. It is achieved by applying a specific set of guidelines geared toward designing flow in the office: 1. Takt or takt capability 2. Continuous flow 3. First In, First Out (FIFO) 4. Workflow cycles 5. Integration events 6. Standard work 7. Single-point sequence initialization 8. Pitch 9. Changes in demand We need to apply these design guidelines to our flow in the order seen above. For example, we would determine the takt or takt capability of the flow first, then see where we can do continuous flow (or more likely part-time continuous flow, since office employees are shared resources), then see where we can implement FIFO lanes and create workflow cycles, and so on.

The successful application of these guidelines ends up creating a robust guaranteed turnaround time for each process in the flow and even the entirety of the flow. That enables us to tell job candidates, with certainty, that we will contact them within a certain number of days, ensuring timely responses to them.

Not only does the guaranteed turnaround time give us a greater chance of recruiting

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The successful application of these guidelines ends up creating a robust guaranteed turnaround time for each process in the flow and even the entirety of the flowâ&#x20AC;?

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Operations

Figure 1.1 Compensation Review

Rec. & Filter Résumés

I

D

top talent, it eliminates the need to only go through the hiring process more than once to find someone qualified for the job.

Operational excellence in HR: A practical example Because of the complexity of real-life HR environments, demonstrating how an entire end-to-end flow would work with workflow cycles, part-time continuous flow cells, and single-point sequence initialization would be a significant undertaking.

To keep things simpler, we’ll instead look at how these concepts might apply to a section of the new-hire process family, specifically, the following activities numbered four through six above that take place during the hiring process: 4. Seek out internal company resources for compensation review.

5. Receive and filter résumés.

6. Contact interested candidates.

If we were to draw this section of the flow in something called a value stream map, it would look similar to what we find in Figure 1.1.

In Figure 1.1, the “I” found within the

Contact Candidates

I

triangles represents inventory present in the form of files or requests. The “D” represents delays, specifically those that are externally caused. If there were any that were internally caused, we would represent those with a “W.” The crosshatch symbol indicates that each of these processes are shared resources, meaning they are responsible for completing many different activities on any given day.

It should be noted again that Figure 1.1 represents only one small piece of the overall flow. There would be additional processes before and after this segment that we would also have to handle, but for now, let’s look at what we might do with this part of the flow.

At this point in the flow, we can see that HR needs to seek out internal company resources to begin assembling the details of various compensation packages. For example, finance might need to determine the range of salaries to be offered, while accounting might be needed to examine the cash flow impact these different salaries would have on the business.

As we can see from Figure 1.1, the main problem with the flow is that there is no way to guarantee how long

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Figure 1.2 Compensation Review

Rec. & Filter Résumés

Tue & Fri from 10-12

Mon & Wed from 1-3

Finance

Design

M/W/F

Engineering

from 2-3:30 Contact Candidates

HR

Acct

HR

Pro Mgmt

FIFO

FIFO

GTT = 4 Days

it will take for the work to move from process to process. In short, there is no guaranteed turnaround time for the flow (or guaranteed response time), and this leads to internal disruptions in the organization that increase the likelihood of rework being needed and also the amount of time it takes to hire someone.

By applying our office design guidelines to achieve Operational Excellence, we can eliminate these issues. One of the ways we can synchronize the timing of the flow between all of these processes is by creating part-time continuous flow cells.

Based on the takt or takt capability of

“Applying our design guidelines to the office creates an environment where every employee can tell if the office is on time” 42 |

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the flow, employees would come together during workflow cycles in pre-determined locations to flow work in a “complete one, move one” fashion. Each employee would know what to work on next simply by working on whatever came to him or her in the flow. In other words, they would work on whatever the person before them in the flow gave to them. (See Figure 1.2) In Figure 1.2, the first two processes in the flow are part-time continuous flow cell. Employees get together at preset days and times to flow work (the specific timing is seen directly above each process and is governed by the established workflow cycle). At the first workflow cycle, representatives from HR, Finance, and Accounting would come together to review various compensation packages.

Work would then flow in a First In, First Out (or FIFO) lane from the first part-time continuous flow processing cell to the next one, were résumés are received and filtered.

The FIFO lane ensures that the sequence

Operations

of work is preserved from process to process, which helps create the guaranteed turnaround time for our flow since no individual piece of work will ever “jump” another. The segment of the flow shown in figure 1.2 has a guaranteed turnaround time of four days, meaning everyone in the organization can expect the work to have flowed through these three processes within four days, eliminating the need for meetings, status check-ups, and additional interruptions in the flow.

At the “Receive and Filter Résumés” process, a workflow cycle brings together employees from HR, Design, Engineering, and Project Management, all of which are needed to vet candidate résumés. During the workflow cycle at this process, résumés would be evaluated by representatives from the different departments present. Selected résumés would then flow via FIFO lanes to the “Contact Candidates” process, where they would be used to get in touch with interested and qualified job candidates.

Preserving the sequence of work, flowing it between processes in FIFO lanes, and using workflow cycles to flow work at preset times on preset days guarantees that each piece of the flow will have completed its work by a pre-determine time. This guaranteed turnaround time would even exist for

each individual process in the flow because the sequence of work does not change and we know how long it takes to complete the work at each process.

In addition to the guidelines highlighted here, we also need to make sure we apply the rest of our guidelines, too, like standard work, pitch, integration events (if applicable), and systems to deal with changes in demand. Going forward, we would want to extrapolate the methodology described here to every other process in the flow, connecting each one with FIFO lanes, creating workflow cycles to regulate the flow of work, and even creating part-time continuous flow cells where applicable.

Reduced time yields results Applying our design guidelines to the office creates an environment where every employee can tell if the office is on time.

It creates an environment where, “Each and every employee can see the flow of value to the customer, and fix that flow before it breaks down.” By striving for and achieving Operational Excellence in the office, HR departments can dramatically reduce the amount of time it takes to hire new employees, ensuring that their ability to recruit top talent in a minimal amount of time – and support the growth of the business well into the future.

About the author Kevin J. Duggan is the Founder of the Institute for Operational Excellence and Duggan Associates, an international training and advisory firm. He is the author of three books on the subject of applying advanced lean techniques to achieve Operational Excellence: “Design for Operational Excellence: A Breakthrough Strategy for Business Growth;” “Creating Mixed Model Value Streams;” and “The Office That Grows Your Business – Achieving Operational Excellence in Your Business Processes.”

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Elevating loyalty and innovation

Treat your organizationâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s with care, says former B Words by

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Gar

People

y productivity n in your workforce

s most valuable resource Businessman of the Year

ry Kunath BE Americas

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W

hen a successful formula is discovered in the business world, it’s copied and becomes part of standard operating procedure throughout entire industries.

The newest SOP trend among leading businesses? – Focusing on employee and family well-being, says Gary Kunath, who was honored nationally as Businessman of the Year and recognized with a dinner hosted by the President of the United States.

“Many think that professional wellbeing drives personal well-being, but it’s the exact opposite,” says Kunath, a speaker at top business schools and businesses including Lockheed and Marriott, and author of Life...Don’t Miss It. I Almost Did: How I Learned To Live Life to Its Fullest.

“The top companies know focusing on employee well-being is critical and serves as the conduit to increasing innovation, emotional loyalty, natural productivity and overall profitability, but they have exhausted the traditional vehicles inside their companies to do this, so they are focusing on impacting their employees lives ‘outside’ of the company.”

Employee well-being is very smart business and everyone wins, he says; it’s the key to elevating associate engagement.

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According to the Aspen Institute, more than 70 percent of employees today would sacrifice promotions and pay increases for family well-being.

Yet only 40 percent of employees feel their employers demonstrate that they care about them, says the American Psychology Association.

Several major corporations have approached Kunath and asked him to build a program that shows their people how to master life balance and maximize the joy and contentment in their lives, he says.

“The results have been tremendous,” he says. “People love that they are cared for just as much when leaving the building as they are when arriving.”

Kunath’s newest three hour seminar for businesses centers on employee life balance and well-being; here he offers five things business owners and employees should consider in achieving life balance.

Bring humanity back to the workplace There are simple truths about what motivates employees today and what they want and need from their employers.

Employee well-being drives profits and is good for business, he points out.

Employers need to allow employees to completely disconnect from work in their off hours – for instance, not expecting them to respond to emails or conference calls after hours. He also points out the “Life Balance Dilemmas” people face, including his own; a former workaholic lifestyle nearly ruined his family relationships before he learned how to develop balance.

People

The “Life … Don’t Miss It” approach According to a Harvard study, we all have the capability to maximize our happiness regardless of the situation we find ourselves in. A large part of how happy you are is determined through intentional activity. There are things you can do to maximize happiness in your life even in the worst of adversities. Giving people a way to elevate their family well-being is critical to top performance on the job.

Applying Life-Balance secrets Kunath targets 10 points for Mastering Life Balance. Some of those points are: Money doesn’t make you rich; Express gratitude to others; the power of perspective; relationship refinement (thinning the herd); and Good goes around. “All of these points go to the overall perspective of total life balance and focusing on the areas, and the people, that really matter,” he says.

Power of Perspective Why is it that people who have faced death often live the most? Why must we wait for adversity to teach us to get

“A large part of how happy you are is determined through intentional activity” the most out of life? The answer is that you don’t. Kunath emphasizes various perspectives on how you can live life to the fullest every day and what the keys are to maximizing employee and family well-being.

The three greatest gifts you can give your family For all the importance and effort involved in mastering a worklife to fund a family’s well-being, the three greatest gifts you have to offer are actually free! They are time, memories and traditions. Time is our greatest resource, and it’s also our most scarce, which makes memories all the more important. They give you a place to go for all of your life. Traditions live on after you’re gone; they’re a legacy you leave for your loved ones.

About the author Gary Kunath is the founder of The Summit Group, whichis ranked among the top sales-training companies in the world by Selling Power magazine. His value-creation approach received the “Innovative Practice of the Year Award” by 3M worldwide. He was named Businessman of the Year and was recognized at a dinner hosted by the president of the United States. He has lectured extensively at prominent business schools, and is currently an adjunct professor at The Citadel’s Sports Marketing graduate program. Kunath is an owner of several professional minor league baseball teams along with his partners, Bill Murray, Jimmy Buffet and Mike Veeck. The group is famous for managing its teams around the “Fun is Good” approach. www.lifedontmissitbook.com

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A mantra of Cerrejón, one of the world’s b do the maximum possible not the minim environmental management the rest of

written by: John O’Hanlon | r

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Cerrej贸n

biggest coal mining concatenations, is we mum necessary: in the matter of CSR and f the world has little to teach Colombia

research by: Richard Halfhide

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Cerrejón

C

Once mining has ended, the area is rehabilitated

errejón is an integrated mining and transport complex in the La Guajira region, jutting out into the Caribbean Sea from the north of Colombia. The mine is independently operated, but belongs in three equal parts to subsidiaries of BHP Billiton, Anglo American, and Glencore Xstrata: between them these partners approved investment of $1.3 billion in 2011 for an expansion project that will increase Cerrejon’s production and export capacity by 8 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) in 2012 - 2014 to reach a 40 mtpa production by 2015.

The complex includes the open-pit thermal coal mine, a railroad that is 150 kilometres long, and a maritime port at Puerto Bolivar able to receive ships of up to 180,000 tonnes dead weight. The company employs more than 10,000 people, of whom over 99 percent are Colombian nationals, many of these from the La Guajira region. It is the largest private exporter from the country and one of the most important taxpayers in Colombia.

Known for its social and environmental programs, Cerrejón has earned international recognition and awards in these fields. In 2012 the company invested $13.3 million in social engagement projects including education, health, basic infrastructure, culture, entertainment, sports, job creation and fostering programmes of livelihood, productive and entrepreneurship projects aimed to the communities in its area of influence.

T he Cer rejón Fo u n d a t i o n s System comprises four distinct foundations, Water, Institutional Strengthening,

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Indigenous Development and Progress – all in La Guajira. Through these, it works closely with the Colombian government and with national and international bodies to promote and accelerate sustainable, fair development for La Guajira and its people. “Over the course of three decades of operation, we have worked hard to make mining compatible with sustainable development concepts,” says Eduardo Lozano, Manager of Cerrejón’s Department of Social Responsibility.

Cerrejón’s commitment to sustainability is reflected in the formulation of its corporate culture and identity model, known as The Cerrejón Way. This sets out its approach to the community, the environment including wildlife and its own employees.

Forming part of the Guajiro, Colombian, and global communities, Cerrejón aspires to be recognised as a company engaged in responsible mining and in this process, which has been applied since the start of mining in the early 80s , it has established itself as a benchmark for comparable largescale projects right across the globe.

The principal facets of this policy are environmental performance and corporate social responsibility, and these are co-ordinated with the local authority in La Guajira through

the foundations. “Our responsibility to the neighbouring communities goes far beyond the role of generating employment and royalties,” says Lozano. “Widespread social engagement and a relationship with the inhabitants of the department of La Guajira are what we aim for.”

Over the past decade the core of the concept of corporate social responsibility has been in

“Our responsibility to the neighbouring communities goes far beyond the role of generating employment and royalties” 52 | BE Americas

Cerrejón

Direct loading of the coal onto the ships, an environmental friendly measure at the port

progressive construction, in conjunction with all the communities and their stakeholder groups, throughout the mine’s area of influence, states the CSR manager in an attempt to depict the participative dimension of the subject. “The organisational structure has then adapted to the findings we encounter.

In our area, as an example, we have around 70 staff professional members dedicated to CSR activities,” says Lozano.

Lozano starts with the Cerrejón Foundation for Water in La Guajira. Established in 2008, its mission has been to work on water supply solutions, promote basic sanitation and hygiene practices, and the environmental sustainability of water sources in an area badly affected by water scarcity. None of

the La Guajira provinces have continuous access to a treated water supply; half its 902,000 inhabitants live in rural areas and of those nine out of ten live in poverty. As one of the most arid parts of South America, temperatures can reach 45 degrees Celsius, and rainfall averages 500 millimetres each year. With up to 2,500 hours of sunshine per year it is also the sunniest part of Colombia.

By 2007, water mains had reached just over half of the province, but only 16.3 percent of the rural areas. The statistics are worse for sewers, which cover just 39 percent of the region and drop to a scant 7.9 percent in the countryside. Areas such as Media and Alta Guajira are so arid that conventional solutions to water and sanitation are simply

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not feasible. This explains why rural La Guajira is so vulnerable to disease and why it presents a considerable challenge to the local authorities. “This Foundation focuses on rural communities that have difficulty accessing water. It researches sustainable alternatives that can be developed and used in the future,” says Lozano. “Training in water conservation is also of the utmost importance,” he adds.

The Foundation for Indigenous Guajira

works to improve conditions for the local people while respecting their culture. There’s a large indigenous population, mainly Wayúu, who form 40 percent of the population, Wiwa and Kogui. These communities face many challenges, among them the invasion of the modern world, the division of their ancestral lands, unemployment and poverty. “As the major employer Cerrejón needs to ensure that the rights of the indigenous

“As the major employer Cerrejón needs to ensure that the rights of the indigenous communities are met”

Kamüsüchiwo>U school located at High (Alta) Guajira, where Cerrejón has devoted resources and support to the Bilingual Intercultural Programme

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Cerrejón

Eduardo Lozano leads a health brigade at one of the communities in Puerto Bolívar

communities are met,” he says. “Among the things the Foundation can do is to promote sustainable initiatives and innovation focused on the areas of education, community development, and healthcare.”

The Foundation for Institutional Strengthening exists to ensure better social investment of public resources. One initiative it has launched is Tecnocerrejón, whose objectives include education opportunities for people living in the mine’s area of influence, giving Cerrejón employees skills they need to keep up with changes in mining technology.

“The training offered by Tecnocerrejón is designed to allow them to enter the labour market, start their own business, continue their higher education or combine study with work until they earn a technical or

professional degree.” Tertiary education is guaranteed to qualified candidates by several Colombian universities.

Though the mine will continue to drive the economy of La Guajira for many years to come, no resource lasts forever. So it’s an important goal for the company to help generate alternative projects that allow the community of La Guajira to take the benefit of the wealth created by mining and prepare for the day when the coal resources start to disappear. The Cerrejón Foundation for Progress looks ahead to 2034 when the mine’s contract expires. “The region needs to find new economic and social development activities,” emphasised Lozano. “We have fantastic attractions, dependable sunshine, great beaches, and the Foundation has

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;We are committed to prevention, mitigation, and compensation for the effects of our operations on humans and animals alikeâ&#x20AC;?

The new site at Chancleta forms part of the resettlement programme

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Cerrejón already managed to attract investment for a four star hotel complex here.” Waya Guajira, is the first LEED certified hotel & museum complex in Colombia. It will do a lot to promote a new generation of entrepreneurs, building a significant tourist industry without impacting ecosystems and local culture.

One of the most important values for Cerrejón is its guardianship of the environment. “Mining will always produce environmental effects, however, at Cerrejón, when we talk about the environment, we are not just talking about a department or an individual,” says Gabriel Bustos, Manager of the Department of Environmental Management. “We are talking about the organisation as a whole, from the President to the contractors. We are committed to prevention, mitigation, and compensation for the effects of our operations on humans and animals alike.”

The first thing that happens when a new area is being looked at for mining operations is an inventory of the wildlife in the area, with any stressed species being relocated: at the end of its life it is rehabilitated as close as possible to its original state or better. Last year $55 million was invested in environmental management programmes

A P&H shovel in operation

including environmental monitoring and control systems, undertaking special studies, and establishing environmental buffer zones.

And with the participation of Conservation International and the local environmental authority Corpoguajira, Cerrejón supported the creation of a nature reserve in the department of La Guajira, which covers 8,484 hectares of tropical dry forest, hosts endemic species, and is a vital source of water.

In September this year Cerrejón received, for the second time, the Gold Seal of the Siembra

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Part of the Livelihood project focuses on a different ways to earn a living

Gabriel Bustos

“An important aim in the future will be to attract investment to develop sustainable projects in the region” Colombia Foundation at its Expoambiental 2013. The mining operation earned 8,716 of 10,000 possible points, the highest rating among the participating companies either public or private. Fabio Arjona, Director of Conservation International, said: “Cerrejón has the ability not only to mitigate and minimise the environmental impact, but also to leave a positive balance in many environmental actions. In short, it is not only

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about respect for the environment, it is about improving the environmental conditions prior to mining.” Receiving the award was no accident, says Bustos: “We are constantly striving to strengthen and improve this area of environmental management. This award shows just how hard we are working. We have a motto hacemos lo máximo posible y no lo mínimo necesario (we do the maximum possible not the minimum necessary).”

Cerrejรณn

s at the turtle protection program

Cerrejรณn waits years before withdrawing from the Green Bank

At the end of the day, large-scale mining will have some disruptive impacts on the environment, the population and the economy.

It is for a company like Cerrejรณn to see that positive actions will mitigate and balance enough the impacts as far as possible. One regrettable but occasionally necessary effect of mining is on those communities unlucky enough to live right on top of the resource.

Cerrejรณn sees resettlement as a last resort, but also as an opportunity for dialogue with the communities, for improving their standard of living, and for the creation of social capital.

They hope that the resettlement processes that they have been managing will strengthen the sustainable development of La Guajira.

Maybe nothing can really compensate a family for being forced to move from

its home village even if they lived a very meagre existence there. However in their new locations the communities have 24 hour access to drinking water, education centres, parks, internet/Wi-Fi, health centres, churches and the like. When constructing the new settlements, a very important aspect is education as there are many young people within the communities. Cerrejรณn initiates an education project for each of the resettled communities so that once children leave school they can go to university and then work towards a career. This means that the future of these communities is strengthened through their access to quality education.

So while working with resettled communities can at times be painful, Eduardo Lozano is very assiduous in easing that pain.

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“When anyone is faced with having to move to a new location, it can be daunting. There are natural concerns,” he admits. “But at Cerrejón we do our best to deal with any worries that the communities may have. We also make sure that relocation impacts are duly identified with the families and proper compensation response is provided, including housing and social programs. Once resettled in their new location, the community not only preserves its rural nature, but it turns into a community recognized by its social neighbors, and capable to enhance its development possibilities. In most cases, the initial concerns of the people change to vision, hopes and dreams. It is an opportunity for social transformation!”

Social responsibility is an activity without end, and can always be improved. Lozano would like to see a better consensus between Cerrejón and the other organisations that can influence sections of the community the company doesn’t interface with directly: children, teenagers, the elderly and other groups not included in the workforce. A permanent engagement with other organisations and their institutions across the society primarily at La Guajira, and the Caribbean region indirectly, where the best of the Cerrejón community engagement model permeates, it would make a difference, he feels. “An important aim in the future will be to attract other types of social investment to develop further sustainable projects in the region.”

For more information about Cerrejón visit: www.cerrejon.com

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The “City of Riohacha” locomotive, painted as suggested by the Wayuu communities, pulls between 95 and 110 wagons during its 150km trip from the mine to Puerto Bolívar Port

Cerrej贸n

The precious of the Americ Goldcorp has grown from a mid-sized gold company to the world’s number one gold producer by market capitalisation through a broad-based strategy: its Mexican operations provide an ever-growing pipeline of gold, silver and other metals to keep it there

written by: John O’Hanlon research by: Robert Hodgson

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Goldcorp Mexico

heart cas

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s one of the world’s fastest Goldcorp is a Canadian company grow ing senior gold headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. producers, with operations It employs more than 16,000 people globally, and development projects and in Mexico provides employment, directly located in some of the safest or indirectly, for well over 5,000 people. and most stable countries in the Americas Mexico is a natural fit for the company’s Goldcorp is riding on the crest of a wave. Its strategy of sticking to low risk jurisdictions. operating assets include five mines in Canada It has been the world’s major source of silver and the USA, three in Mexico, and three metal since its invasion by the Spanish in the across Central and South America, namely the 15th century, well ahead of its nearest rivals Marlin mine in Guatemala, Alumbrera in the China and Peru, so mining is an industry Argentine, and its newest and largest project that is well understood. It has plenty of gold too, ranking 11th in the world. And today’s Pueblo Viejo in the Dominican Republic.

Goldcorp has the critical mass and enough Mexico is among the countries in the world reserves to cope with the with the lowest political current vagaries of the gold and social risk, despite its price. At a time when many well publicised drug wars, a other companies are feeling factor that makes Goldcorp the pinch it has been able to attractive to investors even at focus on financial discipline, a time of uncertainty in the Expected increase in gold to continue to fund growth metal markets. production this year projects while cutting back for Goldcorp first came into the time being on exploration, Mexico in 2005 when it to defer capital projects where necessary, and merged with Silver Wheaton and acquired El to reconfigure higher cost mines.

Sauzal, a low cost mine located near the town This far sighted contingency planning has of Urique in Chihuahua state in the western enabled it to keep its position as the only part of Mexico’s Sierra Madre mountain North American senior to deliver year on range. El Sauzal has been producing since year growth and to deliver strong results 2003 since when it has yielded more than 1.5 in a challenging market: in 2012 Goldcorp million ounces, however it is now reaching the produced 2,396,200 ounces of gold, only end of its life and Goldcorp is preparing the a little down on the 2011 figure. However community there for life after mining. There’s this year it expects to at least equal its 2011 a chance that more gold can be extracted yet. production level of 2,514,700 ounces, with Exploration efforts are focused on identifying aggressive growth forecast in the five-year new gold reserves to extend the mine life period. By 2017, if it can stay on track it beyond 2014. The Trini pit is expected to should be producing in excess of four million provide more than 218,000 ounces of gold in two phases. The environmental permit for the ounces of gold annually.

10%

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Goldcorp Mexico

Thank you for your business Thank you for your business

Much has changed since 1873, but this has remained constant: Atlas Copco is committed to developing leading – edge technology and taking care of Much has changed since 1873, but this has remained constant: Atlas Copco customers. The best way to celebrate 140 years is to acknowledge the is committed to developing leading – edge technology and taking care of customers that made it possible. Thank you for your loyalty and trust. ¡Gracias! customers. The best way to celebrate 140 years is to acknowledge the customers that made it possible. Thank you for your loyalty and trust. ¡Gracias! www.atlascopco.com.mx www.atlascopco.com.mx

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Goldcorp Mexico first stage of stripping has been issued, and exploration for In 2013 Atlas Copco, ranked as one of the most innovative, potential reserves continues sustainable and ethical companies in the world, celebrates in the surrounding areas.

140 years of profitable growth. At the beginning the Going forward, El Sauzal company made products for railways, but the core of Atlas will continue to work on a Copco’s business dates back to the early years of the 20th sustainable development century when the first compressors, tools and rock drills were manufactured. Today, the Atlas Copco Group has strategy that benefits world-leading positions in these areas and many others. surrounding communities, Atlas Copco supports customers in 180 countries with own such as hydroponic crops, operations in 90 countries. In México, with 60 years of which additionally will help history, Atlas Copco proudly contributes with Mexican the to reduce water consumption mining industry. in the arid climate of the www.atlascopco.com.mx region. A Train-for-the-Work strategy will help people to get free training in high-demand skills, such as welding and mechanics.

The company’s second mine in Mexico is Los Filos, 1,700 metres up in the mountainous terrain of central Guerrero state near the town of Mezcala. It is one of the largest open pit mines in the country as well as an underground mine, with common heap leaching, wet plant and ancillary facilities.

Commercial production for Los Filos open pit operation commenced on January 1, 2008, and since 2009, Los Filos has been Mexico’s largest gold producer. Operations started in 2007, after Goldcorp had developed the

atlas copco

400,000 Ounces of projected gold production at Peñasquito mine in 2013 Goldcorp in the community of Peñasquito

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project from the single Los Filos pit to a twopit mine when Goldcorp acquired the El Bermejal deposit in early 2005—well after having the design and development plans ready for the single Los Filos pit.

2012 gold production at Los Filos was a little up on the previous year, at 340,400 ounces, and new exploration continues to support the potential for significant new reserves in the current open-pit and

underground operations as well as in the new 4P project located on a ridge to the west of the Los Filos pit. The plan is to develop an open pit mine that will be integrated into existing operations as well as testing further potential underground.

The underground mine in operation is a supplementary source of production at Los Filos, so there’s considerable upside potential at this site, with recent exploration

“Peñasquito is a great mine that is already generating outstanding financial returns and whose strongest years lie ahead”

Drilling at Peñasquito

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Goldcorp Mexico

Peñasquito worker and haul truck

showing that both Los Filos and El Bermejal pits could be extended. “Los Filos, remains a reliable producer, and we are testing the potential for further expansion of its production rate,” says Goldcorp’s President and CEO Chuck Jeannes.

However the jewel in Goldcorp’s crown, at least as far as Mexico is concerned, is the Peñasquito mine, which achieved commercial production in 2010. This a true polymetallic resource, which in addition to producing up to 400,000 ounces of gold in 2013 is expected to yield between 208 and 305 million pounds of zinc, between 145 and 160 million pounds of lead and over 20 million ounces of silver. The Peñasquito mine is in fact the fifth largest silver mine in the world and the second largest in Mexico. Jeannes’

assessment: “Peñasquito is a great mine that is already generating outstanding financial returns and whose strongest years lie ahead.”

His confidence is not surprising. Set in a flat valley high in the Central Plateau, in north-eastern corner of the State of Zacatecas Peñasquito promises to become Mexico’s largest open pit mine, consisting of two open pits, Peñasco and Chile Colorado. Additionally, exploration has already shown that later in the mine life, which is pegged currently at 22 years, there could be significant reserves below the current pits. Peñasquito provides jobs for nearly 2,700 people, and to serve the mine Goldcorp has helped to set up a technical college where the mechanical and electrical technicians of the future are trained.

With the high degree of mechanisation

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Pe単asquito site overview

Goldcorp Mexico that mines have adopted the barriers to women working alongside men are rapidly disappearing and Goldcorp’s female employees receive exactly the same benefits as their male colleagues. The company’s responsible mining policies have not gone unnoticed in Mexico. Last year the Mexican Centre for Philanthropy and the Alliance for Corporate Responsibility (CEMEFI) recognised Goldcorp Mexico for the fifth consecutive year, noting it for excellence in Ethical Conduct, Environmental Stewardship & Community Engagement. Additionally, for the second consecutive year the Mexican Mining Chamber gave the Los Filos mine its annual safety award in recognition of its excellent safety record.

“We enter 2013 with a spirit of excitement and optimism,” said Jeannes as he predicted a ten percent rise in gold production to between 2.5 and 2.8 million ounces this year, rising to more than four million ounces by 2017. To achieve its goals, he added, Goldcorp remains focused on five key attributes: growth; low cash costs; maintaining a strong balance sheet; operating in regions with low political risk; and conducting business in a responsible manner. Even if the recent hiccoughs in the gold market prove, as many believe, to be a temporary phenomenon the Canadian senior remains a dominating player in the market, with enough mineral diversification to see it through.

For more information about Goldcorp Mexico visit: www.goldcorp.com

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Antamina

Reaching new heights Operations Vice President, Jorge Ghersi discusses the continuing development of Antamina, site of the largest mining investment programme in the history of Peru

written by: Will Daynes research by: Louisa Adcock

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Excavation and haulage taking place

Antamina

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unning along the western coast of South America, the Andes is the longest continental mountain range in the world. At around 7,000 kilometres in length, between 200 and 700 kilometres wide, and with an average height of approximately 4,000 metres, the Andes extends through seven countries, one of which is Peru.

It is within the central Peruvian Andes that one will find Antamina, one of the ten biggest mines in the world for its production volume and the site of the largest mining investment in Peru’s history, totalling $3,600 million.

Responsible for the production of copper and zinc concentrate, as well as molybdenum, silver, lead and bismuth concentrates, the mine’s capital today belongs to BHP Billiton, Glencore-Xstrata, Teck Resources and Mitsubishi Corporation.

The Antamina site, Antamina meaning ‘copper mine’ in the Quechuan language, has a rich history, having been documented as far back as the 19th century thanks to the work of researcher Antonio Raymondi.

It was officially incorporated into the project portfolio of the Cerro de Pasco Mining Corporation in 1952, before then being passed into the hands of the State.

Following a process of privatisation in 1996, Antamina was acquired by the Canadian mining companies Río Algom and Inmet, which at the time estimated that the mine held reserves of around 500 million tonnes. A year after the privatisation of the mine the exploration of the site was formally completed, with trial operations, the first shipment of concentrates and the

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start of commercial production all taking place in 2001.

“At the end of 2008,” explains Mine Manager, Jorge Ghersi, “we announced the increase of our mineral reserves, which was subject to a feasibility study, completed in 2009, which allowed us to evaluate the options of expansion. After receiving the authorisation of our shareholders and the permission of the Ministry of Energy and Mines, we announced an investment to expand our mining facility and the mineral processing capacity. This marked the official start of our Expansion Programme to increase processing capacity by 38 percent. The total investment in the programme represents more than $1,400 million.”

This programme has resulted in the

Antamina

Overview of the mine at night

extension of the life of the mine from 2023 to 2029, thus also extending the economic and social contribution it makes to the surrounding region. The operations of the Expansion Programme commenced in the last quarter of 2011 and subsequently led to the creation of 800 jobs.

The mine itself is an open pit operation and boasts various units. These include Camp Yanacancha, the location of Antamina’s

concentration plant. Equipped with state-ofthe-art technology that allows the processing of mineral from the pit, the concentration plant is considered one the most automated facilities of its kind anywhere on the planet.

Meanwhile, the pipeline that runs from the mine to the nearby Punta Lobitos Port measures 302 kilometres and allows for the transportation of mineral concentrates to Huarmey, and thus facilitates subsequent shipping and export.

“Antamina is one of the ten biggest mines in the world for its production volume and the site of the largest mining investment in Peru’s history” BE Americas | 77

Furthermore, the mine site’s tailings dam can be found located 4,075 metres above sea level in the Quebrada Huincush.

The tailing dam represents just one example of Antamina’s consciousness towards its impact on the environment, with the mine investing considerable capital over the years in various positive programmes and initiatives. “Since 2009,” Ghersi continues, “we have achieved 100 percent compliance with

regards to water and air quality standards. All of our operations are certified to ISO:14001 standards and the high level of performance achieved by our environmental management system has become one of the most respected within the sector here in Peru.”

Among the many key environmental initiatives that Antamina has been responsible for has been its environmental geochemistry research into understanding the hydrological

“Our employees have been, and always will be our most valuable asset”

Workers gather for a security briefing

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Antamina

Antamina is committed to safeguarding the environment

and geochemical behaviour of Huarmey, which has been established to reverse the of waste rock at the mine, its Study of Coverage Project threat to Humboldt penguin populations and other birds to assess the best alternative for application coverage protected by the state on the The extended estimated in the closing of dumps, coast of Huarmey. end of mine life as a Another example would be its initiative to protect and result of the expansion the Puya Raimondi Project, divert the waters coming programme from various springs located one that helped transform 170 acres of desert area within in the Eastern Dump and its sprinkler irrigation project the province of Ancash into designed to control the generation of dust at an innovative ecosystem that is now home to 50 species of birds, more than 200,000 trees the various entrances to the mine.

In addition to the aforementioned and with a climate conducive to generating initiatives Antamina is also responsible for numerous environmental benefits for the region. several important conservation projects Turning back to the mine operations in the region. These include the Humboldt themselves, Ghersi is quite adamant about what Penguin Conservation Project on the coast is the source of Antaminaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s success over the

2029

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Antamina decades. “Our employees have been, and always will be our most valuable asset. Currently we have a total of 2,949 direct employees and 3,169 indirect ones. Close to 50 percent of our payroll is made up of Ancash employees and 100 percent of our unskilled labour comes from our areas of influence. We attach great importance to the training and education of all of our employees, providing every opportunity for people to develop personally and professionally as they develop their skills and competencies through “on the job” methods.”

Antamina also promotes the philosophy that all of its workers can, and should, be part of what it dubs, “Continuous Improvement”, which essentially means the generation of new ideas and methodologies that can help to improve existing processes or create whole new ones.

“The starting point when it comes to this continuous improvement is the mapping out and prioritising of the most important processes,” Ghersi concludes. “From there we undertake a periodic review of all the macro processes that make up our operations using a root cause analysis of indicators and a methodology called “business review”. Furthermore, we participate in mining management benchmarking with the Chilean mining industry and various Peruvian mining companies, something that we consider to be another example of how serious we are about being a leading player in this part of the world.”

For more information about Antamina visit: www.antamina.com

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Argex Titanium

On the path to production The Canadian junior exploration company completes its transformation into a top quality supplier to the pigment industry

written by: JOhn Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hanlon research by: James Boyle

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unior mining companies are feeling the chill these days, and have been under pressure for over a year, so it is heartening to find one whose neat footwork has turned the situation to its advantage. Over the past year Argex has advanced its plan to convert its focus from mining to production of Titanium Dioxide (TiO2), a commodity that is sure to grow in demand as the world emerges from recession, because its sales in any particular market shadow GDP with uncanny accuracy. It is a key ingredient in paint, as well as in many pharmaceuticals, plastics and paper, having unique properties of opacity and whiteness.

Wearing its mining hat, Argex accumulated a portfolio of properties in Quebec that provide it with a source of ilmenite, the ore from which TiO2 is derived. In 2009, it acquired La Blache together with an iron ore project called Mouchelange on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, and in 2012 added another interesting property called Lac Br没l茅. These properties, it was thought, would provide feedstock for a process of beneficiation if a suitable technology could be found to produce high grade TiO2 from ore containing contaminants, or penalty metals as they are known, that are intractable in the traditional processes the industry is used to.

The company accordingly worked in partnership with Process Research Ortech (PRO) to develop a proprietary mineral extraction process that allows for the production of 99.8 percent pure pigmentgrade TiO2, which can be sold to the end-users in the paint, plastic and coating industries.

The CTL process has significant advantages

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Argex Titanium

over current processing methods: it has a very low environmental impact, operates at atmospheric pressure, does not require high temperatures and produces saleable by-products. “The comparative risk-profile for scale up with this technology is really very low,” says Roy Bonnell, Argex Titanium’s president and CEO. The last year has been a busy and a productive one for Argex. The raw material for the process, ilmenite, is readily available and Argex has been exploring the idea of treating commercially available ore bodies in addition to that from its own properties.

One of the things that makes Argex different, and endears it to shareholders and analysts alike, is its approach to risk. “Commercial sourcing was attractive because it meant that in starting our plant we wouldn’t have to have two different capital projects going on at the same time. Here in Quebec, developing a mine can be a lengthy process so to be able to have cash flow earlier in the economic model creates a lot of present value for our shareholders.”

The deposits treatable with Argex technology may contain penalty metals such as vanadium, or magnesium oxide that make them undesirable for other producers. With the CTL process all by-products are saleable,

and as many of the sources Argex has identified contain levels of ilmenite that can yield up to three times as much product per tonne than that from La Blache, taking this route made a lot of sense. “We have taken a risk mitigation approach to management. And as a result, in a difficult market for juniors, we performed relatively well last year.”

Argex Titanium’s business model was given additional support in July 2013 when

“By this time in 2015 we expect to be reporting on the plant in production, shipping its high quality product into an expanding market” 86 | BE Americas

Argex Titanium

it announced a $10 million infrastructure, is crucial, Bonnell says. private placement with 2 Investissement Québec, and Valleyfield is an ideal a US-based investment fund location, an industrial site The size of the recently manager which already already occupied by major acquired Salaberry-deholds Argex shares. “The chemicals companies that Valleyfield plant Quebec government is proud can support Argex’s supply to support this strategic chain. It is well served by air, road and shipping links, investment project, which will have substantial economic spin-offs is close to gas and electricity supplies, and for the Montérégie region,” said Québec’s has a pool of experienced workers. “Even the Minister for Industrial Policy Élaine Zakaïb. community college is focused on producing The funds will go towards developing the chemical technicians,” he enthuses. “We feel 235,000 square foot plant it has acquired at we fit in there.” Getting Valleyfield up and Salaberry-de-Valleyfield that will be home running is now a priority. The first step is to to its first full-scale TiO2 plant. And it’s not move the pilot plant, which has tested the new just the money: government support for a process on a variety of differing ore bodies, project like this, which depends heavily on from Mississauga just outside Toronto to the

235,000 FT

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“In the coming year, you will see our further evolution to becoming an emerging producer of a speciality chemical and more an engineering company than a miner” Valleyfield site. This is important because it will mean this vital research facility will be on-site, able to train the people who will be working on the full size plant.

At the same time, the company is working with its engineering partner Genivar on a bankable feasibility study (BFS) that will make the economic case for the plant, as well as outlining the engineering aspects including plant layout, equipment required

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and workflow. The results of the BFS should be available in September, demonstrating the potential game-changing nature of the CTL process, and placing Argex in a position to evaluate partnership opportunities, engage in detailed construction engineering work and start hiring suppliers. Bring it on, says Roy Bonnell, who wants to see first production in the first quarter of 2015. I am doing my best to hold the engineers’ feet to the fire!”

Argex Titanium

There will always be bumps in the road, but the scalability of the company’s process, compared to many other metallurgical processes, is not particularly difficult. Indeed this was why the company chose to occupy an existing building, already laid out as a chemical facility, rather than build from scratch. It is another risk-reducing factor, he says, not least because you don’t want to be waiting for concrete to set in Canada’s winter! The process itself is hardly action packed, consisting mainly of leach tanks and settlers: it can be described as – well, boring.

But that gladdens his heart. Boring means low risk. “We tested around ten different feedstocks, and found we could use any one of them. One that we have been using and will probably start with is high in only

one penalty metal.” Yet another prudent approach – having to deal with just one rather than three or four limits the risk of problems in the startup phase, he says.

By this time in 2015 we expect to be reporting on the plant in production, shipping its high quality product into an expanding market. The market fundamentals are promising, he points out, with the US economy rising out of recession and construction readying itself for activity following a period where projects were put on hold. It will be pigment’s day again and prices are predicted to rise with demand, which as we have noted tracks GDP. An interesting statistic is that annual per capita consumption of TiO2 in the USA is eight pounds: in China and India it is two. The global market for the higher

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Argex Titanium quality CTL product with its outstanding light reflection qualities, as opposed to the lower performance chemical resulting from the sulphate process, will inevitably grow alongside living standards.

In that case, Valleyfield will come on stream just at the right moment. “In the coming year, you will see our further evolution to becoming an emerging producer of a speciality chemical and more an engineering company than a miner.” The R&D centre will be up and running at Valleyfield well ahead of the main plant, which will employ around 100-150 people. It will be a showcase facility, Bonnell says, and a model for other plants Argex might build in the future in locations that have lower energy costs.

However for the time being, his policy of cutting risk to the bone is paying off.

Appropriately, at the end of June 2013, the company signed a purchase agreement with the company it has collaborated with since 2011. PPG is the largest paint company in the world, and its confidence not only in the process but in Argex’s strategy and ability to deliver is as important as the deal itself. It establishes Argex in the market as a company that is doing real cutting edge work. “We will continue to align ourselves with blue chip companies like that. You are judged by the company you keep, and I think it is important as we establish ourselves that we are seen in alliance with people like PPG.” For more information about Argex Titanium visit: www.argex.ca

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The electrica experts Commercial manager, Claudio Qui単ones discusses the rich history of Dartel Electricidad, its support of the mining sector and its plans for the future

written by: Will Daynes research by: Louisa Adcock

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Dartel Electricidad

al

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Dartel Electricidad

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ith a total of eleven possesses, thanks to the length of time that branches spanning the it has been around in Chile, is an unrivalled length and breadth degree of knowledge and experience that its of Chile, Dartel competitors can only dream of having. It is Electricidad is dedicated this expertise that has seen it take on the role to the distribution and marketing of some of of product distributor for all manner of vital the most famous and prestigious national and projects including industrial illumination, international electrical brands. These brands automation and power distribution. and solutions meet the high, medium and low “The mining and construction sectors are voltage needs of Dartel’s customers within the the two principle markets that we have grown industrial, fishing, construction, engineering, with most significantly in recent times and we telecommunications and mining sectors. have no doubt that this trend will continue,” “We have been present in the Chilean Quiñones explains. “In the last year alone market since 1970 and were the first company the mining industry experienced exponential of its kind to set itself up to growth here in Chile and this service the growing mining too we expect to remain the market in this country,” case. What this often results states commercial manager, in as well is the growth Claudio Quiñones. “Through on the construction sector the distribution of brands and both are intrinsically The year Dartel first like Legrand, Siemens, linked to the expansion of became established the country as a whole.”

3M, Lovato Electric, Parker in Chile With copper accounting for and Schneider we are more than 40 percent of all today involved throughout the entire mining process, specialising of Chile’s annually exported goods it stands in a number of specialised fields such as to reason that a company like Dartel would automation solutions.” continue to target the mining sector will all According to Quiñones, the principal its available resources and strengths, and strength that has served Dartel so well over as Quiñones highlights this is undoubtedly more than four decades of existence is the the plan. “All the signs point to the fact high quality service it delivers to its customers. that the mining market in the country will Dartel’s commitment to providing its customers continue to expand and will do so for at least with the required products and solutions the next five years or more.”

That is not to say that the market is not quickly and expeditiously is one that exists throughout the company and is ingrained in without it challenges. “The unfortunate the minds of its almost 400 employees. reality,” Quiñones continues, “is that with In addition to a strong desire to meet the the cost of copper today being relatively low consumer needs of its clients what Dartel also we have had to begin looking towards other

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potential fields of growth, for example the industrial markets that exist in the South of Chile. When we have low copper prices that result is usually that mine operators

scale back on certain high-cost projects and clearly this has an effect on us. Where we prosper is in the fact that our knowledge and experience allows us to be present in a mix

â&#x20AC;&#x153;The principal strength that has served Dartel so well over more than four decades of existence is the high quality service it delivers to its customersâ&#x20AC;?

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Dartel Electricidad

of industry sectors all at one, meaning that we can weather any negative trends in one sector by focusing on others.”

Being willing and able to develop the way it operates in Chile is clearly a hugely important trait for Dartel to possess. It is also one that will be of great use as the company looks to the next stage of its growth.

“One of the things we are examining,” Quiñones concludes, “is the possibility of expanding our presence into another country at some point in the future. While we are a

national company, and are hugely proud of that, we are not blind to the opportunities that exist in sectors like mining in neighbouring countries such as Peru and Bolivia. While such talks are at a very, very early stage we are definitely laying down the groundwork for what is our long-term vision for Dartel.”

For more information about Dartel Electricidad visit: www.dartel.cl

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Devex

Introducing tomorrowâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s smart mine Devex has rethought mine automation, taking it beyond the traditional fleet management mindset: it has developed the products its clients need and is taking them to the world

written by: John Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hanlon research by: Jeff Abbott

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Operating SmartMine|UG system - Map

Devex

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t the moment, though Devex has opened a few offices in other countries where clients have adopted its systems, it is firmly a Brazilian company, with 85 percent of its $35 million annual revenue generated domestically. However there is no better seed-bed for new technology than Brazil, and forward thinking global mining groups are now taking notice of Brazil not just as a country with huge resources to extract but as a developer of smart ways of doing that.

Devex was founnded in 1997 by Guilherme Bastos Alvarenga. Dr Alvarenga was employed

by Brazil’s biggest integrated steel company Companhia Siderúrgica Nacional (CSN) with responsibility for introducing new technology at its Casa de Pedra mine. “It was while working at Casa de Pedra, at that time the third largest iron ore mine in Brazil, that I realised the extent of the need for far greater mine automation,” he says. At the same time he was completing his masters degree at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG). At the university he had developed an in-house open pit solution for his employer, and on the award of his masters, with the agreement of CSN and in partnership with two other researchers from UFMG he took the IP into a spin-off company that is now Devex. His first clients were CSN itself, and Minerações Brasileiras Reunidas (MBR), another large iron ore producer now owned by Vale.

Over the following nine years he combined academic work with growing the company, joining the Universidade Federal de Lavras (UFLA) as a professor, and serving as head of its computer science department for the

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System integration above and below ground!

A large open pit mine in Minas Gerais counted on the aid of more than 30 systems in its operations, each with specific goals and almost all from different suppliers How to integrate dispatch and the other mining systems into one single platform capable of providing a complete view of operations in the mine?

Though the mine in question has excellent automation specialists, the team had no experience in applying these concepts, so it looked to Devex as a partner to add value and knowledge to the mining processes. Extreme, which can monitor and manage all the fixed and mobile assets in the mine, including people, started to run full time at the location on 12 December 2012,

serving a 90–strong auxiliary fleet.

The implementation of all the modules chosen will be finalised in August 2013.

It is precisely this concept of having integrated production, maintenance, operation, operators and equipment information that Devex’s customer was looking for. In the opinion of Devex CEO Guilherme Bastos Alvarenga, the product reached the mine at just the right moment. “Extreme represents a major step in accessing information, with variables related to mobile and fixed assets all centralised in a single online environment for viewing on the screen of the operating control room or on an iPad,” he explained. “The gains should be much larger than projected.”

Complete control of open pit mine activity, in real time.

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Devex

Central Room project

three years to 2008. However Devex has standalone, ring fenced solutions based on been on a growth track since 2002 when it modules within existing ERP platforms: abandoned its work as an IBM reseller and “Right from the outset we approached the focused 100 percent on developing its own market in a more flexible and integrated way, products, notably SmartMine, its solution and that appealed to the market. During the for mine operation control and optimisation last decade everybody was looking for a fleet in matters such as quality control, freight- management system that would integrate use optimisation, maintenance control and with their legacy systems. That was our telemetry. The many companies that have USP at that time and doing that gave us a very deep knowledge and SmartMine include Vale, expertise in understanding CSN, Kinross, Mineração the realities of mining in Rio do Norte, V&M and AngloGold Ashanti. remote environments.”

There have been several However today the market has entered a different reasons for Devex’s success phase, he says. “You must since 2002, Alvarenga Mines in Brazil using understand that in mine sites explains. The mines had Devex solutions they have systems that control become used to adopting

80+

BE Americas | 103

processes such as flotation circuits, crushers, and the like. But these are linked to many very complex process in the pit, where we find high value capital assets like excavators, trucks, dozers, drillers, blasting equipment, and so on - and there is no automation system for this part of the pit. Fleet management is not the final solution!”

Devex accordingly developed Extreme, which he describes as a more complete process solution where fleet management is just one building block among many. Extreme is a complete solution for mine automation that monitors and manages all the systems and equipment, fixed or mobile, auxiliary or core production, and even the activities of people. With Extreme, he says, it is at last possible to plan any type of activity in the mine, monitor it on a single system and follow it to its conclusion in a realistic 3D environment. “Extreme approaches the mine by trying to understand the whole process and control each task from start to finish. We really understand these processes: this is our approach to the market and where we score over the competition.”

You can either migrate to Extreme across the board or bolt it on to the legacy system. Its open and extensible architecture represents a completely new approach to mine automation,

he confides – and it has a great future.

Devex also has a mine process automation solution developed for underground mine, SmartMine|UG). SmartMine|UG, already installed in two underground mines and Extreme, installed in one open pit mine, are the most exciting things to have happened in mining for many years – this level of automation cuts costs, improves safety, makes the whole operation faster and more efficient

“It was while working at Casa de Pedra that I realised the extent of the need for far greater mine automation” 104 | BE Americas

Devex

SmartMine|UG system screen

and takes the guesswork out of mineral production. “I really feel we have brought into the 21st century by enabling these systems to work on iPads, tablet devices and iPhones if needed. There is no known form of technology from any other provider who can take it to this level, and few of our competitors have our ‘collaborative approach’. For us that is one of the many keys to helping our clients.”

The HSE agenda is something companies are belatedly waking up to, and employee protection is an area that could be improved on in many mining jurisdictions. To keep people safe you need to know where they are. The lateral thinking that produced SmartMine and Extreme led Devex to question the effectiveness of current RFIDbased systems. “RFID signals do not work

reliably in underground mines,” Dr Alvarenga explains, “partly because of their low power output, partly because of competition from other equipment. We developed SafetYou which is a wireless system based on a small device on the operator’s belt and which is very reliable in tracking people and mapping their location individually or in groups At last you can be certain exactly where people are in the mine, in real time.”

Among the other highly effective products Devex has developed for underground mines is eControl to manage the electric equipment in equipment such as fans, water pumps and substations.

SmartMine and its family of satellite products meanwhile cater for those clients who are not ready to go for fully blown automation.

BE Americas | 105

The Exacta family is a high precision element within SmartMine that is installed on the onboard computer of individual key equipment like dozers and loaders and the like giving the operator total control. When any action does not go according to plan, alarms go off and the operator instantly receives all the information needed to fix the error.

The company has grown in a fairly complex way, organically, by acquisition and by entering

strategic partnerships. Early in 2011 it bought MineInside, a software development and data integration company as well as SmartCargo, a program that optimises equipment utilisation.

In 2010 Devex became the exclusive supplier in Brazil of SafeMine, a traffic management and specifically a collision avoidance system proved in the industry since 2003.

Having cracked the Brazilian market, and to a large having expanded in South America

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Extreme approaches the mine by trying to understand the whole process and control each task from start to finishâ&#x20AC;?

The Extreme system allows users to monitor all workplaces in a unique screen

106 | BE Americas

Devex

Extreme system screen

with considerable success in Chile, Devex is now ready to take on the world. It recently announced a strategic partnership with CAE Mining under which CAE will distribute Devex products in Canada, Russia, and a group of CIS countries including Kazakhstan. “Devex does not plan to do absolutely everything but Extreme is going to be the platform because it is an open architecture system that can work independently or integrate with third party products. We are here to sell our services but at the same time we want to bring in OEMs and large automation companies as collaborators in this system.”

The company opened an office in Brisbane in 2011following Vale’s decision to develop a massive nickel complex in New Caledonia, is currently setting up a new office in Mexico.

Guilherme Alvarenga is as flexible in his approach to geographical expansion as to software development, and will do whatever it takes, opening up offices and hiring local experts, or going into partnership with like minded partners as seems most appropriate.

His aspirations are realistic though they are nothing if not broad. “I don’t think our new approach leaves room for many competitors.

We think Devex has a very big opportunity ahead. Today I have 85 percent of my revenue in Brazil – as we expand I am confident we’ll grow 20 times bigger than we are today.”

For more information about Devex visit: www.devexmining.com

BE Americas | 107

The tools for the job 108 | BE Americas

Pesco Chile

Over little more than a decade Pesco has emerged as a major player in the Chilean economy, supporting a host of different industries including forestry, municipal and industrial waste management, emergency and rescue services, high-rise working and, increasingly, mining

written by: John Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hanlon research by: David Brogan BE Americas | 109

Elliott HiReach aerial work platform

Pesco Chile

T

he niche Pesco has occupied so successfully is in the provision to its clients of specialised machinery, sourced from around the world, that they need in their operations.

As a measure of its success we need only look at the sales graph: since it was founded in 1998 turnover has progressively risen from zero to more than $55 million in 2012.

One of the most stable, competitive and fastest growing economies in the world, let alone Latin America, Chile recorded an enviable five percent growth in 2012, much of it achieved through its mineral resources, with the state mining company Codelco accounting for a third of the nation’s economy. So despite the diversity of its client base it is not surprising that mining is the major contributor to Pesco too. Mining related business now contributes a third of its turnover and about the same proportion of the company’s profits. Inevitably a good amount of equipment supplied by Pesco ends up working on the operations of Codelco, though it is not Pesco’s model to partner directly with the end user but rather through a third party, usually a leasing company.

This dramatic growth has been achieved using two basic principles, explains General Manager Nicolás Vicencio. “We develop the markets for the products we sell, to increase the volumes we handle; and we add new products to our range according to what the customers say they need.” The company goes to great lengths to source the right equipment for its clients, he adds, visiting OEMs that may be interested in establishing a presence in Chile, and attending trade shows in China,

BE Americas | 111

Sierra y Plaza Engineering and Services S.A., was established on January 10th, 1994, in the city of Los Andes, Chile.

TECH INDUSTRIAL CLEANING Company: Sierra y Plaza Ingeniería y Servicios S.A.

Currently we are known one of the leading companies in services and engineering projects within the country, maintaining constant innovation that solves the challenges and demands of our customers.

Our core business units are: • Engineering and Projects Services.

• Works Technical Inspection Services.

• Land Survey, Geodesy and Geomatics Services.

• Maintenance, Infrastructure, Civil Works, Construction and Installation Services.

• Management Support Services • Tech Industrial Cleaning Services

VISION AND INNOVATION For several years the company studied our costumers’ needs related to operational continuity, and it was, for them and for us, a big challenge.

There for the resulting was the identification of the key variables that were affecting productivity, maintenance and equipment performance in various production Plants. These variables allowed us to perform a search for solutions, with clear vision that allowed us to apply technology available on the World Market.

www.sierrayplaza.cl

TECHNOLOGY AND INDUSTRIAL TECH CLEANING SERVICES

High Vacuum Aspiration.

Our proposal presents a different model to solve the problems by applying our know-how in the Engineering´s area, introducing concepts such as: Critical points, planning and control process, reaching new standards for quality, safety and productivity.

This allowed us to achieve a new concept that goes from “Traditional Industrial Cleaning” to “Tech Industrial Cleaning”.

Pneumatic Suction.

The following pictures shows evidence about the standard of service achieved in a workplace, meeting the expectations of our customers.

2012: Customer Codelco Chile, División Andina, achieved standard.

OUR TECH INDUSTRIAL CLEANING SERVICES Currently our Tech Industrial Cleaning Services are executed Concentrating Plants, Crushing Plant, Grinding and Flotation Plant, Underground and Open Pit Mines, and generally in any area where exist any kind of silt accumulation, stones or rocks, that had been generated as spills or operational emergencies, using three processes: Loading and Transportation.

For each one of these processes, it´s in use hightech machinery, capable of performing their jobs in tight spaces, which combined with highly specialized human resources, deliver effective results with low risk exposure and an effective care for the environment, since these processes do not generate pollutants during its application.

Loading and Transportation.

Sierra & Plaza Engineering and Services

As an Engineering services company, our north is oriented to provide high quality services, meeting EO deadlines and costs C Sierra, JosĂŠ Luis which ensure the success of the projects in which we participate, with a high awareness of the persons and environmental care, and that makes us an efficient company.

114 | BE be Americas weekly

We have been recognized among national level, in terms of high security standard, there for; we must be very careful and efficient in every new step that we take.

On that matter, working with Pesco has meant a positive impact on our Tech Industrial Cleaning Services, which has allowed us to incorporate the latest technology making our work more efficient. www.sierrayplaza.cl

Pesco Chile Europe and America. But it’s not all about volume: “It’s our strategy to be experts in every product we sell: we do that by training our people either at the manufacturers’ premises or by bringing their technicians to Chile.” It is a very dynamic process, he says: often a product imported for one client will turn out to have applications in another sector or application. Fire trucks, for example, are used by municipal fire services, one mine sites, and also in forestry operations among other industries.

A lot of the equipment supplied is for cleaning of a specialised nature, so vacuum trucks figure large in the list, whether for cleaning the shovels and large plant in the mine, or in another version, adapted for conveyors. One particularly hazardous operation used to involve cleaning under moving conveyors: now Pesco is supplying a new remote control mini shovel from Movex that takes humans away from the conveyor – with safety the number one priority in

Altec insulated elevator trucks

today’s mines this product is attracting a lot of interest he says. Among other recently supplied equipment are fire trucks and safety equipment destined for Codelco’s Andina project, vacuum trucks for Siemens working at a Codelco/Rio Tinto joint venture, further vacuum trucks for services contractor Sierra y Plaza and telescopic cranes for the leasing company Relsa for the world’s biggest

“We add new products to our range according to what the customers say they need” BE Americas | 115

Show the world what your company has to offer with our tailored packages

Seen www.bus-ex.com

Pesco Chile copper mine, Codelco’s Chuquicamata. In order to A leading manufacturer of material handling aerial extend its range of specialised work platforms and cranes designed for rugged work cleaning equipment, Pesco environments. PESCO and Elliott Equipment have has introduced Altec partnered to sell and rent Elliott’s complete line of insulator-cleaning equipment telescopic aerial work platforms to mining customers that – essential for keeping clean require mobile aerial equipment to perform maintenance of shovels and other tall machinery. Elliott Equipment the supply power lines to the specializes in manufacturing models that offer aerial mining facilities. working heights up to 215’ (65,5m), basket jib capacities to Pesco does not involve 1,500 lbs (680 kg), boom winch capacities to 7 tons (6,35 itself with the conveyors mt), and a wide range of accessories like remote controls, themselves, nor with the diggers, and tool systems on the truck bed with hoses that heaviest capital equipment terminate in the basket. The company focuses on creating like shovels and ore carriers the best solutions for lifting loads and positioning people.

Elliott Equipment Company looks forward to working with which are bought direct from PESCO to serve the Chilean market with the most advanced the manufacturers. The next and multifunctional aerial devices in the industry. tier of equipment is supplied www.elliottequip.com indirectly, and here there is a major opportunity. On the waste management side, apart from vacuum trucks there is a demand for waste water control – high pressure washing equipment, skips and the hook lifts that move them about, and a wide range of containers. Pesco supplies all these. Much of this work can’t be done at ground level, and needs specialised products to facilitate working at height – up to 30 metres above ground. With brands like Axion, Elliott, Altec and Sky Jack clients have access to the safest and most cost effective lift

Elliott Equipment Company

$55 million Pesco’s 2012 turnover Pesco’s Santiago headquarters

BE Americas | 117

systems available internationally.

With stock valued at around $20 million on its books, this is a capital-intensive business that works, Nicolás explains, a little differently from most places. “We don’t lease it out directly. We leave that business to the banks, who have their own leasing companies that make arrangements with the contractors.

They buy the equipment from us.” Thereafter, maintenance is a matter of agreement. Pesco can provide full service in its own workshops – again that would be the norm in many countries and Chile is catching up with this practice. For those customers who choose to do their own maintenance Pesco is happy to supply parts and to train their engineers.

As a company, Nicolás Vicencio thinks Pesco is now right-sized. “We have grown a lot in the last three or four years and now we have the workshop areas and staff that will enable us to consolidate our operations in Chile and consider our next steps,” he says. During 2012, it should be noted, Pesco augmented its main six-acre Santiago facility, with its five office buildings and 50,000 square feet of warehouses and workshops, by opening two subsidiary sales and service depots. These are strategically placed at Los Ángeles to the south and Calama to the north, giving excellent access to clients operating

anywhere in the 2,700 miles north-to-south extent of Chile’s territory.

With that in place Pesco is now looking outside its borders. Peru is the first target, and Pesco is actively looking for the right partner to help it grow from a base there.

That will be its strategy, says Nicolás, since each country has its own culture and way of doing business and it will be essential

“Pesco is remaining focused on servicing the burgeoning mining industry in the region” 118 | BE Americas

Pesco Chile

Dingo mini excavator

to integrate local knowledge with Pesco’s unrivalled expertise and scale in the region.

For now the most attractive economies are the mining ‘tigers’ of the Pacific coast – Peru, Ecuador and Colombia. Pesco does have a dealership in Uruguay, he adds, however this is mainly concerned with forestry products.

“Brazil,” he declares, “is another continent!”

Nevertheless there are opportunities in that huge but rather protectionist economy.

Pesco’s strength lies in the agreements it has to import equipment from all over the world under favourable trade agreements that exist with Chile. To import the same equipment into Brazil would be very expensive, however under Mercosul of which Chile is an associate member it would be possible to export

Supersucker vacuum truck

specialised equipment to Brazil if it had enough Mercosul content. Pesco already supplies a forest trailer to Uruguay, assembled in Chile using only key components that are imported.

That model could be extended, he believes, with Chile becoming a platform for supplying such equipment, value added, to many South American countries, with no duty.

Meanwhile, Pesco is remaining focused on servicing the burgeoning mining industry in the region – that is where most of the demand is coming from, he emphasises.

For more information about Pesco Chile visit: www.pesco.cl

BE Americas | 119

PBE Group

Safety first

Chief Executive Officer, Stuart Champion de Crespigny, discusses PBEâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s transformation into an international mining solutions provider and the continued diversification of its product suite

written by: Will Daynes research by: Marcus Lewis

BE Americas | 121

PBE has extensive electronic manufacturing capabilities

PBE Group

E

ver since it was first established in March of 1971 by Frank Pyott and Roger Boone, PBE’s (Pyott-Boone Electronics as it was previously known) mission has been to design and build reliable, high tech equipment to improve mine safety and productivity.

Originally focused on supplying the US coal mining industry with the most technologically advanced communication and monitoring systems available, something for which PBE remains recognised as being a pioneer of, the company remained a regional leader in its field before, in April of 2011, it entered into a new era of growth and diversification.

This era was ushered in by the acquiring of the business by Prairie Capital V, LP and Vierville Capital and the arrival of Stuart Champion de Crespigny, founder of Vierville Capital, as Chief Executive Officer, who has focused his efforts on building the management team and taking the company global.

“The PBE that we acquired in 2011,” de Crespigny explains, “was very much a US coal focused business. While it unquestionably boasted an excellent product, it was a business that had never really looked at expansion beyond its home market. What we did upon our purchasing of PBE was to set off immediately along a path to increase and improve not only the internal structure of the company, but also its geographic reach.”

In March 2012, the company purchased the Australia business Minecom in a move which helped expand not only PBE’s product range in the communication systems space, but also its global reach.

BE Americas | 123

1971 The year that PBE was first established

Minecom Leaky Feeder device

124 | BE Americas

This acquisition was then followed up with that of Mine Radio Systems in February 2013. It was with this development that, in de Crespigny’s eyes, PBE became a truly international company.

“The reality is that the US as a marketplace does not possess the same amount of growth potential for us as a business as the developing international markets,” de Crespigny continues. This approach to global expansion has brought PBE to the point where today it possesses six international offices in the US, Canada, Mexico, South Africa, the UK and Australia, as well as several major distributors serving regions including South America and Russia.

For more than 40 years PBE has built itself a reputation for having a reliable, sophisticated product set and support network designed to improve the safety and productivity of a customer’s mine. As de Crespigny highlights, this played a hugely significant role when it came to raising capital to purchase the company.

“In today’s world,” he says, “there isn’t a person out there in the mining sector who doesn’t agree that safety is the most important factor in the industry right now, and will be of even more importance in the years to come. PBE envisioned this

PBE Group

The management team

being the case some time ago and with its large suite of products we are now in a prime position to service this growing market segment, particular as the industry continues to concentrate more of its efforts on protecting its most important resource, which is of course its people.”

From day one de Crespigny and his team have held the belief that the best way of transforming PBE into a global competitor

was to introduce its product portfolio to the rest of the world. Dubbing itself ‘the single integrated source solution for mining productivity and safety’, PBE specialises in providing its customers with integrated, onestop-shop solutions to cover all of their safety and productivity mine-based needs from an electronic perspective.

During its early years PBE would have been involved in such initiatives as installing

“In today’s world there isn’t a person out there in the mining sector who doesn’t agree that safety is the most important factor in the industry” BE Americas | 125

hard-line telephones underground to provide a communications link from the mine to the surface. Obviously the industry has evolved hugely in the time since to the point where virtual every mine in the world possesses wireless connectivity between those deep underground and those above.

Today PBE possesses a raft of solutions, each of which has been manufactured for a different purpose from safety and control equipment and environmental monitoring systems to personnel and vehicle tracking software and data infrastructure networks.

With its patented MineBoss software system the company also has a product that is capable of monitoring every single

piece of mine equipment from one location anywhere in the world.

The latest development within the company involves the launch of a new product that incorporates the technologies behind proximity alert and collision avoidance systems. â&#x20AC;&#x153;This highly sophisticated system,â&#x20AC;? de Crespigny says, â&#x20AC;&#x153;uses multiple forms of technology independently developed by PBE to meet one of the most important challenges that mines face today and that is protecting people and assets from the potential damage that larger vehicles and equipment can cause.

This alert system is essentially a much more advanced form of that which can today be found in high-end automobiles and acts much

Screen shot of the MineBoss sotfware and tracking tag

126 | BE Americas

PBE Group

“we haven’t disconnected ourselves from the things that contributed to the company’s success in the past, but we have evolved as a business” in the same way by providing the operators of large vehicles with the tools needed to avoid what can be massively costly incidents and accidents above or underground.”

The first half of 2013 has seen the company continue its trend of appearing at numerous industry trade shows, conventions and exhibitions. Indeed with the new owners of

PBE having been in place for little over two years it is key that they attend most, if not all of the major mining events around the world simply to publicise the fact that the PBE of today is a different beast to that of years past. “PBE comes with a great deal of history connected to it,” de Crespigny highlights, “and while we want people to understand that we haven’t disconnected ourselves from the things that contributed to the company’s success in the past, we do want them to be aware that we have evolved as a business.”

It has always been PBE’s goal, both before and since its acquisition, to be the market leader in mining safety and productivity solutions. “While there is no doubt,” de Crespigny concludes, “that we have a number of capable competitors in our field, we are confident that our product suite and international expertise gives us the perfect base to realise our ambitions. We are well aware however that this is a marathon, not a sprint, but everything we have seen to date gives us great encouragement for the future.”

For more information about PBE Group visit: www.pbegrp.com

BE Americas | 127

special focus:

Petrotrin

petroleum company of trinidad and tobago

128 | BE Americas

petrotrin

BE Americas | 129

SPECIAL focus:

Energy based –

people powered

As Trinidad’s national oil and gas company approaches i 20th birthday it is reassessing its position in the regional and global O&G market – and investing in its future

written by: John O’Hanlon research by: Robert Hodgson

d

its l

Petrotrin: the business

M

any people probably still base their knowledge of Trinidad on the novels of VS Naipaul but do please lay those aside, begs Hemraj Ramdath.

Trinidad has changed out of recognition and in any case Naipaul lived abroad for too long to really understand the country of his birth! Hemraj is VP of Strategy and Business Development at Petrotrin, one of the islandâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s largest employers and the largest oil and gas producer in the island, operating its only refinery. He too spent a number of years abroad working in the oil industry in the Caribbean, USA and Canada before returning to Trinidad in 2012, but now heâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s back and keen to improve life for all the stakeholders.

Petrotrin is a state-owned enterprise active both in the upstream and downstream markets. It directly employs 5,500 people, and engages with at least 700 smaller local companies, supporting in all perhaps 20,000 individuals out of a population of just 1.3 million. The company produces a little over 45,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and 180 million cubic feet of gas, while its refinery has the capacity to process around 170,000 bpd, making products for a variety of local, regional and international markets from fuel oil to Aviation fuels.

These figures indicate a mismatch between the quantities produced locally and the refinery demand from the market Petrotrin serves in Trinidad itself and regionally.

This has to be filled by imports and that is costly. â&#x20AC;&#x153;One of our mandates is to increase production considerably from the present day figure. Currently we produce about 40 percent

BE Americas | 131

K.G.C. C

• Marine Civil and Mecha • Platform Construction • Dredging • Key Wall / Jetty - Desig • Civil and Mechanical E • Welding and Fabricatin • Piling - land and offsho • Pipe Construction • Pipe Laying – On Land • Tank Fabrication • Structural Fabrication • Diving • Inspection – QA/QC, N • Labour Supply – Logist • Abrasive Blasting and P • High Pressure Water Je • Maintenance Services Electrical, Mechanical, • Equipment Rental

COMPANY LIMITED

anical Engineering and Installation

gn and Construction Engineering ng (ABS Certified) ore and Offshore

NDT Testing etc. tics, Production, Drilling Painting etting - Instrumentation, etc.

â&#x20AC;˘ Warehouse and Yard Rental â&#x20AC;˘ Ship Building and Repairs inclusive of boats and barges While these services represents the day to day operations of K.G.C. Company Limited they are by no means the extent of our services offered.

We are continually expanding into new markets and areas of operations.

Please contact our Operations Office to enquire about any services that are not listed herein.

106 Celestial Park, Vessigny Village, La Brea Republic of Trinidad & Tobago, West Indies.

Telephone: 868 651 1887 Facimile: 868 648 8159 info@kgccoltd.com www.kgccoltd.com

SPECIAL focus:

K.G.C. COMPANY LIMITED • Atlantic LNG Company of Trinidad and Tobago • SOOGL Antillies (Trinidad) Limited, a branch of the National Oil company of China (SINOPEC) • Pihl, Besix, E. Pihl and Sons • World Wide Equipment Caribbean Limited, a member of the Van Es Group • Tiger Tanks Trinidad Unlimited • Bayfield Energy (Galeota) Limited • Niko Resources Limited K.G.C. Company Limited was incorporated in the year 1995 in the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. From inception our company has been servicing the needs of our dynamic National Oil and Gas Production and refining companies in the areas of civil, mechanical and marine construction projects. Our main client is The Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago (PETROTRIN, TRINMAR OPERATIONS). K.G.C. Company Limited is often referred to as the preferred contractor in our area of expertise because of our resourcefulness and timely execution.

K.G.C. Company Limited has executed major projects for both local and international companies such as: • Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago (PETROTRIN)

134 | BE Americas

The Company provides support services both locally, as well as, regionally. To date, the Company has completed international projects in St. Vincent, Grenada, Suriname and Venezuela. Those projects spanned activities in the areas of: • Marine Civil Works and Offshore

Petrotrin: the business

Construction (platform construction and installation, port development, fabrication and installation of conductors, strengthening of unstable wells, platform legs, sheet piling along with other construction projects.

• Heavy Lifts -Work over / Drilling Rigs and Platforms • Sub Sea pipe laying K.G.C. Company Limited was successfully awarded several projects within the oil and gas sector of Trinidad and Tobago with Petrotrin, Trinmar Operations in 2012-2013 in the areas of fabrication and installation of conductors and decks and the strengthening of unstable wells in 2012. KGC was awarded eight (8) single well conductors and deck, one (1) double well conductor and deck, two (2) triple well conductors and deck and six (6) strengthening of unstable wells jobs all of which relates to Petrotrin, Trinmar Operation’s forward drilling program and heavily involved the utilization of various marine vessels and facilities we have available.

K.G.C. Company is also involved in ship building and repairs in Trinidad and Tobago.

To date, our company has been involved in the construction of several Aluminum Hull Passenger / Multi-purpose vessels of which

some units were sold to companies operating in the offshore Oil and Gas in the Gulf of Mexico and Trinidad and Tobago and we have also performed repairs on various tugs boats and barges.

Being a “turn key” company has made K.G.C. Company Limited exceptional in the execution of all our projects both locally and regionally as our operations are governed by safety, quality and efficiency of which our esteemed clients continuously realize the cost effectiveness of their projects.

E. info@kgccoltd.com www.kgccoltd.com

BE Americas | 135

SPECIAL focus:

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ILLUMINAT We are in the Business of Information, Communications and Technology (ICT), by providing products, services and solutions that help to effectively manage, develop and troubleshoot businesses. As a member of the Neal and Massy Group of Companies, one of the largest conglomerates in the Caribbean, Illuminat (Trinidad & Tobago) Limited (ILLUMINAT) and its founding companies have pioneered the field of Information Technology and Communications in the region, for almost five decades. We design, implement and maintain systems that allow our customers to exploit technology and achieve quantifiable improvement in business efficiency.

Our vision, expertise and formidable network of global partners, both empower and enable

our clients to combine the essentials of operational effectiveness with the information and agility required for strategic positioning in a dynamic environment. Today, ILLUMINAT is helping more Governments and Businesses in the region to become information-driven, than any other IT company. Driven by passion and laced with expertise, we provide the support that large customers like Petrotrin need and we are proud to count ourselves as one of their suppliers. We endeavour to continue providing them and all our customers with the type of excellent service and products for which we have become widely known.

In the world of Technology Expertise, We are ICT. E. marketing@illuminatnm.com

BE WEEKLY| 137 |2 BE Americas

Quality & Safety First

• Civil, Mechanical & Electrical Construction for the Energy Sector • Refinery Plant Maintenance & Fitting • Pipelining: Steel, PVC and HDPE Design & Construction • Housing Design and Construction • Oil & Gas Field Operations: Drilling, Production and Well Abandonment • Environmental Engineering: Produced Water Treatment, Bioremediation, Oil Spill Response Equipment

Ph: (868) 647 4484, 357 0904 Fax: (868) 647 4416 e-mail: tnrcoltd@yahoo.com www.tnrcoltd.com

SPECIAL focus:

Petrotrin: thePETROTRIN business

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T N RAMNAUTH T.N. RAMNAUTH & COMPANY LIMITED is a private limited liability company founded in 1980. The company was born out of the heartland of petroleum drilling, production and refining activities in Trinidad and Tobago. T. N. Ramnauth has offerings to the major oil, gas, petrochemical and utilities sectors by providing technical and construction services in a broad spectrum of Civil, Mechanical, Electrical and Engineering.

We are continuously upgrading our systems and procedures to deal with the rapid changes taking place in technology and engineering.

Quality, Safety and mitigating Environmental impacts are imbedded in all our work plans.

To achieve this, we provide training and

development interventions for our personnel in operational procedures. We also embrace appropriate tools and equipment to ensure construction capabilities.

Our Site Operations are supported by our workshop facilities located at Teemul Trace, Clarke Road, Penal. We have three (3) covered buildings with workshop space of 56,000 sq feet. In addition, we have 70,000 sq feet of uncovered storage yard, fenced and secured. Our main offices provide 8600 sq feet of modern office accommodations.

E. tnrcoltd@yahoo.com www.tnrcoltd.com

BE WEEKLY| 139 |2 BE Americas

SPECIAL focus:

Petrotrin: thePETROTRIN business

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SCHLUMBERGER IN TRINIDAD The story of Schlumberger in Trinidad & Tobago is a long one. In fact it is 80 years old this year.

Trinidad’s characteristic geological complexity played a significant role in the establishment of well-logging operations in Trinidad, the official debut of which was made on 19th July 1932 in the Palo Seco No. 126 well for British Controlled Oilfields. After several years of deliberation and negotiation, the Schlumberger brothers were permitted to try their ‘Boîte Magique’ to help ease the task of finding and quantifying potential hydrocarbon reservoirs. In the following year, Schlumberger set up permanently and during the Nazi occupation of France, the T&T government invited Schlumberger to move its overseas headquarters to offices in San Fernando in 1940, which it did, albeit on a temporary basis.

Since those early pioneering days,

Schlumberger has enjoyed a long and successful relationship with all of the many predecessor companies that currently comprise the Petrotrin we know today.

Presently, Schlumberger through its own growth over the years provides a full range of services and solutions delivered by a skilled and predominately local workforce of some 350 persons to help Petrotrin meet their goals.

As part of this symbiotic relationship, Petrotrin has provided a fertile training ground allowing “Trinbagonian” employees to gain valuable experience which many have taken abroad working as expatriates in other countries.

As we proudly celebrate 80 years here in country, we remain committed to further fostering our relationship with Petrotrin and indeed to the people of Trinidad and Tobago for many decades to come. www.slb.com

BE WEEKLY| |1412 BE Americas

THEO RICHARDS GENERAL CONTRACTOR LIMITED Petrotrin has become our main client through the years beginning with my deceased father Stephen Richards who was a Sole Trader and at his passing; I had decided to register a limited Liability company in 1998 in the name of Theo Richards General Contractors Limited.

Working at Petrotrin and providing the satisfactory Services, that they required has given us a competitive advantage in the energy service sector and we have been extending our services to other Oil and Gas companies in Trinidad and Tobago.

We continue to foster a working relationship with Petrotrin for their company success and for our company’s advancement.

I want to thank Petrotrin for the opportunity to tender for jobs as a registered company, for the moral support given by persons through lectures and other meetings.

May God continue to Bless Petrotrin and Theo Richards General Contractors Limited.

E. itor1@yahoo.com

Theo Richards General Contractor Limited Theo Richards General Contractors Limited is a Service type company providing Services to our main client Petrotrin for over 35 years.

We provide the following services to Petrotrin Point-a-Pierre Refinery Area, Palo Seco fields and Petrotrin Trinmar Operations and other areas: • Welding and Fabrication • Civil Works • Building Construction and Maintenance • Hydro blasting and Painting • Pipefitting, Grass cutting and other Related Services Email: Itor1@yahoo.com Telephone: (868) 648-0596

SPECIAL focus:

Petrotrin: the business

Tank farm in harmony with the landscape

If Petrotrin has a physical hub it is the which Petrotrin sells in Trinidad, a further Pointe-à-Pierre refinery, or rather complex 30 percent to the Caribbean market and the because the refinery is just one part of it. remaining half internationally. However the Pointe-à-Pierre is Petrotrin city, built for market is constantly changing and Petrotrin and populated by the company’s employees is now in the final stages of a further massive and incorporating a hospital, extensive staff upgrade costing $1.2 billion.

The Clean Fuel Upgrade is designed to facilities and even a wildlife sanctuary. It is close to the island’s second city San Fernando. meet the stringent specifications now in The refinery itself was place internationally, says brought to a high standard in Ramdath: “We had to change 2000 following a $355 million our production processes to investment programme, has get better, cleaner fuels that been continuously upgraded meet new environmental since then, and is currently targets.” A key component the source of downstream of the Clean Fuels Upgrade, Onshore wells in Trinidad the Gasoline Optimization products, 20 percent of

4,000

BE Americas | 143

Our construction services performs many projects in the energy area but our skill and experience does not limit us there for we also cater to the commercial market as well. Trinidad is seeing a lot of construction activity in both the private and public sector and we are well poised to be a major player in the many large projects that are available.

Our manufacturing company specialises in steel products supplying the many hardwares across the country.

With a large and modern manufacturing facility, KPâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Manufacturing makes high quality items that compete with the imported goods and are truly world class.

The South-M Hardware serves the Barrackpore community and environs.

South-M Construction Services Ltd. 159 Rochard Douglas Rd | Barrackpore | Trinidad W.I. Phone 868-299-0032/34/35 | Fax 868-654-2666 | www.southmgroup.com

SPECIAL focus:

Petrotrin: the business

Program (GOP) is one of SOUTH-M CONSTRUCTION SERVICES LIMITED (SMCSL) several strategic initiatives With headquarters in Barrackpore and a 24 year history, being implemented to ensure SMCSL is an active participant and contributor to the local Petrotrin’s survival in the energy sector. We have partnered with major oil and gas face of changing market leaders including Petrotrin and our goal is to exceed the demands. The project was customer expectations of every client. embarked upon in response Our employees are distinguished by their functional and technical expertise combined with their hands-on to challenges facing the experience. Our core activities include New Pipeline refinery and to improve Construction, Welding, Fabricating, Horizontal Directional overall profitability and Drilling, Sandblasting, Painting and Tank Foundation competitiveness through Construction. the replacement of ageing SMCSL with its extensive industry knowledge is the ideal equipment, improved plant choice for the execution and delivery of your project. reliability and integrity. www.southmgroup.com It’s important, he says, for the company to shift its emphasis from lower value, high volume products such as fuel oil to higher margin products like aviation fuel and low-sulphur diesel. “Our ultra low sulphur diesel (ULSD) plant, will come on stream at the end of this year, and it will give us nice clean low sulphur diesel that meets the stringent new diesel quality specifications covering sulphur and aromatics content. By the end of this year we will be well prepared for getting into any market.”

The object of the exercise is to get a better

“By the end of this year we will be well prepared for getting into any market”

The Continuous Catalytic Regeneration (CCR) unit

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SPECIAL focus:

Petrotrin: the business

return on the products, a higher margin and a chance Concepts and Services is a leading technical services to be competitive in high spec company, providing dedicated and focused services markets, he stresses. The to industry in Trinidad and Tobago and the Caribbean refinery upgrade addresses region. Our specializations are Project and Construction what he calls the top-of-theManagement, Planning and Scheduling Services, IT barrel processes, however Consultancy, Laser Scanning, Turnkey Contracting - E&I, Civil, Mechanical and Flow Control Products. that’s only half the story, Petrotrin is a key client with personnel who demand Hemraj Ramdath continues. reliable, cost-effective solutions while maintaining quality The company sells a great and world class health and safety practices. deal of fuel oil, some 50,000 The challenge for Concepts and Services is to exceed bpd, and to get that amount Petrotrin’s requirements. Petrotrin’s rigorous standards out into the market means have ensured our continuous improvement. that some of the time it is www.conceptsandservices.com realising less than the crude price. That is clearly unsustainable, he emphasises: “We are now also looking at a bottom-of-the-barrel solution – the heavy end if you like – to see how we can better utilise that fuel oil and convert it into higher value product. This will mean further investment of up to $2 billion over five to six years but once we have finished that the entire plant will be a world class facility and tailor made to meet our goals.”

The demand for fuel oil will still have to be met, but it will form a smaller proportion of Petrotrin’s output, he predicts.

Another opportunity that excites him is the Trinidad government’s $2.5 billion highway

Concepts and Services

$1.2 billion Investment in current refinery upgrade Onshore well drilling in Fyzabad

BE Americas | 147

SPECIAL focus:

Petrotrin: the business

“We must keep asking, where are the opportunities for us to increase our business?” project, which provides the opportunity to upgrade the bitumen plant at Pointe-à-Pierre, not just to supply this project but to sell to the rest of the islands.

Beyond its own shores, Petrotrin is looking to expand its bunkering business, supplying fuel oil to the shipping industry. “We do about 25 percent of the bunker of all the ships passing through Trinidad but we believe we could do far better. We are limited right now

Overlooking the water treatment plant

because we have just the one vessel so we are looking at acquiring another tanker or a larger vessel to do some bunkering outside of Trinidad.” Active discussions are taking place, he reveals, Cudjoe Construction and with companies based in Industrial Services Limited (CCISL) Cudjoe Construction and Industrial Services Limited (CCISL) Panama to set up facilities is an Industrial Maintenance firm based in Trinidad and there and take advantage of Tobago. Incorporated in 1977, CCISL continues to supply inthe Panama Canal expansion process and turnaround services to a number of the nation’s that is taking place. wide and varied petrochemical service suppliers. Given this, This makes sense despite the company has developed various competencies in the what he said about reducing maintenance and rehabilitation of refinery and process plant the overall proportion of equipment. Specialties include, but are not limited to: • Heat Exchangers: Testing, Extraction, Tube Expansion, fuel oil sold. “The bottom Tube Renewal line is that we are now • Vessels: Grit Blasting, Coating open for business. We must • Heaters/Boilers: Refractory Works, Tube Renewal and Testing keep asking, where are the • Rotating/Reciprocating Equipment: Alignment, Base opportunities for us to go out Preparation, Vibration Analysis and increase our business?

• Columns: Tray Removal/Repair Traditionally we have kept www.cudjoeconstruction.com to the role of a manufacturer,

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A

C U T

A B O V E

T H E

R E S T

Inland and Offshore Contractors Ltd. is a diversified Transportation and Service Company.

Today the Business is structured into Three (3) Divisions, the Marine Services Division providing Transport and Towing Services to Offshore Installations, the Water Blasting/Pumping Division, a versatile Water Jetting application for Commercial, Municipal, Industrial and Marine applications and last but not least the Trucking Division offers a wide range of Lifting and Transporting of Cargo services.

Telephone: 868 677 2093 | Email: iocl@tstt.net.tt www.iocltt.com

DUMORE ENTERPRISES LIMITED Dumore Enterprises Ltd. is the largest gasket and bolt supplier in Trinidad and

Tobago, committed to quality and service. Our services division provides heavy equipment transport services, crane, vehicle leasing, equipment rental and yard storage facilities.

We are strategically located to provide customers with access to our services and the widest selection of gasket materials and fastener stock ready for immediate delivery.

Our locations feature leading technology equipment and a manufacturing facility capable of producing engineered products to custom specifications serving the refining, chemical, power generation and distribution, petrochemical (upstream and downstream), food processing, water and pulp and paper industries.

Our business model offers direct interface with the end user and has an active role in assisting customers with personalized local service. This localized personal service allows Dumore the opportunity to be a part of the problem solving and decision making process and contribute to the customers’ success.

O i l f i e l d & I n d u s t r i a l S u p p l i e s | V e h i cl e R e n t a l s | Tr a n s p o r t a t i o n | H e a v y E q u i p m e n t | E q u i p m e n t R e p a i r

“Working together, delivering superior service to our customers.”

Contact us today to find out how Dumore Enterprises can serve you. www.dumore-enterprises.net

SPECIAL focus:

Petrotrin: the business

exploring, refining and Inland & Offshore Contractors Ltd selling to brokers in the Inland & Offshore Contractors Ltd have been supporting market. I think we are ready Petrotrin’s operations for the past twelve years supplying to take a step further down Offshore and Land Transportation, Hydro-blasting and the value chain. Panama is Tubular Maintenance services. Currently we supply one opportunity because the twenty marine vessels ranging from 50 to 150 feet market is huge, not only for providing transport, emergency response services and drilling support. We have also provided tubular bunkering but also for other maintenance using our water-blasting units. In addition products as well. Bunkers we supply articulated boom cranes ranging from six to allow us to enter the market twenty ton lifting capacity, tractor trucks, forty and fortyand provide a base to expand five foot trailers and mobile cranes. Our company stands into the other opportunities committed to providing an exemplary service as described that may exist, and there in our motto, ‘A cut above the rest’. are plenty of these including www.iocltt.com gasoline and aviation fuel, which we already produce.”

All of this activity represents a large-scale rationalisation, he says finally: it is not a bid to actually increase the size of the organisation or the throughput. It is unlikely the capacity of the refinery will be much increased, he suggests. Upgrading of its two crude distillation units (CDUs) might result in an extra ten percent being squeezed out but the primary goal is to produce, as far as possible from local crude, a consistent 168,000 bpd of high end product – product that meets international standards, can be taken into any market, at margins that contribute more Workers in action strongly to Petrotrin’s bottom line.

“Bunkers allow us to enter the market and provide a base to expand into the other opportunities that may exist” BE Americas | 151

SPECIAL focus:

People first at Petrotrin

Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s too easy f with good re people as the

written by: J research by

for a small country esources to lose its best e industry develops

John O’Hanlon y: Robert Hodgson

Petrotrin: the people

B

ecause Petrotrin is government owned it has to do what is set down in its mandate. At the top of its agenda is to maximise Trinidad & Tobago’s resources of gas and oil, and as far as possible reduce the country’s dependence on imported hydrocarbons. Petrotrin is after all an important part of the Trinidad and Tobago economy. The country is the leading Caribbean producer of oil and gas, and is heavily dependent upon these resources.

However Petrotrin has another mandate: to develop the nation’s skills and its culture, and this secondary goal is as close as the first to the heart of its VP of Strategy and Business Development Hemraj Ramdath. The company’s first responsibility, he believes, is to the people of Trinidad and Tobago, many of whom are employees of Petrotrin or otherwise dependent on it. All in all, he estimates, 20,000 Trinbagonians may fall under this umbrella, and in addition there are many fenceline communities that fall under the company’s influence. The term fenceline communities is normally associated with negative impacts in the proximity of industrial operations such as exposure to hazardous emissions, but Petrotrin sets a much more positive example, and Ramdath is determined that will continue.

One thing that concerns him is the brain drain out of Trinidad. “We have been a good training ground for many of the multinationals,” he points out ruefully.

Trinidad has plenty of oil industry heritage to draw on, having been formed from a process of nationalisation culminating in 1993 with

BE Americas | 153

SUPERIOR SERVICE, EXCELLENT QUALITY, ON TIME PERFORMANCE

Vincent Rampersad & Sons Ltd.

Is a contracting company that is privately own and run by family, Our company has been very reliable and specialize when it comes to Tank Cleaning, Transportation of Chemicals and any hazardous Liquid and hazardous solid Substances, Cleaning of Oil Spills, Heater Treater, Oil Savers and API Pits, rentals of both industrial and heavy equipment and has been trusted by Petrotrin for over 35years with an excellent relationship.

Vincent Rampersad and Sons provide a wide range of services such and specialize in Landscaping, Civil Engineering and Works, Cranes Rentals, Industrial Painting, Reinforce Concrete, Earthworks, Plant Fitting, Pipe Fitting, Tanks - Isolate Venting and Cleaning inclusive of Oil pit and Barges, High Pressure Water Blasting, Hauled Services of Hazardous and Non - Hazardous both Liquid and Solid Waste, Oil Recovery Facilities ,Waste Management Facilities, General Trucking Services inclusive of Tankers, Mobile Air Compressor rental, Pump Rental, Sandblasting Service, Heavy Construction Equipment rentals, Man Lift Rental, Office Containers Rentals, General Equipment rentals, Tank Building and Repairs, Suppliers of Labourers Skills and Un-skills.

Vincent Rampersad & Sons Ltd has over 35 years experience in the following industries CONSTRUCTION, OIL AND GAS, TRANSPORTATION, EQUIPMENT RENTAL, ENEGRY SECTOR, and ENGINEERING SECTOR Vincent Rampersad & Sons Ltd has a high standard for Health, Safety and Environment policy in place and also has a highly qualified list of Operators and dedicated staff.

Vincent Rampersad & Sons Ltd. has a 24 hour stand by policy and can respond to any job immediately.

Telephone: 868-648-2643/868-297-8168 Fax: 868-648-3946 Email: administration@vrs-tt.com

LAND & MARINE

CONTRACTING SERVICES

Seen

We specialise in: Onshore & Offshore work • Including Diving & Underwater Services • Barge Rentals • Welding & Fabrication Civil Works • Equipment Rental & Mechanical Works

#95 Alta Garcia Trace, San Francique Rd., Penal

Telephone: 1 868 647 1885, 338 4009, 488 1949, 336 7935, 298 3315

Contact us today and put your company in the spotlight!

vincent@bus-ex.com

Petrotrin: the people

SPECIAL focus:

ICT training room

the merger of the state owned downstream though they may have excellent theoretical and upstream oil companies Trintoc and knowledge, lack the practical skills and Trinopec, themselves created from assets of experience they need. To fill the gap and try to retain some of the best talent Petrotrin companies like Shell, Texaco and BP. These companies ran apprenticeship intends to restart apprenticeships and increase on-the-job training, schemes that worked like which is already available to an in-house pipeline of expertise to the refining and all employees operational sections of the Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s an assault on multiple business. But those schemes fronts to address not only the were discontinued, leaving problems of people gaining the company to fill its junior experience in Trinidad only Number of Petrotrin employees management posts with to move abroad to take up university graduates who, posts in an industry that is

5,000

BE Americas | 155

SPECIAL focus:

â&#x20AC;&#x153;We have to recognise that some people are better at one thing, some another, and create a career path for each individualâ&#x20AC;?

A fire drill during HSE week

156 | BE Americas

Petrotrin: the people hungry for talent but also the loss of experience caused by the company’s seniorityheavy workforce. “We have so many people retiring with 25 up to 40 years’ service behind them. That makes it a priority to do better forward planning to prepare the company for the next ten to 15 years.”

Petrotrin is seen as a preferred place of employment, with excellent benefits for employees, a chance to learn and job security. However the culture of the company and the ethos of a workforce that is strongly unionised have perhaps applied a brake to modernisation, Ramdath fears. It is good to be fair and even handed, but a way needs to be found, he believes, to identify people who are particularly gifted, enthusiastic or experienced, incentivise them and offer them a fast track to promotion. The traditional route to the top has been through a sequential process of promotion. This is a luxury the country and the company can no longer afford if the brightest and best are to be retained in the industry and given a reason to stay in Trinidad and Tobago – and if they have already left, to return. “If we want to move to the future we have to recognise that some people are better at one thing, some another. Create a career path for each individual. In that way we will be better able to serve our people as well as the business

The Petrotrin Learning Centre

- and ultimately the country and its future.

That is our goal after all!”

And though it’s a long time since the legacy companies that were united well before Petrotrin came into being the legacy of their different cultures continues to be felt within the company. Take the Trinmar division, incorporated into Petrotrin in 2000.

Trinmar is necessarily separate, covering all the offshore operations. Petrotin’s offshore licences have just been renewed on the back of a commitment to increase production from the Soldado fields to the south of Trinidad by more than a third, from 21,000 bpd to 35,000.

There had been a decline in production in the Trinmar fields during the period 2005 to 2010, but the recent discovery at Cluster 6 together with investment in an aggressive

BE Americas | 157

C E R L

C E R L

C E N T R A L E Q U I PM E N T R E N TA L S L I M I T E D Founded over fifty years ago, Central Equipment Rentals Limited (CERL) has built a renowned reputation for bespoke service, solutions and quality in the service industry in Trinidad and Tobago. Our services are provided to various industries which encompass the energy, manufacturing, hospitality, commercial and retail in both public and private sectors. CERL services include but are not limited to: • Automotive Rentals • Automotive Fleet Leasing • Garbage/ Waste handling Solutions to Collect, Contain & Transport • Transportation of Water & Road Wetting • Equipment Rentals • Vegetation Control • Courier and Chauffeur Services • Road / Construction Sweepers & Litter vacuums • General Transport Our personnel are highly motivated professionals who have the experience, knowledge and dedication to complete jobs with efficiency. All of our services are accomplished with our in house personnel and equipment thus maintaining quality and control of the service provided. Through our expertise, personnel and investment we promote, maintain and deliver quality services and solutions. We have a practiced Healthy, Safety and Environment Policy in the organization and became Safe to Work (STOW TT) certified in September 2012.

Tel: 868-636-2535, 9118 Fax: 868 636 2540 E-mail: info@centralequipmentrentals.com

Petrotrin: the people

SPECIAL focus:

Training room at the Learning Centre

drilling programme at to retain a somewhat Trinmar has helped to renew insular culture, not free the Government’s confidence of the consciousness that in the Company’s operations. it contributes the lion’s In 2012, Petrotrin engaged share of crude. Its payroll in a $109 million drilling system is even located on programme to drill 21 wells a separate platform – but Invested in a drilling in the Trinmar acreage. “We that is changing. “We have programme at the are planning a lot of new been making great efforts Trinmar acreage wells and the reactivation to integrate Trinmar more closely, with common logos, of old ones and looking at reactivating up to 60 wells within the next common vision, common IT platforms and financial year.” common branding,” comments Ramdath.

Petrotrin’s offshore production is twice However this is more than just a matter as much as that realised from land wells. of changing the systems within Petrotrin.

Because of this and because it is operating at The influence of the majors is still felt in the some distance from the Refinery Operations fenceline communities that the company at Pointe-à-Pierre, Trinmar has been able touches – up to 70 of them across the

$109

Million

BE Americas | 159

27, Gulf View Villas | La Romain, Trinidad, WI. Phones: 1-868-658-0466; 1-868-354-9577 | E-mail: admin@lmcsltd.com

LMCS Limited provides project management, engineering design, procurement and construction services (inclusive of diving-related underwater services and marine logistics support) to the Trinidad and Tobago State Oil Company, Petrotrin, and other oil and gas, petrochemical, government and private sector industries in Trinidad and Tobago as well as in the wider Caribbean region. LMCS Ltd owns a wide range of marine/heavy equipment inclusive of crane barges, offshore supply vessel, crew boats, excavators, tractors, piling hammers and crawler cranes.

LMCS Limited has expanded its range of services and is now the Authorised Distributor of Earth ReClaim™ and Sea Reclaim™ products for the immediate and effective reclamation of oil/petroleum product spills on hard surfaces or on water. Earth ReClaim™ and Sea Reclaim™ products are composed of natural and modified-natural scoriaceous nanomaterial found in the earth. The products are green, environmentally friendly, non-polluting, non-toxic and GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe), and are recoverable and recyclable.

LMCS Limited is supported by our strategic partners to handle integrated construction and/or technology projects.

Shacon Limited • Upscale resort development projects • Upscale executive housing projects • Commercial/Public Sector Buildings

SOFTWARE AND SOLUTIONS LTD • Employee Administration Products • Easipay 2000 Payroll System • Easitrac 2000 HR Management System • Jantek Automated Time Recorder Systems • Biometric and/or Card Access Control Devices • Software Development • Systems Integration Services • Payroll Outsourcing Services • Software Sourcing and Acquisition

Phone: 1-868-620-4382 Phone/Fax: 1-868-665-8502 E-Mail: shacon@tstt.net.tt www.tobagoresortsonline.com

95, Edinburgh Village | Chaguanas, Trinidad, WI Phone: 1-868-671-7124 E-mail: sharada@softwareandsolutions.net www.softwareandsolutions.net

SPECIAL focus:

Petrotrin: the people

LMCS LIMITED LMCS Limited provides project management, engineering design, procurement and construction services (inclusive of diving-related underwater services and marine logistics support) to the Trinidad and Tobago oil and gas, petrochemical, government and private sector industries in Trinidad and Tobago as well as in the wider Caribbean region.

LMCS Limited has developed a unique relationship with Petroleum Company of Trinidad and Tobago Limited over the past sixteen (16) years in the areas of marine construction and maintenance (new-builds, re-builds and repairs). LMCS Limited has provided services on Petrotrin’s facilities including subsea and surface pipelines, subsea steel and concrete piles, berths, jetties and other marine infrastructure.

LMCS Limited offers a comprehensive package of services designed to allow our Clients to work with us to create a solution/ project that LMCS Limited can carry forward to successful completion.

LMCS Limited possesses the competitive advantage of having qualified and experienced human resources who continually develop and implement innovative, creative, cost effective and efficient solutions in response to the unique challenges faced by its Clients, and delivering on its objectives under difficult circumstances.

LMCS Limited owns a wide range of marine/heavy equipment inclusive of crane barges, offshore supply vessel, crew boats, excavators, tractors, piling hammers and

crawler cranes. LMCS Limited has grown sufficiently to supplement its primary target market segment of marine-based works with land-based engineering and construction projects.

Additionally, LMCS Limited has expanded its range of services and is now the Authorised Distributor of Earth ReClaim™ and Sea Reclaim™ products for the immediate and effective reclamation of oil/petroleum product spills on hard surfaces or in water.

Earth ReClaim™ and Sea Reclaim™ products are composed of natural and modifiednatural scoriaceous nano-material found in the earth. The products are green, environmentally friendly, non-polluting, non-toxic and GRAS (Generally Regarded As Safe), and are recoverable and recyclable.

E. admin@lmcsltd.com

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Our Services: • Civil/Structural Design and Consultancy • Project Management • Process Engineering/ Piping Design • General Construction Management Services

Tel: 1-868-222-2511 Email: jade.brown@browncoengineering.com www.browncoengineering.com

TESCO-Thomas Electrical Sales Corp is extremely proud to be

TESCO-Thomas Electrical Sales Corp 8603 South Dixie Highway, Suite 400 Miami, FL. 33143 Tel: (305) 740-0005 | Fax: (305) 740-0006 E-mail: tesco@tescopower.com

celebrating 20 years of providing the Best World Class Engineered Solutions for all our valued customers electrical requirements. From the Power Plant – to – the Residential Meter and beyond, TESCO’s experience, knowledge, innovative concepts and most importantly the strong desire to supply the absolute best service to our customers is included in every opportunity TESCO pursues.

TESCO is especially proud to have had the opportunity and pleasure to support our friends at PETROTRIN over the years with their excellent efforts to maintain and expand their leading role in the development of the energy sector in Trinidad and Tobago.

TESCO sincerely thanks and congratulates PETROTRIN as we move forward together to an exciting future.

SPECIAL focus:

Petrotrin: the people

southern part of the island.

“We have to be sensitive Brown Company Engineering Limited (Brown Co.) is an because we established these engineering/consultancy firm located in Trinidad West Indies facilities maybe 60 years ago.

(W.I). We are strategically located in one of the most thriving People have encroached on Caribbean economies in terms of oil and gas, and other the facilities with housing, energy industries. Our team possesses vast experience in recreational facilities and design and project management of medium to large scale marine/offshore projects. Our expertise covers both greeneven schools. So we have to field and brown-field offshore structural projects. Our be more careful now in how services include Civil/Structural Design and Consultancy, we engage our stakeholders.”

Project Management, Process Engineering/Piping Design and One benefit that is a model General Construction Management Services. of good practice is seen in www.browncoengineering.com Petrotrin’s medical facilities.

It may seem odd for a company to have a parallel medical system to the national health service, however Trinidad and Tobago operates under a two-tier health care system, in which private and public health care facilities work alongside one another. “40 or 50 years ago when Texaco was operating here, the hospital system was not as improved as it is today,” explains Ramdath.

“It could not respond to major emergencies like burns that might happen in the refinery and other industry-specific hazards. So a 46-bed hospital was set up on our site.

Additionally we have seven other medical centres around the country. The refinery is located at Pointe-à-Pierre but all the outside

Brown Company Engineering Limited

30,000 People under Petrotrin’s healthcare umbrella Staff at Agustus Long Hospital

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SPECIAL focus:

Petrotrin: the people

development work is in the Damus southern part of the country Damus’ involvement with Petrotrin goes back to the about 200 km away from the early days of our company history, in the 1970s when we hospital. So, Petrotrin has rendered our services on and off-shore to the region’s major set up these small medical oil companies like Amoco, Texaco, Trintoc, Trinidad Tesoro centres or clinics that can and Trinmar what is today called Petrotrin. treat most casualties and In 1977 Damus designed, fabricated and erected two of the first 500kbbl tanks to be built locally. stabilise them before moving Today we continue to pride ourselves in partnering with to the Augustus Long hospital Petrotrin as a major mechanical contractor on some of at Pointe-à-Pierre, close to the largest projects of the Gasoline Optimization Program our headquarters.”

(GOP) such as: The healthcare covers • The 28,000 bpd (CCR) Continuous Catalytic Reforming Petrotrin’s 5,000 employees • The 300.(STPD) sulphuric acid regeneration plant and their dependents, making • The 10,000 bpd Alkylation unit • The EPC of 9 tanks with 462,300bbl capacity for a total of up to 15,000 in various products all, to which must be added • B

rownfield EPC services; replacement of Tank 181 upward of a further 15,000 (300kbbl) bottom and foundation using the jackup system retirees and their families www.damusgroup.com also covered by the scheme as well as employees of companies on the growing industrial estate at Pointe-à-Pierre. These people’s needs are similar because they are mainly working in related industries such as chemicals, methanol production or fertilisers. “Providing this level of healthcare at subsidised costs to the employee is a major ongoing cost to the

“Providing healthcare is one reason for petrotrin’s status as a preferred employer”

The new operating theatre

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Engineering Excellence

in Trinidad and Tobago Plant Services: Insulation and Refractory Blasting and Coatings Valve Repairs Welding and Fabrication

Energy Solutions: Renewable Energy ESCO CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) Consultancy

Construction Services: Turnarounds

Specialised Services: Compression Generation Electrical & Instrumentation Automation Pumping Solutions Predictive Maintenance Inspection & Testing

TOSL provides leading technical and quality related services and products to develop, manage, engineer, build, and operate to the requirements of our customers in the areas of Engineering Services, Products and Equipment.

TOSL ENGINEERING LIMITED 8-10 Maharaj Avenue Marabella Trinidad, West Indies Voice: (868)299-0360 Fax: (868) 653-5404 Email: sales@tosl.com Web: www.tosl.com

SPECIAL focus:

Petrotrin: the people

TOSL ENGINEERING LIMITED EXPLORES NEW HORIZONS of being a best in class high-quality and cost-effective alternative ensuring environmentally sustainable development.

In 2012, TOSL embarked upon an initiative to expand its operational capabilities to better serve the needs of the industrial sector both at the local and regional levels.

To this end we assessed and enhanced our operational model, invested in capital infrastructure, expanded our team to include highly accomplished and experienced project professionals, and pursued strategic partnerships with international principals for the purpose of positioning ourselves to TOSL Engineering support major brownfield maintenance and Limited (TOSL) has capital projects within an EPC type model. been serving the TOSL registered the countryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s first ever Trinidad and Tobago successful Clean Development Mechanism energy sector successfully for over 30 years in the areas of (CDM) project with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change Engineering, Specialized Equipment Supply (UNFCCC) for its client, The Petroleum and Industrial Services. TOSL comprises Company of Trinidad & Tobago (Petrotrin). of ten (10) operating divisions providing The CDM project involves the capture and services including but not limited to Project sale of fugitive gas emissions vented from Management, Mechanical Construction & on-shore oilfields in Southern Trinidad.

Maintenance, Electrical Instrumentation The projectâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s capital improvement installs and Automation, Scaffolding, Refractory, new gas gathering and pre-processing Insulation, Blasting and Coating, Reliability infrastructure. The CDM project is eligible Services, Inspection, AutoCAD and Design for carbon credit funding as a result of its Engineering. Our unique value is thereby validated UNFCCC registration. The CDM derived from our diversity and leveraged program has a 28 year life for oil and gas in part by the wealth of knowledge and producers both locally and internationally experience of our management and and positions both Petrotrin and TOSL to workforce working in the Upstream, take advantage of this opportunity.

Midstream and Downstream Sectors of the Energy Industry in Trinidad & Tobago. Our E. sales@tosl.com vision is to continue providing exceptional www.tosl.com services to our clients with the objective

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Show the world what your company has to offer with our tailored packages

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SPECIAL focus:

Petrotrin: the people

Agustus Long Hospital

“Trinidad and Tobago, it transpires, is a country crammed with talent, but with a huge diaspora that gives its people international connections” company, but worth it because I think it is one reason for Petrotrin’s status as a preferred employer,” he adds. Other reasons might be the incentives to staff in terms of insurance, pensions, housing subsidies, mortgage subsidies and the like.

Trinidad and Tobago, it transpires, is a country crammed with talent, but with a huge diaspora that gives its people international

connections. For historic and geographic reasons these connections developed strongly with USA and the UK: the O&G industry has been another channel for people to move away. But from now if Hemraj Ramdath has his way career development in the home industry will be a realistic option while senior and experienced people will have a better reason for coming back.

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SPECIAL focus:

Energy on the sid

It is hard for a business based on hydrocarbon extraction to claim green credentials â&#x20AC;&#x201C; or is it? Petrotrin does so muc and wildlife of the Caribbean that the stereotype should b

written by: John Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hanlon research by: Robert Hodgson This is a caption this is a caption

Petrotrin: Sustainability

de of life P

and beneficiation ch for the people be rethought

etrotrinâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s VP of Strategy and Business Development Hemraj Ramdath is keen on advancing the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s sustainability policy and proud of the companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s achievements so far. The Trinidad government has a policy to replace gasoline and diesel with compressed natural gas (GNG) and supporting that with tax incentives. Petrotrin is right behind that policy, and currently converting on a trial basis around 55 of its vehicles, with plans to convert its entire fleet, and encouraging its employees to do the same with their private vehicles. It was

BE Americas | 171

Shandong Kerui Petroleum Equipment Co., Ltd. Located in Shengli Oilfield, Dongying,- the second largest oilfield in China, Shandong Kerui Petroleum Equipment Co., Ltd. comprises a comprehensive and multinational petroleum industrial group, specializing in the Research, Development & Manufacture of upstream Oil & Gas Equipment.

With more than 4,000 employees serving in 30 countries worldwide, our company is dedicated to developing international markets and meeting our client’s demands. Some of Kerui’s branch offices include Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, Trinidad & Tobago, Peru, Argentina, Suriname, Cuba, United States, Canada, Syria, Turkmenistan, India etc.

As a leader in the Oilfield Equipment Industry, Kerui’s products are certified to meet the highest standards including: API, HSE, GOST, DNV, IADC and ISO9001:2000 standards and are of the best quality. We are devoted to being a comprehensive solution provider of drilling equipment and engineering services, and have also established a high-quality after-sales service network which has been set up in more than 30 countries globally to deliver a diversified portfolio to our customers.

Our work ethic and dedication to our clients needs is strongly evinced by our company motto, “Better Service, Higher Quality” Our Equipment Line includes: • Land drilling rigs • Truck-mounted drilling rigs • Workover rigs • Drilling rig parts and tools • Oil production Machinery equipmentPumping Units, Oil Well Pump, Steam Injection Boiler, Wellhead Assembly etc • Oil field Piping Systems –Tubing , Casing, Pipeline, Drill Pipe, Collars, Fittings, Sucker Rods, Sucker Pumps etc • Oil field Special Purpose Equipment – Nitrogen Generation Units, Natural Gas Compressors etc • Offshore Drilling Platform Engineering and technical service • Industrial chemicals • Drilling and Workover Services Tel: (868) 372-2266 / (868)477-4960 / (868) 366-5532 E-mail: amla@keruigroup.com or wuxm@keruigroup.com

www.keruigroup.com

SPECIAL focus:

Petrotrin: Sustainability

not easy: “We have had some Kerui group challenges in getting vehicles With more than 4,000 employees serving in over 30 that are OEM approved for countries worldwide, Shandong Kerui Petroleum Equipment CNG conversion, and another Co. Ltd, established in 2001, is a pioneer in Manufacture, limiting factor is the lack of R&D of Oilfield & Natural Gas Equipment & Services.

CNG filling points.

Kerui’s branch offices include Venezuela, Brazil, Colombia, The CNG programme is just Trinidad & Tobago, Suriname, Cuba, United States, Canada etc. Our product lines span from Drilling Rigs, Nitrogen one of a number of projects Generation Units, Natural Gas Compressors, Steam Injection that excite him. “Another Boilers, Tubulars etc. to Engineering & After Sales Services. major programme we have As a registered vendor of Petrotrin, we provide not only the just done is a UN clean highest quality products & service but also the advantage development mechanisms of customization of equipment whilst keeping quality, cost (CDM) project linked to the effectiveness and efficiency at the forefront of every order.

Kyoto Protocol on climate www.keruigroup.com change. The company is spending around $25 million on capturing, scrubbing and selling to the grid all the gas currently being released or flared from the company’s wells. “The CDM project is the first in the Caribbean, and we have a target of reducing CO2 emissions by 400,000 tonnes per annum in the first instance – more when we roll it out to our partners.” There will be only a modest income from the sale of the gas, but it will cut Petrotrin’s carbon footprint dramatically, and even more importantly, he says, earn for the company carbon credits that can be traded

“I think we can do more to leverage the involvement we have with the Wildfowl Trust”

Petrotrin is heavily involved in many activities targeting environmental sustainability

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PROCESS MANAGEMENT LIMITED Process Management Limited is the leading provider of Process Automation, Instrumentation and Asset Reliability solutions throughout Trinidad and Tobago, Barbados and Suriname. We continuously strive to enhance our customers operations by improving reliability, throughput, availability, quality and safety. As the Local Business Partner for Emerson Process Management, we have adopted many of Emerson’s procedures that complement our local capabilities and provide a wealth of knowledge for our clients. Over the last 17 years we have grown rapidly and gained a reputation in the industrial sector that signifies technical competence, superior products and service excellence. Our commitment to our people, community and business partners continue to evolve and adapt to the increasing demands of our

Providing Industry Expertise in: • Turnkey Automation Services • Control Valve Engineering and Service • Instrumentation and Analyzer Solutions • Custody Transfer Measurement Verification and Maintenance • Asset Reliability Services • Machinery Health Management • Educational Services

The Fisher Authorized Service Provider for Trinidad & Tobago, Barbados and Suriname Tel: (868) 636 1541 / (868) 679 0602 Email: processmanagement@pml.co.tt www.pml.co.tt

customer’s dynamic environment.

In the field of Automation we have become an integral part of the operations of Petrotrin and many of the major Oil, Gas and Petrochemical companies in Trinidad and continue to build a responsible and sustainable organization for the good of our people and the companies we serve.

Training and Certification are key enablers for providing technically competent people and the following in-house offerings is evidence of this: • Fisher Approved Service Provider (FASP) facility • Scottish Vocational Qualified (SVQ) Measurement Technicians • Emerson certified training capability • Control Systems engineering and construction capability • ISO certified Vibration Technicians and Analysts E. processmanagement@pml.co.tt www.pml.co.tt

SPECIAL focus:

Petrotrin: Sustainability

Petrotrin is committed to co-existing with nature

internationally. CO2 injection could later mop oil out of the ground, and getting it refined up surplus gas, at the same time extending and shipped. “Our predecessor companies had a great record in the ‘H’ and ‘S’ parts of the output of some of the older wells.

Furthermore, Petrotrin is turning to solar HSE: The ‘E’ was left to chance, but not any power for its external lighting, its car parks, more! Environment and social responsibility bus shelters and other facilities to improve its are hardly separable he believes. Perhaps the green credentials. It is also conducting studies most exciting example is the Pointe-à-Pierre on water use and water recycling. “We use Wildfowl trust, established in 1966 on 25 about eight million gallons a hectares of Petrotrin’s land day of water, for things like beside the refinery. It’s now cooling and steam generation an internationally known and we recycle about 25 bird sanctuary with a great percent of that now: we aim record on breeding declining to increase that to 50 percent, species – and a much-used which I think we can reach resource for schools. in about five years.” In the Cor porate social Annual CO2 responsibility is a nettle he is past, he says, the company reduction target has been focused on getting keen to grasp. Petrotrin has a

400,000 tonnes

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SPECIAL focus:

Petrotrin: Sustainability

25 hectares Size of Pointe-à-Pierre Wildfowl Trust site good record of giving to its stakeholders and the wider community but he wants that to include the giving of expertise as well as money. “We have a golf course, a swimming pool, and many other facilities. The opportunity is there to bring kids in and have camps, with coaches for cricket, soccer or tennis, golf or swimming.

Now we want to really engage the communities, and not just hand out subsidies! For example we engage the services of a petting zoo during our school awareness efforts, to help kids to understand animals. We have taken that a step further – not just looking at them but learning how to take care of them too. If we can give compost and fertiliser to the schools so they have their own gardens that will help engage them even further!”

It’s all about balancing the need to make profit – corporate sustainability if you like – with the need to do the right thing for society and the environment. The two need not conflict. Hemraj Ramdath clearly loves being back in Trinidad and Tobago but his years abroad have made him more objective.

“I would like to see a little more action.

Ducks at Wildfowl Trust

For more information about Petrotrin visit: www.petrotrin.com

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Growing gas â&#x20AC;&#x201C; a two-way flow

178 | BE Americas

NGC Trinidad & Tobago

How the National Gas Company of Trinidad and Tobago (NGC) looks to fulfil a new mandate to extend its influence internationally

written by: John Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hanlon research by: Robert Hodgson

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Installations at NGCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Beachfield facility

NGC Trinidad & Tobago

W

elcoming delegates to the 2013 Energy conference in Port of Spain in January, the Minister of Energy and Energy Affairs Kevin Ramnarine set out his vision for NGC to be the vehicle for growth through which the country can expand its footprint at home and abroad. NGC should be encouraged, he said, to become to Trinidad & Tobago what Statoil is to Norway or Petrobras to Brazil.

The man charged with overseeing that transformation is Indar Maharaj, who was appointed NGCâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s President in April 2012.

Maharaj, a chemical engineer by training, knows the industry intimately from the downstream perspective, having worked in it for more than 30 years, many of them with Point Lisas Nitrogen Limited (PLNL) on the Point Lisas Industrial Estate, home to most of the heavy gas-based industry in Trinidad.

The years ahead are certainly going to be a time of change, he agrees, but NGC has all the experience and the energy it will need.

NGC was formed in August 1975 because the government of the day needed an entity to manage the natural gas purchase contract with Amoco and to transport the gas from Amocoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s fields off the east coast of Trinidad to the Trinidad & Tobago Electricity Commission (T&TEC) for power generation, as well as to other smaller customers. At the time the company was formed there were just a few miles of 16 inch pipeline transporting about 300 million cubic feet a day of gas. Today some 38 years later the company operates 1,000 kilometres of pipeline and has assets of over US$5 billion, making it one of the

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largest companies in the Caribbean and Latin America measured by assets. “The existing NGC business model, which has worked well, will however not provide the accelerated growth that is desired,” said Ramnarine.

“The question now for NGC becomes one of capital efficiency and growth. Companies we are told grow through pursuing a strategy of diversification, divestment, acquisition and internal growth or combinations of these strategies. The time has come for NGC to consider the forward and backward vertical integration of its business and seek investment opportunities outside of this country.” The Minister pointed out that NGC is already in discussion with three multinational companies in Trinidad and Tobago for the acquisition of all or part of their assets, and that it is also examining investment opportunities in Africa.

For NGC this means taking a new direction and dramatically broadening its horizons beyond its core business of natural gas marketing and transportation.. While NGC has invested in upstream oil and gas ventures, these have been limited to Trinidad and Tobago. As Maharaj explains it: “NGC has always been an inward-looking organisation - that is to say that all our investment has been made in Trinidad and Tobago. We now

think it is about time we did two things. One is to get ourselves more involved in both the upstream and the downstream as an investor; the second is to start looking outside of Trinidad & Tobago for opportunities to invest in the energy sector.”

Downstream opportunities include programmes like the provision of compressed natural gas (CNG) for transportation, and the supply of gas to the light industrial

“We are encouraging investors to look downstream, and... we will always be looking to see if there is an opportunity for us to take a stake” 182 | BE Americas

NGC Trinidad & Tobago

NGC Tobago pipeline gas receiving facility

and commercial sectors the industry will be boosted by developing another hub at on the islands. “We are the Union Industrial Estate encouraging investors to look downstream, and where in La Brea on the south-west they do see an opening we peninsula of the island. “We will always be looking to see will develop the infrastructure if there is an opportunity for industrial development NGC’s current asset base and we have a priority to get for us to take a stake.” In less than 20 years, he adds, investors in there so we can Trinidad and Tobago has expand the markets for gas. been able to create one of the world’s most We are now putting the structures and the groups in place that will allow us to go and diversified natural gas economies.

The thrust of the government in the next start looking for those investments.” phase of the country’s industrial development Here serious progress has already been is towards a more robust downstream industry made. In April, seven entities including the that focuses on projects that will go beyond Ministry of Energy and Energy Affairs, and first-level gas conversion, as well as further the Japanese firms, Mitsubishi Corporation LNG expansion. The greater diversification of and Mitsubishi Gas Chemical Company

$5

Billion

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signed a project development agreement for the establishment at the Union Industrial Estate of Trinidad and Tobago’s first Methanol Dimethyl Ether (DME) plant. The initial investment for phase one of the project is estimated at $850 million with completion envisaged in 2016. According to Minister Ramnarine, this project, which could include further phases, “presents several distinct but unique opportunities for Trinidad and Tobago with respect to the further diversification of the energy sector, growth of the economy,

development of the South Western peninsula, regional energy and local content.”

One of the mandates for NGC at the time of Mr Maharaj’s appointment was that the organisation should be prepared to get involved not only in local projects like the Methanol to DME project But also projects outside of Trinidad and Tobago. Of particular interest is the continent of Africa, both east and west. A relationship is developing rapidly with Tanzania, where large gas deposits have recently been discovered

“The question now for NGC becomes one of capital efficiency and growth”

184 | BE Americas

NGC Trinidad & Tobago

The change from a local to offshore. NGC has already a global operator will not be been providing technical services to Tanzania, and in without its growing pains, but 2012 NGC, National Energy the policy is in place and NGC’s and the Tanzania Petroleum management is now in active Development Company negotiation for the purchase of an interest in upstream signed a Memorandum of Phase 1 investment assets. The Trinidad Gas Understanding (MOU) for in DME project Model of Development has a co-operation between both framework that emerging gascountries’ energy sectors. rich economies would love to Tanzania finds itself now where Trinidad and Tobago was in the replicate. Success in this area will allow NGC, 1980s, he says. “Hydrocarbon deposits were for the first time, to provide its employees being found and were ripe for development with international experience. Discussions but no infrastructure was in place. We have continue on prospective investments in Ghana been through that experience in the recent and Tanzania and the Eastern Caribbean Gas past and I believe we have a lot of experience Pipeline Project, he says. “The Tobago pipeline and know how to monetise those resources.” will provide the staging point for the proposed

$850 million

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“We will encourage people to switch from liquid fuel to natural gas in their vehicles” Eastern Caribbean Pipeline Project, which is expected to supply approximately 119 million cubic feet of natural gas per day to Barbados, and potentially to other islands in the eastern Caribbean.” He is referring to a 55 kilometre natural gas pipeline from the BHP Billiton Gas Export Platform (GEP) in the Angostura Field off the north-east coast of Trinidad to a receiving facility on Tobago. The Tobago pipeline started operation in November last year. “In another decade I would like to see NGC being an organisation that is involved in

186 | BE Americas

most of the natural gas and energy value chain, both in Trinidad and Tobago and overseas.”

For this to happen, people will be crucial, he emphasises. “The human capacity within this company has been developed to do what we have been doing for many years; that is accumulating gas, distributing and selling it. The things we want to do now call for a different approach. We need to start retraining people and we need to start looking for new talent to bring in to the organisation to complement the huge experience we

NGC Trinidad & Tobago

already have.” To do this he wants to target people of Trinbagonian origin working in the international oil and gas industry. Given the new opportunities NGC can now offer he is convinced that many will respond. After all this is a great company to work for, as evidenced by the low turnover among its 800 strong workforce: “I can say for sure that once they come they don’t go!”

At the same time as gaining recognition in the international arena, Maharaj concludes, NGC is on the verge of becoming more deeply involved in the daily life of the nation than ever before. One of the major developments that is happening on his watch is delivery of a CNG transportation revolution in Trinidad and Tobago that the government wants to see come about. “We will encourage people

to switch from liquid fuel to natural gas in their vehicles. That we think will touch most of the population. We are a national gas company, looking to expand our CSR programme and integrate it with the fabric of society by looking at areas where there are developmental needs, sport development, health, culture and education so that people can identify with us more than they have been able to in the past.” It is a prospect that excites him, as the leader of a company mandated to expand and, crucially, with the financial resources it needs to make that happen.

For more information about NGC Trinidad & Tobago visit: www.ngc.co.tt

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A finer refinery

for Jamaica After giving good service for 30 years the Petrojam refinery at Kingston Jamaica is to be upgraded

written by: John Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hanlon research by: David Brogan

188 | BE Americas

Petrojam

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Petrojam

P

etrojam is a limited company in the world), has a rated capacity of 38,000 jointly owned by PDVCaribe, barrels per day (bpd) and an average daily a subsidiary of Petróleos de output of up to 35,000 barrels. Increasing Venezuela (PDVSA) which owns its capacity has clearly been needed for 40 percent of its shares, and a long time. In fact the refinery upgrade the Petroleum Company of Jamaica (PCJ). project evolved out of a memorandum of Petrojam was established in 1982 when understanding signed in August 2005 between the Government of Jamaica purchased the PJ Patterson the Jamaican prime minister at Kingston Refinery from Esso, which had the time and President Hugo Chavez, with an built and operated it since 1964. Put simply, expected 2010 completion date.

Petrojam’s job is to supply refined products to However despite the fact that the front the people and businesses of Jamaica. end engineering design (FEED) for the $1.3 As Jamaica’s primary energy company billion Refinery Upgrade Project (RUP) Petrojam now has the was completed in 2009, responsibility for managing the project was stalled by its key asset, the refinery, and changing political priorities manufacturing cost-efficient, on the part of the Venezuelan high quality products to government. But now the RUP has been brought back ensure an uninterrupted to the front of the queue. supply of energy to keep the nation on the move and Last year, in a filing to the Planned investment in US Securities and Exchange working – it is a vital part of refinery Commission (SEC), the the island’s economy. Among the services that rely on Venezuelan government said Petrojam are the supply of aviation fuel for that PDVSA has brought forward the start the airlines that fly in and out of Jamaica, date of the Jamaica project to 2014, a year bunkering for the ships that use its ports, earlier than previously expected.

The plan is to increase production at the supplying power generation plants and providing a reliable supply of affordable lead Kingston refinery from 35,000 to 50,000 bpd, and the urgency of the project was underlined free petrol and diesel to the filling stations.

The Jamaica government benefits from by Jamaica’s Energy Minister Phillip Paulwell agreements with Venezuela and Mexico under in May when he claimed the Petrojam plant which feedstock – crude oil – is supplied to could face the risk of being shut down if the the refinery. Negotiated in 1983 the current necessary works were not undertaken. The conditions of the San Jose Accord ensure the cue to its moving back to the top of the agenda supply of 29,000 bpd of crude. The Petrojam is Paulwell’s discussion with Venezuelan refinery, located on a 76 acre site on Kingston counterparts at this year’s PetroCaribe summit Harbour (the seventh largest natural harbour in June, following which he announced the

$1.3

Billion

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Beyond Safety.

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Latin America countries.

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Petrojam

agreement with Venezuela that the Petrojam Jamaica, monitors product quality on a oil refinery expansion and upgrading project 24-hour basis. Staffed by specialist technicians who test, analyse and certify products against would again become a priority.

The refinery was originally built, using a internationally recognised standards, the lab simple hydroskimming model, using modern is at the heart of the operation. It also offers optimisation principles in its design, and in commercial testing to third party clients for general that has proved fit for purpose over octane levels, water and chemical analysis, the years. However the equipment and process and particulate levels in fluids. It is also able streams do need upgrading, to monitor dust, lead and CO and this investment is also a levels in the atmosphere.

Another area of best vital part of the project. The practice is to be seen refinery is a very competent facility, staffed by qualified in Petrojamâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s logistics personnel and with some arrangements. Within the excellent ancillary facilities. plant a small but effective For example its laboratory, team is responsible for the Upgraded capacity of the only fully equipped economic evaluation of Petrojam refinery petroleum laboratory in incoming feedstock. The

50,000 BPD

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team co-ordinates crude oil imports, marine transportation of crude oil and finished products for export as well as to domestic customers. Delivery by sea is cheaper and safer than road transport. Refined products for the Montego Bay Terminal and supplies to large volume customers such as the light and power plants and bauxite companies are delivered by sea using Petrojam owned and chartered vessels, operating from the company’s berth in Kingston Harbour.

The next task is to update the FEED report to base it on more up-to-date figures than those available in 2008. Once that is done the real work can progress, and, as Mr Paulwell says: “It will enable us to produce those things that we use in Jamaica — LPG, gasoline, and low sulphur diesel — so that we will be almost selfsufficient, and be able to export some of it,” he said, pointing out that the by-product, petcoke, will enable the generation of 100 megawatts of cheap electricity. Upgrading of the refinery will ensure its viability in the long term and allow for the installation of treatment facilities to meet new environmental specifications for diesel oil and gasoline.

One of the many outstanding programmes of personal development that Petrojam pursues is its youth development programme.

In particular its Summer Employment

Programme, which each year selects 100 or more secondary and tertiary level students to undertake paid work and training during their long vacation. The objective is to give these students a taste of what it is like to do a real job in an industrial enterprise, and how they can gain satisfaction from adding real value to Petrojam by working on active projects.

Some of them subsequently join the company explains Production Manager Telroy Morgan, a

“If our upgrade is done in short order, Jamaica would be the only English speaking Caribbean country using and selling ULSD fuel” 194 | BE Americas

Petrojam

key motivator for the students, but that is not by any means the sole object of the programme. “A number of students come back after the Summer Employment Programme and grow into key roles with Petrojam: the others get invaluable experience here and go on to contribute to the growth of the nation as a whole.”

Telroy Morgan should know: he himself came into Petrojam via this route and now occupies an important management position.

He is not alone, and the enthusiasm of the student cohort for the scheme is palpable: they are exposed to a variety of different disciplines from highly technical roles and engineering to admin and management experience that will stand them in good stead in any business.

The target date for competing the refinery upgrade project has now been set for

January 2016, giving Jamaica a world class facility capable not only of producing the quantity the island needs but of supplying it with new and improved products such as the ultra low sulphur diesel (ULSD) fuel that was launched in Jamaica on June 25. “If our upgrade is done in short order, Jamaica would be the only English speaking Caribbean country using and selling ULSD,” said Phillip Paulwell – this is important as only countries that can supply USDL are able to import diesel vehicles equipped with advanced emission control.

For more information about Petrojam visit: www.petrojam.com

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Caribbean treasure tr

The Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) exists this idyllic island nation self sufficient in energy: to it is engaging other oil producing governments and exploration companies to develop the oilfields that

written by: John Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hanlon research by: David Brogan 196 | BE Americas

Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ)

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Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ)

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amaica is not lacking in natural contracts, explore for oil and develop Jamaica’s resources – for example it is a petroleum resources in the national interest. major exporter of bauxite, the raw In 1995 PCJ’s remit was extended to develop material for aluminium – but it indigenous renewable energy resources. It is not currently known as an oil has established a large biodiesel project with producer. In fact it has to import its oil at a the aim of eventually producing 16.5 million rate estimated at 80,000 barrels a day if oil gallons of biodiesel from crops that grow well on based products like asphalt, are included. Oil nonproductive or marginal land. It also built a to fuel cars boats and aircraft is imported from wind farm at Wigton near Manchester, Jamaica Mexico, Venezuela and other neighbouring in 2004. This facility saved the country $5.3 Caribbean countries. million in 2011/12, proving that renewables Should oil be found in significant quantities could be an important contributor to cutting in Jamaican waters – something that appears oil imports, and more wind capacity is planned almost certainly just a matter from both PCJ’s facility and of time – there could hardly private generation companies investing into the market. be a more attractive location However the holy grail for in the world – the Caribbean is eminently accessible to the PCJ lies offshore in the North American markets and exploration blocks lying to international trade routes; the the south of the island and government is encouraging, selling this potential to the Gross oil-based imports keen to negotiate terms that world’s exploration majors is to Jamaica are attractive to international the work of Brian Richardson, oil & gas exploration and PCJ’s Oil & Gas Exploration production companies; the legal system is Manager. Though a good deal of due diligence democratic and founded on British law; and needs to be done, a large amount of money of course Jamaica is English-speaking. Add to spent on drilling and further geophysical that the fact that it controls a major potential and geological survey work in the waters hydrocarbon reserve that has seen very little surrounding the island. The work done in exploration over the last quarter-century and the 1970s indicated that there were reserves it begins to look like the next big thing. of hydrocarbons, he says, but early surveying The Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica just scratched the surface. It did however was set up in 1975 to find ways of reducing produce some very encouraging results: of Jamaica’s dependence on imported energy. It eleven exploratory holes that were drilled is a statutory corporation mandated to take onshore and offshore only one failed to show part in every stage of hydrocarbon trade, from hydrocarbons present. “In the last five years exploration to retail. Specifically the government or so that work has been updated to refine gave it the exclusive right to manage import our knowledge of where these reserves lie. In

80,000 BPD

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Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ)

particular, work has been done in the south- production sharing contracts (PSCs), east section of the Jamaica oilfield which government instruments that allow an oil indicated that there are huge sedimentary company to prospect, subsequent profits being structures in that sector.” shared between Jamaica and the company.

A preliminary bid round in 2004 resulted Richardson is on a mission to market this in two junior exploration companies coming untapped reserve. Last November PCJ’s Oil on board, whose involvement effectively & Gas department was at PETEX in London: cut the perceived risk facing investors to in February 2013 it was the turn of North an acceptable level. “We are now confident American Prospect Expo (NAPE), held twice that over the next two to yearly at Houston, and in three years we will be able March the focus will shift to convince one of the majors back to London where the to take an interest in Jamaica APPEX conference is taking and commit to a drilling place. “The take away is that there is increasing interest programme.” The first step in Jamaica’s offshore, and is to dispose of the rights in 12 months we expect to licences on the available Size of the Joint see that interest translating blocks in and around Regime Area into activity on the ground.” the Walton, concluding

52,000 km2

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Once people understand the structure, then interest will accelerate, he believes. His department’s aggressive marketing strategy includes reigniting old leads that have gone dead because the picture has changed rapidly. Recently he has taken calls from 25 organisations or companies that had been unaware of the opportunity. “I have hanging in my office a picture of a rig that was installed offshore in 1984 – I am committed to seeing a new rig out there three to five years from now!”

If you look at Jamaica on the map, it is surrounded by successful oil economies.

Nicaragua, Venezuela, Colombia and Honduras are cases in point. Jamaica buys energy at preferential rates under various local agreements, and a Joint Regime Area between Jamaica and Colombia, situated south of the Pedro Bank was established in 1993. In 2008, an agreement was signed between the two countries for the conduct of surveys relating to the hydrocarbon potential of the 52,000 square kilometre area. PCJ is actively looking to establish government-to-government level agreements with those neighbours with which it shares the Caribbean Basin. “We want to build on their strengths and also provide our data into the melting plot to understand the Caribbean

basin hydrocarbon scene. Every piece we can place in the Caribbean jigsaw puzzle helps to reveal the whole picture!”

It is also benchmarking a country that has highly relevant experience though it doesn’t share the same waters. Uruguay, like Jamaica had a 20-year hiatus in its exploration programme and followed a similar marketing trajectory in 2008 before hitting success in awarding exploration

“Work has been done in the south-east section of the Jamaica oilfield which indicated that there are huge sedimentary structures in that sector” 202 | BE Americas

Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ)

blocks. The Uruguayan government recently signed offshore exploration and production deals with British oil firms BG Group and BP, Ireland’s Tullow Oil and France’s Total.

The companies concluded 30-year concession contracts in April last year for eight oil blocks - three each for BG and BP and one each for Tullow and Total. Between them they have committed to investing a total of roughly $1.56 billion. “The Uruguayans are helping us a lot with their geophysical and geological knowledge and theirs is a scenario that we would dearly like to emulate here!”

Any oil company wanting a head start in a relatively unexploited region that nevertheless is within easy reach of the infrastructure and skills the industry needs, not to mention the prime global markets of the Americas, would

be well advised to take an early position in Jamaica. Brian Richardson points out that indicated oil reserves range between 500 million and a billion barrels, with anywhere between two and four trillion cubic feet of gas. More detailed geological and geophysical work will be carried out over the coming twelve months, followed by drilling a couple of years down the line. At the end of this process lies a commercial bonanza for the oil companies, and the realisation of PCJ’s raison d’etre – to make Jamaica an oil exporter rather than an importer.

For more information about Petroleum Corporation of Jamaica (PCJ) visit: www.pcj.com

BE Americas | 203

Our work is

here to stay RenĂŠ Lagos is recognised and respected for its expertise in realising the aspirations of architects to build tall in challenging environments

written by: John Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hanlon research by: Abi Abagun

204 | BE Americas

RenĂŠ Lagos

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The Santiago Justice Center under construction

René Lagos

W

hen René Lagos looks out from his 25th floor office in Santiago de Chile he gets a good view over the capital that now has so many high-rise buildings that part of it is known as Sanhattan. He is looking out over the history of the firm of structural engineers he founded in 1977 and it never fails to excite him. He likes to identify to his two small grandsons the many buildings in the panorama that he calls his ‘children’, so much work was put into their conception.

Santiago has 75 entries on skyscraperpage. com which is good going for a city with a downtown population of fewer than 300,000 (though greater Santiago is home to 6.5 million). More to the point Chile lies along the destructive plate boundary between the Nazca Plate and the South American Plate. It has experienced 13 earthquakes in the last year: it stands to reason that in one of the world’s most active seismic countries you can’t be in construction and not know a lot about how to build a structure that will not fall down when shaken.

Lagos has always had a passion for tall buildings. “Structural engineering became my passion from the earliest days as a student.

After working for a few years in firms that specialised in structural design of high-rise building I started my own firm, focusing on high-rise buildings.”

The firm of René Lagos started by designing mainly buildings of up to 15 storeys but in 1993 it had a breakthrough when it was commissioned as the structural engineer for the 22 storey headquarters of Camara Chilena

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S & S CONSULTING ENGINEERS LTD.

Forecast of design spectra for Costanera Center and Titanium buildings, shown in the figure, coincided with measured spectra for Chile 2010 Mw = 8.8 earthquake.

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René Lagos

Santiago Justice Center - Santiago, Chile

de la Construcción, the organisation that about how high buildings ought to go in a represents the largest construction companies seismically unstable country. Santiago after in the country. That project put the firm all was flattened in 1647’s 8.5 magnitude on the map and proved its competence by event, while Chile experienced the severest successfully withstanding at least two major earthquake ever recorded in 1960 at earthquakes as well as countless minor ones. 9.5 magnitude and the sixth largest at Three years later in 1996 René Lagos 8.8 on February 27 2010.

The Telefónica building came through that landed, through a competition, what was then the tallest building in Santiago, the 132 without any damage but it was designed to do that. Lagos is proud of metre high Telefónica tower. this iconic structure for many It is shaped to look like a big cellphone (and from that reasons. “The client told us point of view is now clearly that the one thing they could dated) but the engineering be certain of was that they challenges were considerable would be changing their and in overcoming them it layout frequently and did not The year René Lagos attracted a lot of professional want to call in the structural founded his firm interest – as well as a debate engineer every time to decide

1997

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Al Bandar, Al Raha Beach - Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

how to do that. We took on the challenge of giving them internal open space of 30 by 20 metres, with no intermediate columns – even today that would be a tall order,” he says proudly.

The company today has in its portfolio many buildings over 200 metres high, so size is no longer the driver it once was.

Nevertheless the Gran Torre Santiago, part of the spectacular $1 billion Costanera Center containing offices, hotels, shopping and entertainment, is today the tallest building in the southern hemisphere. At 300 metres it

is about the same height as the Shard or the Empire State (minus the latter’s pointy bits) and twice the height of the Telefónica tower.

Seismic performance is not just about being able to make buildings that don’t fall down, he explains. “The question is, do we create buildings that are flexible, with long displacements, or do we make them stiff, with very little displacement? You could take the view that a building that is flexible and has what we call ductility will dissipate energy making the basic structure safer, at the cost of non-structural damage

“The client told us that the one thing they could be certain of was that they would be changing their layout frequently” 210 | BE Americas

René Lagos

300 Metres Height of the Gran Torre Santiago

to partitions and the like: if they are stiff there is more acceleration, which means that your fridge is more likely to fall over – but stiff buildings experience less non-structural damage and remain usable, without major repairs being needed.”

Where in other seismic countries the ductility argument has won, there has been a social cost. The buildings remain standing, but their inhabitants are made homeless while they are repaired. “There has been a lot of discussion about this, but the only thing we can say from our experience here in Chile is that the type of design that we have used has proved very successful from a social point of view, with very little failure of buildings or need to evacuate them. We have to design for safety of course, but also for performance and usability.”

This approach typifies his attitude to innovation – he loves it. Though he laughs when he recalls starting out with just a couple of scientific calculators, René Lagos has absorbed new technology as it has been developed. That is why he sets such store by the R&D group he has set up to do research on production tools such as software applied to engineering analysis and design and also in collaborative technologies such as building Telefonica Building - Santiago, Chile

BE Americas | 211

â&#x20AC;&#x153;There is another way to think about sustainability, and that is structural efficiencyâ&#x20AC;?

Corp Group Building - Santiago, Chile

212 | BE Americas

René Lagos information modelling (BIM).

“We also research technical solutions for our clients,” he says, “which means things like the use of seismic protection techniques like isolation or energy dissipation in high rise buildings.”

He was an early adopter of the BIM concept, and has been using model based software from Revit and Tekla for more than ten years. “We started to use it internally to collaborate with different disciplines – not too many other people were using it. Now that is changing. We have even been training clients and other firms.” BIM, he explains, enables you create much more than a 3D model and to factor in cost and time, making it effectively a 5D model of the project. Using BIM tools brings a project to life, René Lagos says: as well as making it better BIM makes his work a lot more fun to do!

Growth in the company has been entirely organic, and very pragmatic. If there’s a market for the firm’s expertise René Lagos will follow it: if the market dries up the firm withdraws. The first venture outside of Chile was Argentina, however it was felt that the company would be more effective abroad if it engaged with more stable economies, so in 2006 an office was set up in Miami in

René Lagos head office

collaboration with a local partner – it was a very successful venture as construction was booming in the US at the time, and though things slowed down after 2008 and the average size of projects became smaller, that market is again looking up. “At that time we were looking for technologies that we could apply in the Costanera project,” he continues.

“So we travelled round the world to the places where the tallest buildings were being built including Dubai. By the time we had made three trips out there we were already engaged in some projects in Abu Dhabi, teaming up

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with local operators on a project by project basis including one of more than a million square metres.”

Always choosing the right business model for the market, René Lagos then started looking again at the South American market, and in particular the active economies of Perú and Colombia.

After some market research, in December 2012 a branch office was set up in Lima,

employing Peruvian structural engineers and training them in the company’s culture. “Wherever we are in the world,” says Lagos, “we work together through cloud computing technology: it is just as if we were all in the same office. In Lima we have been active over those months, engaged on high-rise projects, many of them very challenging.” The experience has been a happy one. Growth has been

“Wherever we are in the world, we work together through cloud computing technology”

René Lagos (left) on site in the United Arab Emirates

214 | BE Americas

René Lagos

Residential property

steady and better than expected, and he sees a great future for the Peruvian market.

Though neither Miami nor the Middle East are particularly prone to earthquakes, seismic performance remains a key core skill for the company. When a group of Chilean architects invited René Lagos to become involved in some projects in China, he jumped at the opportunity. René Lagos has been in a consortium with Seismic A&E of Beijing for the last two years and has provided consultancy services for many project, so far mainly in the mid-rise category, in China. “Once again it has been again very interesting to have the opportunity to work with different cultures and methods,” he says. “It fits with the spirit of innovation and fun that we all share in this firm.” Earthquakes do happen in China, and

there has been much loss of life. Where better for them to look for sustainable solutions than Chile, with its unique experience?

That word, sustainable, sets Mr Lagos off on a new tack. “If you spoke about sustainability in structural engineering five years ago there was not that much to say: today it is becoming a very sophisticated issue with many variables involved.” Think of the structure of the building – its skeleton , he says – everything is hung on to that after it is built. The traditional way of thinking says it has to be built using recyclable materials like steel. “But there is another way to think about sustainability, and that is structural efficiency. When you design an efficient structure you need less material. And why always think of recyclability as only applying

BE Americas | 215

Workers on top of the Gran Torre Santiago (Costanera Tower)

René Lagos when the building is demolished when you hope it will never be demolished! Better surely to builds structures that can be upgraded every so many years while still occupying the same skeleton.” That, he says is an equally valid conceptual approach to structural sustainability.

Either approach will need to take into consideration things like sourcing raw materials locally, but sustainable design does not end when the building is handed over. It is a whole life issue. Seismic performance is an obvious case – the ability of the building to stay standing and usable, without needing costly repairs – but sustainability is a never ending concern for René Lagos’ researchers.

“If you always do the same thing you did before, you are dying! There is always a new perspective. That is what keeps you alive – fun and passion. We do it that way here, and incentivise younger engineers to feel it too.

That is probably why people stay here and look on the firm as a place where it is worth spending a large chunk of their career.”

After a good few years it is clear that René Lagos has lost none of his joie de vivre.

“Never get so used to the things you do that you lose your ability to be amazed. You have to be able to be astonished – that gives you energy and tells you where you are – and how far you have come. I am still amazed when I look out across Santiago! It makes me emotional and proud.”

For more information about René Lagos visit: www.renelagos.com

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special focus:

Searching the cosmos Outgoing Director, Thijs de Graauw, discusses the history behind the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) and the significant enhances it is helping bring to the scientific community, both in Chile and throughout the world

written by: Will Daynes research by: Louisa Adcock

218 | BE Americas

Atacama

acama Large Millimeter/Sub-millimeter Array (ALMA)

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ALMA Preparations for taking the first ALMA antenna up to the Chajnantor plateau begin

N

o matter what corner of the planet you inhabit we all share the same amazement and wonder of the stars and planets above us. It is this wonder that has driven scientists and astronomers to try to gain an increasingly detailed understanding of the universe. In order to do so these experts strive to collect as much data and information as possible and one of the major ways of doing this is through the observations of the electromagnetic spectrum radiated by celestial sources.

“Among the most profound mysteries in astronomy are the origins of things such as galaxies, stars, planets, and the molecules that seed life,” explains Atacama Large Millimeter/sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) outgoing director, Thijs de Graauw. “What ALMA does is observe light emitted by cool-temperature objects in space. This permits us to unravel profound mysteries about the formation of planets and the appearance of complex molecules, including organic molecules.”

The birth of ALMA dates back to the 1980s when large size millimeter/submillimeter arrays of radio telescopes were studied by astronomers in Europe (LSA), North America (MMA) and Japan (LMSA), and different possible observatories were discussed. In the 1980s and early 1990s space observatories discovered strong submillimeter molecular emission from galaxies and it became obvious that the ambitious investigations to understand these objects could hardly be realised by only one of the proposed array telescopes and a merger into a single large

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European ALMA antennas

array would be necessary. The discussions and deliberations on merging the three projects took place in the nineties.

Consequently, a first memorandum was signed in 1999 by the North American community, represented through the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the European community, represented through

European Organization for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere (ESO), followed in 2002 by an agreement between them to construct ALMA on a plateau in Chile.

Thereafter, Japan, through the National Astronomical Obser vatory of Japan (NAOJ), worked with the other partners

â&#x20AC;&#x153;Among the most profound mysteries in astronomy are the origins of things such as galaxies, stars, planets, and the molecules that seed lifeâ&#x20AC;?

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Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), R. Durán (ALMA)

to define and formulate its participation in the ALMA project. An official, trilateral agreement between ESO, the NSF, and the National Institutes for Natural Sciences (NINS, Japan) concerning the construction of the enhanced Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array was signed in September 2004. “With the inclusion of the Asian partners,” de Graauw continues, “ALMA has become a truly global astronomical facility, involving scientists from four different continents.”

At its simplest, ALMA is a radio telescope

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made up of an ensemble of 66 antennas, some seven metres and some 12 metres in diameter, that work in unison with the surface of the ALMA interferometer totalling more than 6,500 square metres, which is approximately equivalent to a football field. The sheer size and scope of the project makes it possible for ALMA to detect very faint radiation in space.

Despite the harsh conditions, the ALMA antennas were installed at an altitude of 5,000 metres in an exceptional area for astronomical observation. The high altitude

ALMA and lack of moisture prevents water in the atmosphere from absorbing the radio waves, which would normally hinder observation from Earth.

“As one can imagine,” de Graauw

highlights,” to make images from millimeterwavelength light gathered by multiple antennas, we need absolutely colossal computing power. The signals coming from each pair of antennas must be

“As one can imagine, to make images from millimeter-wavelength light gathered by multiple antennas, we need absolutely colossal computing power” 16 antennas on Chajnantor

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PHYSIK INSTRUMENTE For 50 of its antennas, the ALMA obervatory uses high-precision Hexapods from PI. They align the sub-reflectors to the large main reflectors of the radio telescopes to compensate for external impacts. PI uses its technological knowledge and long-term experience in micro and nanopositioning technology for providing highest positioning performance in extreme ambient conditions. The Hexapod systems with six degrees of freedom in motion are installed behind the sub-reflectors and allow for 6D positioning with resolution in the submicrometer and arcsecond range.

The positioning systemâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s parallel kinematics structure is considerably more compact and stiffer than serially stacked multi-axis systems and leads to a very high resonant frequency. Since only a single platform is

actuated, the moved mass is significantly smaller. This results in improved dynamics with considerably faster response. For the Hexapods in the ALMA antennas, PI developed and manufactured highly stiff and robust joints. The Hexapods can ad-just the position of the sub-reflectors precisely to several millimeters.The digital controllerâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s components for position control of the Hexapods have been adapted to reduced atmospheric pressure. With this high-performance digital control technology, that combines incremental position sensors and optical reference sensors in the Hexapodâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s individual struts, PI provides a high-resolution measurement and control system for the ALMA observatory. www.pi.ws

Credit: ALMA(ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), Carlos Padilla(NRAO/AUI/NSF)

ALMA

The Front End Service Vehicle in its raised position servicing the receiver cabin

mathematically compared billions of times proposals were submitted by the worldwide every second. It would take approximately science community, representing an three million domestic laptops to carry out unprecedented level of demand for a the same quantity of operations per second ground-based or space telescope. Those astronomers who obtain as the ALMA correlator.”

Scientists from around obser v ing t ime have the world are already exclusive access to their competing for A LM A’s collected data for one year, after which the data observing time. The first cycle of observations, known becomes public in a vast as Cycle 0, was launched at library. “As with the great Antennas make up the ALMA project the end of September 2011. telescopes that have gone An impressive 919 project before it,” de Graauw

66

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Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), M. Kornmesser (ESO)

“As with the great telescopes that have gone before it ALMA will enable us to see aspects of the universe whose existence we haven’t even suspected” enthuses, “ALMA will enable us to see aspects of the universe whose existence we haven’t even suspected.”

On a much more localised scale the ALMA project is also contributing directly

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towards Chile’s development as a centre for astronomy. Indeed the construction and operation of the observatory has been identified as one of the most significant factors in the growing encouragement

ALMA

Artist’s impression of the disc of dust and gas around a brown dwarf

of training specialised human resources, promoting innovations in engineering and software development, in helping to improve the country’s telecommunications infrastructure, and supporting the social and economic development of ALMA’s local and regional communities.

“Our relationship with the Chilean community and government has been excellent both at the national and regional levels,” de Graauw says. “We have found collaboration and communication to be fluid at the ministerial level as well as with

regional authorities through the Intendente – the equivalent of a regional governor - and local authorities, through the mayor and town council of San Pedro de Atacama and the Toconao indigenous community.”

Since 2003 ALMA has contributed towards the development of astronomy in Chile through the ALMA-CONICYT Fund, allocated annually to promote human resources, instrumentation, teaching, outreach and fellowships. This fund will apportion close to $700,000 in 2013.

On a regional scale ALMA contributes

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• adaptive optics deformable mirrors with contactless technology of MMT, LBT, Magellan, ESO VLT and for the future E-ELT and GMT telescopes • high performance axes control systems and metrology for ALMA, GTC, E-ELT • wavefront sensors and real time computers for LBT, Magellan, Keck, Gemini observatories

• • • • • • •

Supercomputing in hard real time High speed optical communication and logic Metrology systems Wireless systems Control System Design High level user interfaces Management of the product development from design to production • Management of large scientific projects

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Microgate is a leading electronics engineering and production company.

Our expertise covers the whole design process of electronics systems, including hardware and software design, control system design, prototyping and production.

The Timing & Sport division develops and produces a complete palette of professional sports timing, physical evaluation and rehabilitation products. The Engineering division develops high-tech solutions for scientific and industrial applications.

Since 1995 our research has been focused on the development of control systems for adaptive mirrors, sensors and real time computers for adaptive optics, and radioastronomy. Microgate control systems power the adaptive optics of the most advanced observatories worldwide: MMT, Keck, LBT, Magellan, VLT. Within the ALMA

project, Microgate, as EIE subcontractor, has developed the Antenna Control Unit of the ALMA-AEM antennas. The Control Unit is the brain of the antenna, it performs the challenging task of steering the axes of the giant dishes with micrometer accuracy, while checking all subsystems to allow safe remote operation at 5500m elevation. Microgate has also greatly contributed to the development of an extremely accurate metrology system that compensates for the subtle deformation induced by temperature and wind on the sophisticated and massive structure.

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SHARPEN THE UNIVERSE. Microgate Engineering develops advanced solutions for scientific and industrial use. Control systems developed by Microgate are the technological heart of the most advanced astronomical research worldwide: • adaptive optics deformable mirrors with contactless technology of MMT, LBT, Magellan, ESO VLT and for the future E-ELT and GMT telescopes • high performance axes control systems and metrology for ALMA, GTC, E-ELT • wavefront sensors and real time computers for LBT, Magellan, Keck, Gemini observatories

Our capabilities: • HW and SW design of embedded systems based on FPGAs, DSPs and microcontrollers • Supercomputing in hard real time • High speed optical communication and logic • Metrology systems • Wireless systems • Control System Design • High level user interfaces • Management of the product development from design to production • Management of large scientific projects

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VIA STRADIVARI, 4 . BOLZANO . ITALY . TEL. +39 0471 501532 . FAX +39 0471 501524 INFO@MICROGATE.IT . WWW.MICROGATE.IT

ALMA

The transporter, now carrying the antenna, leaves the OSF and reaches an altitude of 3,000 meters

annually to the ALMA school. ALMA has given Region II Fund, also since training, selected and 2003. The Fund promotes funded teachers, and built infrastructure to allow these productive and socialprogrammes to take root. economic development in Metres above sea level.

The said programmes have the Antofagasta Region, Altitude of the supporting local initiatives helped to raise test-scores ALMA project through a public call for for Toconao students in national standardized tests, proposals. This year, over and have been well received $300,000 dollars will be allocated. Locally, ALMA supports by teachers, parents and local authorities. a programme to improve education in Currently, there are conversations with the science and English at the Toconao public Municipality of San Pedro de Atacama and

5,000

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Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF, Carlos Padilla Acknowledgement: General Dynamics C4 Systems

ALMA other strategic partners with the intention of replicating Toconao’s successful experience to other schools in the district.

More broadly, Chile benefits from the creation of jobs at ALMA, where over 80 percent of the staff is locally hired. Many of the positions require advanced technical and professional qualifications, so valuable training and workplace learning take place at the observatory. In the long run, ALMA is contributing to the positioning of Chile as the undisputed astronomical capital of the world.

“ALMA is in the business of collecting unique astronomical data for investigations of the universe at millimetre and submillimetre wavelengths,” de Graauw says, “and in this wavelength range ALMA is the biggest observatory on the planet.

Looking ahead there is an advanced plan to build a very large radio astronomy telescope based on similar techniques but at much lower frequencies and therefore per unit much easier and cheaper. The diameter of this telescope will be much larger as will be the total radiation collecting area, but the operating frequencies are much lower. The total collecting area is to be equivalent to one square kilometre. Therefore the name of the project is SKA, Square Kilometre Array.

It is in the planning phase and the budget has not yet been allocated but precursor projects are already operating.”

Aerial view of the ALMA Operations Center

For more information about ALMA visit: www.almaobservatory.org

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special focus:

Reaching new

The ALMA astrological observatory in northern Chile is o exciting scientific undertakings currently under developm it will only achieve its potential thanks to the work of com

written by: Will Daynes | research by: Richard Halfhid

234 | BE Americas

Thales Alenia Space

w heights

one of the most important and ment anywhere in the world, however mpanies like Thales Alenia Space

de

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W

hile Neil Armstrong’s and Edwin Aldrin’s first footsteps on the moon in July, 1969, to this day remains one of the most iconic moments in human history, mankind’s fascination with space dates back to centuries beforehand.

Historical records pinpoint the earliest working telescopes back to the early 1600s and in the time since technological advances have helped mankind create the likes of the Hubble Space Telescope, the Large Binocular Telescope and the Kepler Mission. These creations have in turn brought us some of the most breath-taking images of our universe, stoking the imaginations of a whole new generation of space aficionados.

While the names of the telescopes and satellites themselves are becoming increasingly well known, it would remiss of us not to throw a spot light on the companies whose work is helping to provide us with a whole new view of the cosmos.

Thales Alenia Space is the European leader when it comes to satellite systems and a major player in orbital infrastructures. A joint venture between Thales and Finmeccanica, Thales Alenia Space sets the global standard in solutions for space telecommunications, radar and optical Earth observation, defence and security, navigation and science. With consolidated revenues of €2.1 billion in 2011, Thales Alenia Space has 7,500 employees in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium and the United States.

On 14 January, 2013, the company achieved a significant milestone in its recent history

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CREDIT: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO), S. ROSSI (ESO)

Thales Alenia Space

European ALMA antenna brings total on Chajnantor to 16

when it announced that it had completed delivery of 25 dishes, each 12 metres in diameter, for the antennas making up the Atacama Large Millimeter/Sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) astronomical observatory in northern Chile, a huge international program built in partnership by Europe, North America and East Asia.

Built at 5,000 meters above sea level, the ALMA observatory will ultimately comprise 66 adjustable parabolic antennas capable of simultaneously observing the sky at millimetric and sub-millimetric wavelengths. This highly innovative facility will give astronomers an opportunity to study the birth of the universe and to obtain highly detailed images of the formation of stars and planets in our galaxy.

ALMA construction and operations are led on behalf of Europe by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), on behalf of North America by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) and on behalf of East Asia by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ). “ALMA is clearly a giant of a project and among the biggest ever conceived in terms of astronomy from the earth,” states Vincenzo Giorgio, of Thales Alenia Space Italy, Responsible for Exploration and Science.

The 25 antennas that Thales Alenia

Space was awarded the European contract to manufacture weigh approximately 100 tonnes each, a size that necessitates the use of a special 28-wheel vehicle and a reinforced road in order to move each structure from its assembly point to its final destination.

To obtain the needed accuracy, the dishes of the antennas have to be extremely light and stable. This has been achieved by the use of ultra-stable CFRP (carbon fibre reinforced

“We are proud to have supported a project that will go on to provide hugely significant data to the scientific community for many years to come” 238 | BE Americas

Thales Alenia Space

Antennas onsite and assembled

plastic) for the reflector base and of rhodiumcoated nickel for the reflecting panels. The surface of the 12-metre dish, must be accurate to within 25/1000 of a millimetre, and cannot change due to any operational conditions, including wind, temperature fluctuations, solar irradiation and the frequent relocations of the antennas with their special vehicle.

“Building a 12-metre dish to these exacting standards was a real challenge for us,” Giorgio continues, “particularly the process of creating a form of industrial production for all 25 of the antennas.” In addition to the sheer volume of work this project entailed, challenges would also centre on maintaining cost controls and a strict delivery timetable that required a production rate of around two antennas every three months.”

In order to negotiate such a large project it was imperative that Giorgio and his team were able to guarantee that the financial performance of the company could be maintained throughout its undertaking. Meanwhile, in terms of the construction process itself, while the company was already familiar with the types of material that would be required to complete a job of this size, the application of these elements was hugely different to anything it had undertaken previously.

Nevertheless, as Giorgio goes on to state, Thales Alenia Space benefited from the use of an in-built secret weapon, so to speak. “When it comes to any scientific work that we conduct we always take a first-time approach to each project: that is a characteristic that I would say is very much a part of our DNA. We know

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CREDIT: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

Thales Alenia Space from experience that in this line of work you never build the same satellite, or in this case antenna, twice. It is for this reason alone that we approach each task with an open mind and a clear desire to produce the best results.”

In addition to cost and delivery concerns, the company also had to strongly factor in the long-term operation of the antennas once in place and active. One example of an issue that had to be overcome involved the rhodium-coated reflecting panels, of which each antenna possesses more than 100, and how these could be replaced as efficiently as possible should the need to arise during the life of the project.

The company’s solution was to design and construct a unique automatic tool that is able to change the affected panel in as short a time as possible and with maximum precision.

This is just one of a number of examples of the skilled work that Thales Alenia Space has contributed towards the ALMA project.

“The fact that we have been able to deliver our incredibly vital contributions to this project, and do so to a higher standard of quality than that which was initially expected, has unquestionable helped to boost our own reputation in the marketplace,” Giorgio concludes. “What is equally important to us however is the fact that we can proud to have supported a project that will go on to provide hugely significant data to the scientific community for many years to come.”

View of the European antennas assembly site

For more information about Thales Alenia Space visit: www.thalesaleniaspace.com

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special focus:

Trusted tra

Thales Geodis Freight and Log the ALMA astronomical observ the more complex and deman

written by: Will Daynes | re 242 | BE Americas

Thales Geodis Freight and Logistics (TGFL)

ansportation

gistics (TGFL)â&#x20AC;&#x2122;s role in bringing vatory project to life was one of nding of the whole undertaking

esearch by: Richard Halfhide BE Americas | 243

TGFL

T

GFL, in existence for more than 50 years, became a joint venture between the Thales and Geodis groups in 2002. Thales Geodis Freight and Logistics has since become a dedicated and well-respected supplier of logistical requirements and specialised freight forwarding operations for the aerospace and defence sectors.

Since its formation TGFL has prided itself on its competitiveness, flexibility, adaptability and quality of service, traits that truly put to the test in one of its more recent undertakings, that being its support of Thales Alenia Space – Italy (TAS – I) and its work on the Atacama Large Millimeter/Sub-millimeter Array (ALMA) astronomical observatory in northern Chile.

TGFL’s primary role involved being entrusted with the transportation of the subsystems for 25 of the antennas that would eventually go on to make up the ALMA project.

These subsystems included the antennas’ individual Back Up Structures (BUS), made of carbon fibre, the reflector panels and all manner of spare parts and associated tools.

To give a scale of the work involved, each BUS has a diameter of 12 metres and is carried in two parts, each with a length of 12 metres and a width of six metres, a height of four metres and a weight of some six tonnes.

“The scope of the contract itself,” explains Gilbert Caramelle, Managing Director of TGFL, “called for a number of detailed, complex tasks to be performed, beginning with the design, development, conception and manufacturing of specific handling and transportation tools for the BUS, dubbed jigs,

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that have been performed with an expert partner company by the name of ACMH.” The next phase of the contract called upon TGFL to organise oversize road transportation of the subsystems from their loading point in Massieux, France, to Antwerp, which represents a journey of some 800 kilometres, where they were loaded onto freight vessels.

Each transportation also required the presence of at least ten escort vehicles. From

here they would travel across the ocean to arrive in Puerto Angamos, Chile, where it again fell upon TGFL to ensure their safe and efficient transportation, supported by its sister company GEODIS WILSON, to their assembled site at San Pedro de Atacama, at the altitude of nearly 3,000 metres above sea level. Last, but not least, the jigs were to be brought back to Europe.

“The first documents of the contract

“TGFL’s primary role involved being entrusted with the transportation of the subsystems for 25 of the antennas”

Loading at Antwerp

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TGFL

Parking at Antwerp

were signed in 2007,” Caramelle continues, “at which point we commenced with a preparation phase that involved carrying out a number of studies over the space of nearly two years, during which time we also went about identifying reliable expert partners and preparing our own organisation to manage and pilot the project. The contract was finalised in November 2008, with the first antenna being transported to Chile in May 2009 and the last arriving in December 2012.”

As Caramelle highlights, TGFL’s approach saw it initially embark upon selecting expert partners for every task of the contract and establishing an internal team of experience managers to coordinate, pilot and control the operation. In order for this to succeed

this internal team would have to ensure the correct training was given to every employee involved throughout the operation, be it truck drivers, crane pilots or vessel crew, utilising the expertise of marine surveyors, and that they were each aware of the sensitivity of the contract itself. Furthermore, it was the team’s job to control the execution of each operation, by attending to each and calling upon the support of experts, to build up a comprehensive back up plan for every task and to build up a trustful relationship with the customer and all other partners.

“Proper planning was of prime importance going into this project,” explains Finance Director, Daniel Bouly, “as was the proper coordination of all suppliers. This was primarily due to the fact that we only had four

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Unloading at Puerto Angamos

“We decided to approach each piece of equipment individually and as if it was the first to leave the Manufacturer’s facility” pairs of specially developed jigs to utilise and that we had to use these in an ever-changing ocean freight environment that can present all number of issues.”

Average transportation time for one antenna was typically between one and two months, with over half of this occurring during the overseas transportation phase. It goes without saying then that with such a challenging project the logistical demands

248 | BE Americas

were massive and required every stage of work to come complete with suitable contingency plans.

“We never once had the same experience when handling any of the 25 antennas,” Bouly reveals. “This is something we anticipated being the case and thus we decided to approach each piece of equipment individually and as if it was the first to leave the manufacturer’s facility. This allowed us to

TGFL

Road transportation in Chile

never become complacent and helped ensure that we constantly re-evaluated our backup solutions, sometimes on an hourly basis to try and account for any eventualities.”

The contract with TAS-I has without doubt been one of the longest and challenging that TGFL has ever faced, yet by adopting an approach to its work that saw it willing and able to adjust any aspect of the project at any given time if necessary, it was able to achieve all of its long-term objectives.

“This project,” Bouly states, “has allowed us to not only build on our existing expertise in the fields of transport and logistics, but also enlarge our experience from a technical point of view, primarily when it comes to using specific handling and transportation tools.”

Arrival at the Operators Port Facility

As others in the company are quick to point out, the contract with TAS – I has also helped to cement some of the other positive traits that TGFL has long been proud of having. “This was a project,” concludes ALMA Contract Manager, René Bouliere, “that really highlighted the strong motivation that the TGFL team possesses. The vast majority of people here will tell you that in many ways this was a dream project to be a part of and I think this contributed to the level of involvement and engagement that I believe was extremely unique to this contract.”

For more information about Thales Geodis Freight and Logistics (TGFL) visit: www.tgflog.com

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Coresa

It’s in the bag

Managing director Jose Ignacio Arrate talks about Coresa’s range of plastic packaging solutions, and the company’s opportunities for expansion in South America

written by: Martin Ashcroft research by: Abi Abagun

250 | BE Americas

Coresa storage silos allow for the temporary storage of cereals, pulses, fertilizers, pastures, feed, among others

Coresa

P

ackaging specialist Coresa was the world, but to be clear on what we mean established in Chile in 1966. here, it is also known in Latin America as a “We started making flexible ‘maxi saco’, and in English speaking countries containers from polypropylene in as a ‘bulk bag’. I’m sure you know what I the 1980s and also some fabrics mean. It’s the bag that your local building for specific applications,” says managing merchant uses to deliver a ton of sand, or the director Jose Ignacio Arrate, “so we’ve been agricultural merchant a ton of animal feed. making these products now for thirty years, It’s an essential product for bulk deliveries, and the company has been in existence for and Coresa has a consolidated capacity of nearly fifty years altogether.” more than 150,000 a month from its three The products he refers to are predominantly manufacturing facilities, one in Chile, one in bags and sacks for the packaging and Argentina, and one in Peru. transportation of commodities in a variety The Chilean factory is the heart of the of industries including fisheries and food, organisation, with 550 employees. The Coresa plant in Peru employs animal feed, mining and construction, although there 180 and Argentina 150. is also strong demand from The number of employees agriculture, in particular, in each facility reflects the for woven polypropylene or production capacity of each polyethylene fabric sheeting plant. “In Chile we have the The year that Coresa was used in containers, perimeter capacity for 100,000 tons of established fences, curtains, tents and extrusion per month, enough blankets, among other things. for seven million bags a It’s too easy to describe them as “bags and month,” says Arrate. “In Peru we have an sacks,” however, as this fails to convey the extrusion capacity of 400 tons a month, but multitude of different product lines Coresa we don’t produce fabrics in Argentina, we produces for individual customers and ship them in from Chile and produce bigbags applications. “Our product range uses over and sacks from the imported material.” a hundred different fabric specifications in Raw materials purchasing is centralised in terms of their properties, thickness and weight Chile, as also are the finance function and per square metre,” explains Arrate. “We have the ingredient ‘recipes’ for each product. different bags with different designs for the With three manufacturing facilities in three top and the bottom, for different sizes and different countries, however, and a reputation weights, which are all customised for each for quality to protect, consistent processes are client and each application.” essential across the board, so the plants are One of Coresa’s most successful products is integrated using the same ERP system. “We the ‘bigbag’, as Arrate refers to it. It probably have SAP R/3 in all our plants so we have has a different name in different parts of standardised processes for manufacturing,

1966

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management, accounting, buying, selling, accounts receivable, etc, in all three facilities,” says Arrate. “Everything is managed using SAP—the same platform in all three plants.”

A major benefit from the close integration is that it allows Coresa to operate with a very lean management hierarchy at each plant.

“We have the same machines in each plant,

we have a lean operation to avoid duplication and waste, and we have a really ultra-light back office in all of our plants,” says Arrate.

“Our goal in manufacturing is to increase our productivity based on three pillars; efficiency, quality and safety. We set productivity goals for each machine and we monitor these shift by shift and day by day.”

“Our goal in manufacturing is to increase our productivity based on three pillars; efficiency, quality and safety” 256 | BE Americas

Coresa

Coresa bags are manufactured to withstand industrial transportation

The machines themselves are top of the range, from one of the world’s most respected equipment manufacturers. “Almost all our machinery is Starlinger,” says Arrate, “the Austrian specialist manufacturer of sack making machinery.” Starlinger is famous for developing the patented Adstar bag for carrying cement, which is now one of Coresa’s core products. “We have two machines in Chile producing Adstar sacks for cement,” says Arrate. “They are paper sacks, but without any sewing. We have the capacity to manufacture two million of these bags every month in Chile, but we are also planning to start producing them in Argentina soon. We were the first company

in Latin America to make this bag when we introduced it in 1998.”

In the thirty years that Coresa has been manufacturing bags and sacks, customer requirements have continued to evolve, so research and development has been an ongoing process. Innovation has been a constant preoccupation, and the company has successfully converted many new ideas into solutions for its customers. One of these is a type of tent used by cherry farmers to cover the trees when the fruit is maturing.

Another solution has been developed to cover blueberry plants. “We also have new developments in sewing techniques for some of our customers.”

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“Environmental awareness is an issue all over the world, but with plastic, it’s more about final disposal than manufacturing”

Coresa container bags are designed to hold loads from 300-2500 kg

258 | BE Americas

Coresa The company sells all over North and South America, and continues to look for opportunities to expand. “We are interested in Colombia, Mexico and Brazil,” says Arrate. “We are one the biggest in our industry in South America, we have a lot of experience, a recognised quality in the market and a flexible capacity to answer anything that is asked of us in terms of productivity and quality. We also have a capacity in Chile that could be redirected to produce a final product somewhere else. It’s easy for us nowadays to start a factory anywhere, using our SAP platform. We have a lot of strengths which we can use to start a new business from scratch.”

Environmental awareness is an issue all over the world, but with plastic, it’s more about final disposal than manufacturing.

“The manufacturing process from the extruder to the assembly of the product is actually a very clean process,” says Arrate.

“We only need electricity to do it, and there’s a minimal amount of scrap that can’t be used again in another product.

“There is a lack of public perception in South America about plastics recycling, however,” he continues. “It’s not as far advanced as it is in North America or Europe. We are just beginning to think about it here. You could not imagine

modern life without plastic products, so I think we will soon see better technology for recycling plastics, and also more education to teach people how to handle plastic packaging after it has been used.

That is a big opportunity in Latin America.”

On the social side of corporate social responsibility, Coresa is active in the areas in which it operates. “In San Antonio we have experience running soccer tournaments and other sporting activities, says Arrate, “and in Argentina the Christmas party for the whole town was held in our factory.”

For more information about Coresa visit: www.coresa.cl

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260 | BE Americas

Panama Canal Expansion Program

A global

game changer The expansion of the Panama Canal is the highest profile undertaking in all of Central America and one that is on course to change the world of maritime trade forever

written by: Will Daynes research by: Abi Abagun

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Panama Canal

C

Lock construction, Pacific site

utting across the Isthmus of Panama, the Panama Canal is a 77.1 kilometre ship canal connecting the Atlantic Ocean, via the Caribbean Sea, to the Pacific Ocean and a hugely important conduit for international maritime trade, providing work markets with a time and cost effective crossing. Indeed the Panama Canal has had a massive transformative effect on world maritime commerce over the year, while from a local perspective it contributes some 20 percent of Panamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s total gross domestic product.

Work on the canal by the French actually began back in 1881, however a series of engineering problems and high mortality rates led to the project falling into US hands in 1904. Ten years later and the project to construct the first two-lane canal and set of locks was complete, thus enabling ships the opportunity to avoid the lengthy, often hazardous, Cape Horn route around the southernmost tip of South American or to navigate the Strait of Magellan.

In 1999 control of the canal was passed on to the Panamanian government who in turn created the Panama Canal Authority (ACP), an autonomous agency tasked with managing the commercial waterway.

Since it was opened in 1914, annual traffic through the canal has risen from around 1,000 vessels per year to 14,702 in 2008.

His meant that in total, to the end of 2008, more than 815,000 vessels have made use of the canal. When you take these figures into account it becomes immediately quite obvious why the focus in recent years has been on

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Panama Canal

Excavation work in progress

expanding the Panama Canal further still.

The project itself will involve building Led by the ACP, the Panama Canal two new locks, one each on the Atlantic Expansion Program (also known as the and Pacific sides (each with three chambers Third Set of Locks Project) is set to double with water-saving basins), excavating new the capacity of the canal by 2015 by creating channels to the said locks, widening and a new lane of traffic, while deepening existing channels and raising the maximum allowing more, larger ships to make use of its waterways. operating level of the Gatun Such ships will include the Lake, a large artificial lake that forms a major part of the new generation of super container vessels, something canal system. that will open the canal up The new locks are 30 Of Panamaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s GDP comes to new routes and previously percent larger than the from the Panama Canal untapped markets. existing locks. They are so

20%

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;The work currently taking place at the Panama Canal is very much what industry experts are calling history in the makingâ&#x20AC;? large in fact that you could fit three Empire State Buildings lengthwise inside their chambers. The third set of locks open and close using double sliding steel gates, each of which weighs approximately 3,300 tonnes.

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In order to ensure the sustainable use of water the lock design incorporates the use of three water saving basins per chamber. These basins allow for as much as 60 percent of the contained water to be reused in each transit.

Panama Canal

Artist’s impression of the finished complex

Meanwhile, away from the canal itself, the ACP continues to contribute towards extensive greenfield reforestation projects where, in order to compensate for the land reclaimed for the canal expansion, some 600 hectares of space has seen the introduction of new trees.

This space is also now home to the mammals, birds and reptiles that needed to be relocated once the programme got underway.

The programme of works being undertaken ranks as Central America’s most visible expansion program and the largest project in the canal’s history. It is

expected that over the next two decades cargo volumes moving through the canal will continue to grow at an average of three percent per annum, almost doubling the tonnage volume of 2005 by 2025. It is because of this projected increase in traffic that the canal authority and its partners are proceeding rapidly with an undertaking that will ultimately cost $5.25 billion.

The existing two sets of locks, which raise ships 85 feet above sea level, have so far defined the “Panamax” standard, which limits the size of container vessels to a maximum

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General view of the Atlantic locks site

Panama Canal

$5.25 Billion Total cost of the expansion program of 5,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units). From 2014, deeper and wider access channels will complement new locks to the southwest of the existing Miraflores Locks on the Pacific side and east of Gatun Locks on the Atlantic side. This will enable the canal to move into the â&#x20AC;&#x153;post-Panamaxâ&#x20AC;? phase of its evolution and accommodate the transit of 13,000+ TEU ships.

As of April 2013, 54 percent of the total expansion project had been completed with both Atlantic and Pacific entrances among the main section of the undertaking to be ready for use. Throughout the project to date the operators gave successfully managed to keep traffic volumes undisturbed despite the huge amount of dredging equipment that has been brought it.

The work currently taking place at the Panama Canal is very much what industry experts are calling history in the making and the expansion of one of the Seven Modern Wonders of the World is sure to be game changing development for traders and consumers the world over.

For more information about Panama Canal Expansion Program visit: www.pancanal.com

BE Americas | 269

A gatewa

A sub beh America

270 | BE Americas

LLX (Açu Superport Project)

ay to the future

bsidiary company of EBX Group, LLX is the driving force hind the development of the Açu Superport, one of Latin a’s most important investment projects in recent history

written by: Will Daynes research by: Abi Abagun

BE Americas | 271

LLX (Açu Superport Project)

W

ith a population of just facilities, mainly in the port sector. LLX’s over 30,000 people and ventures are strategically located and are a total area of some designed to handle the largest vessels, using 459 square kilometres, the latest port technology, thus resulting in São João da Barra may efficient and low-cost operations. not be as recognisable as some of Brazil’s A total of R$4 billion will be invested in other municipalities, however it is the Açu Superport, of which R$1 billion is being location of one of the country’s most exciting provided by LLX Minas-Rio (responsible for developments, the Açu Superport, the largest implementing the iron ore port terminal) port infrastructure investment project in all and R$3 billion by LLX Açu (responsible for of Latin America. handling other cargo such as steel products, With two terminals, one offshore and petroleum, coal, granite, slag, pig iron and one onshore, the Açu Superport is a private, liquid and solid bulk). mixed-use port complex Building of the Açu that will eventually boast Superport began back in 17 kilometres of piers and up October 2007. Occupying to 47 mooring berths. It is a total area of 90 square being built on the northern kilometres, the complex Rio de Janeiro coastline, will have an initial depth near the area responsible for of 21 metres, which will be 85 percent of Brazil’s oil and expanded to 26 metres, and Total investment being the capacity to receive large gas production. made into the Being an innovative vessels. At present only Açu Superport project boasting modern seven percent of Brazil’s engineering, construction ports have the capacity to and operating practices, the Açu Superport receive capesize ships. will be comparable with the most modern Upon completion the Açu Superport will and efficient ports in the world. It is being have two terminal complexes. The first, prepared to receive large vessels such as TX1 is an offshore terminal with a depth of Capesize and Very Large Crude Carriers 21 meters, a three kilometre access bridge, (VLCCs), which carry up to 320,000 tonnes a tugboat pier, nine oil and iron-ore piers, of cargo, and Chinamax vessels carrying up approach channel and turning basin. Of these, two iron ore piers, the tugboat pier, to 400,000 tonnes.

The principle company behind this approach channel and turning basin are extensive development is LLX, a logistics completed. Once operational TX1 will be company of EBX Group that was founded in able to handle up to 100 million metric March 2007 with a mission to provide Brazil tonnes of iron ore a year and 1.2 million with integrated infrastructure and logistics barrels of oil a day.

R$4

Billion

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The Acu SuperporT projecT in BrAzil

MeeTinG Your eVerY chAllen

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Boskalis tailors innovative and competitive solutions. From feasibility studies, design and execution to maintenance and operational services.

We are a global leading expert in: Design, construction and maintenance of Ports and Waterways Land reclamation Coastal defense and riverbank protection Terminal and harbor towage services Heavy marine transport, lifting and subsea services Salvage Talking about challenges...

Boskalis’ track record in South America is already strong. Not only in the ‘business as usual’ projects but especially when it comes to challenging projects like a submerged tunnel and a LNG terminal in Mexico, a total mining solution in Surinam, the construction of the first man-made island in front of Panama City and the installation of a gas pipeline and a communication cable in Tierre del Fuego.

With its major role in the prestigious project at LLX Acu, Boskalis has once again emphatically demonstrated that it is able to successfully manage whatever challenges arise: Challenges related to environmental restrictions, to sudden changes in planning, to working in exposed off shore conditions or related to interfaces with other contractors. We swiftly adapt ourselves, whatever the circumstances.

Let’s talk about your challenges Boskalis do Brasil Dragagem e Servicos Maritimos Ltda.

Avenida Presidente Vargas 309 (10th floor) Centro Rio de Janeiro RJ 20.040-010 Brazil T +55 21 2121 1042

www.boskalis.com

LLX ACU SUPER PORT PROJECT: MEETING EVERY CHALLENGE For Boskalis, being part of the LLX/OSX project in Brazil has been challenging and inspiring. The entrepreneurial and innovative spirit of the client Eike Batista matches Boskalis’ mentality and work ethic.

LLX Acu Super Port Project is an incredibly dynamic project. Its conception took place quickly and continues to develop rapidly as new customers sign on. To meet the challenge, Boskalis and the Client work closely, with constant communications and transparency – making improvements, meeting deadlines and maintaining high quality while achieving excellent safety performance.

Challenges at LLX Acu Super Port Project included: • A very tight deadline at the start of the project to meet the turtle season. Boskalis solved this through an extremely short mobilization time of the equipment and moving past the beach under unfavorable weather and sea conditions.

• The enormous transportation distance for the dredged material. This challenge was met with almost 20 kilometers of pipeline on location.

• Meeting tight deadlines caused by changes in planning and sequence of activities as the project advances. Boskalis quickly

1 | BE| BE WEEKLY 276 Americas

adapts by negotiating with the Client and subcontractors, providing alternative solutions and equipment and streamlining execution.

In total five vessels were mobilized: two jumbo cutter suction dredgers, two large trailing suction hopper dredgers, a clamshell dredger plus supporting marine equipment and dry excavation equipment. Although the numbers vary, between 350 and 450 people are at work at any given moment on dredging the access and inner channels, turning basin and harbor basin as well as land reclamation work. At a later date Boskalis will also construct the revetments at the harbor’s entrance. The total dredged volume will be in excess of 43 million cubic meters, part of which will be used to reclaim land for the construction of the port facilities.

Boskalis’ track record in South America is already strong. Not only in the “business as usual” projects, but especially when it comes to challenging projects such as: • the installation of a submerged tunnel in the entrance channel in Coatzacoalcos, Mexico, the largest oil exporting terminal in Central America; • the reconstruction of an LNG terminal

LLX LLX (Açu Superport Project)

in Cuyutlàn, Mexico, in severe offshore conditions; • a total mining solution in Surinam, where the overburden in the jungle (partly swamp) was removed and bauxite was lifted, including road transport to the refinery.

The required dredge (1800T) was transported by road to the site.

• the construction of the first artificial island

in front of Panama City (see picture); • the installation of a gas pipeline and a communication cable in the remote location of Tierra de Fuego Let’s talk about your challenges……….. we are ready for it! www.boskalis.com

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Sistema PRI Engenharia WE ARE WHEREVER YOU NEED! Management, Supervision and Project Design of Engineering Works Areas of work: Building and Industrial - Public - Commercial - Education - Housing - Hospitals - Hotels - Special Works Transportation â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Infrastructure Highways Railways and Subways Ports Airports Bridges and Viaducts Urban Paving Sanitation and Environmental Water Treatment Sewage Treatment Water Supply and Distribution Systems Sewerage Effluent Treatment Industrial Pollution Control Collection, Treatment and Disposal of Urban Refuse Urban Drainage Energy Hydroelectric Power Plant Dams and Earthworks; Mining; Irrigation Works Thermoeletric Power Plant Transmission Lines Natural Gas Distribution Sucroenergetic Telecommunication Building Communication networks Systems

YOUR ENGINEERING IN BRAZIL

LLX LLX (Açu Superport Project) LLX feature text going et dolore magna aliqua. Ut The other terminal, TX2, here....Lorem dolor sit enim ad minim veniam, quis is an onshore ipsum terminal being amet,around consectetur nostrud exercitation ullamco built a 6.5adipisicing kilometre elit, sed do eiusmod tempor laboris nisi ut aliquip ex long, 300 -met re-w ide incididuntchannel. ut labore TX2 et dolore approach will ea commodo consequat. magnaa wharf aliqua.line Utofenim boast over ad 13 Duis aute irure dolor in minim veniam, quis nostrud kilometres, where liquid and reprehenderit in voluptate exercitation ullamco laboris solid bulk, coal, pig iron, slag velit esse cillum dolore nisi ut aliquipwill ex ea and granite becommodo handled, eu fugiat nulla pariatur. consequat.

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SISTEMA PRI is an engineering consulting company established in 1982, with the objective of providing engineering services in the field of projects, job and enterprise management, planning and general technical studies. PRI stands for “Planejamento Real e Integrado” (Real and Integrated Planning) that designates its own and exclusive management, planning and job control system, created and developed entirely by the company.

Currently with approximately 500 professionals, our team has been developing services in many engineering areas with excellent results. Sistema PRI is highly certified with ISO 9001:2008, ISO 14001:2004 and QUALIHAB Level 6.

The working methodology employed by SISTEMA PRI in the management of jobs and undertakings has been constantly perfected since its foundation, being based on most modern management techniques guided by standard NBR-ISO 10.006:2006 and by the Guia Oficial do Conjunto de Conhecimentos do Management de Projetos - Official Guide of the Set of Project Management Knowledge (PMBOK Guide - edition 2008), published by PMI – Project Management Institute – world leader among professional organizations in the field of project management. www.sistemapri.com.br

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Solução Madeiras Solução Madeiras is a Brazilian company with nine years of experience in building construction prefabricated wood, which is adaptable to different styles, terrain conditions, enterprises that require LEED certification (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) and FSC (Forest Stewardship Council). We serve the industrial, infrastructure, metal & mineral, petrochemical and residential industries. The values we apply to ​our work include commitment, safety, interpersonal relationships and attention to sustainability issues. LLX, one of our high level clients, demanded Solução Madeiras’s expertise in order

Commitment and

Products: The company provides a a focus on construction: wood products (plywood

Certification: The major certified by the FSC® (Fo come from managed for

Services: • Prefabricated wood bu ensure comfort, safety places: office, restaura room and sanitary, acc • Prefabricated roof: roo

to build the LLX Açu Supeport´s office.

The success of this partnership was a result of our understanding of www.solucaomadeiras.com.br the client’s needs, coupled with quality and time commitment to the welfare of the professionals involved in the building process of one of the largest enterprises in Brazil. www.solucaomadeiras.com.br

Commitment and quality in line with the environment

Products: The company provides a wide range of wood products with a focus on construction: a wide variety of woods, engineered wood products (plywood, OSB board), treated wood.

Certification: The majority of our wood products are certified by the FSC® (Forest Stewardship Council®) and come from managed forests.

Services: • Prefabricated wood buildings. We design spaces that ensure comfort, safety and speed of assembly. Applied to places: office, restaurants, kitchens, warehouses, dressing room and sanitary, accommodation.

• Prefabricated roof: roof system for industrial wood.

www.solucaomadeiras.com.br

Products FSC® on request

LLX (Açu Superport Project)

and gas production and exploration activities which is now licensed for 1.2 million barrels that exist within the Campos Basin. It is here a day. The OFT will lower the water and salt that approximately 85 percent of Brazil’s total content in the oil by using centrifugation oil and gas production originates. and decantation. The operation enhances The complex has been strategically the quality and the commercial value of the product. positioned to handle and Because of its privileged treat oil, provide support location close to the main oilto offshore exploration and production operations, and to producing basins of Brazil, the house a metalworking cluster Açu Superport is extremely dedicated to the oil and gas attractive for companies Total jobs that the port industry. Furthermore, the operating in the oil and gas and industrial complex will ultimately generate Açu Superport will have an sector, such as OSX, which Oil Treatment Facility (OTF), operates in the offshore oil

50,000

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SUNSET Surveillance and Security is an

established company with over 15 years of expertise in providing private surveillance, armed escort and security services to financial, public and private institutions.

OUR SERVICES INCLUDE: Surveillance personnel: n Armed and unarmed n Dressed in suit and uniform n Entrance control Surveillance and Security for events:

n Punctuality n Technical visits to develop safety and action plans n Commitment to address the particular needs of each event n Communication equipment n Earphones, metal detectors, among others

Consulting:

n Planning of safety n Risk analysis

VIP service: Individual security escorting to schools, airports, personalities, bank visits among others.

Closed CCTV and 24-hour monitoring: n Modern digital technology accessible from virtually anywhere n Systems and alarms integrated with motion sensors and night vision.

Contacts: telephone: +55 21 2568-7114 / 2234-3088 email: administracao@sunsetvigilancia.com.br www.sunsetvigilancia.com.br

LLX LLX (Açu Superport Project) LLX feature to go et dolore magna aliqua. Ut and natural gas text equipment here....Lorem dolorThe sit enim ad minim veniam, quis and services ipsum industry. amet, consectetur adipisicing nostrud exercitation ullamco Açu Superport may also be elit, sed doto eiusmod tempor laboris nisi ut aliquip ex connected gas pipelines, incididunt labore et dolore ea commodo consequat. especially utthe pipeline of magna ad Duis aute irure dolor in Santos aliqua.

Basin, Uttoenim supply minim quis nostrud natural veniam, gas to steelworks, the reprehenderit in voluptate exercitation ullamco laboris thermal power plant of MPX velit esse cillum dolore nisi aliquip ex ea commodo and ut other industries located eu fugiat nulla pariatur. consequat.

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Excepteurprograms sint occaecat cupidatat Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur and environmental non proident, sunt in culpa officia deserunt in São João da Barra.

The qui initiatives include adipisicing where courses are sed also do provided to residents. elit, eiusmod tempor mollit anim id est qualification laborum. Lorem ipsum incididunt labore et dolore magna the professional program, In the two ut stages implemented to datealiqua. some dolor sit amet, consectetur ad minim quis nostrud conducted in partnership withadipisicing SENAI andelit, the Ut 600enim people receivedveniam, bricklayer, welder, sed do eiusmod temporofincididunt ut Barra, labore exercitation laboris nisi ut aliquip ex municipal government São João da carpentry, ullamco mechanics, forklift operator,

SUNSET SURVEILLANCE AND SECURITY SUNSET Surveillance and Security is an established company with over 15 years of expertise in providing private surveillance, armed escort and security of personalities, services to financial, public and private institutions as well as national and multinational companies. It has a solid operational and administrative structure, formed by a team of qualified employees focused in risk analysis and security plans using with the latest technology to provide a personalized service which meets the individual needs of each client .

Its aim is to deliver high quality services at competitive prices which guarantees its leading position in the market.

Its mission is to protect and ensure the well being of its customers by providing them with the highest

standard of personal and property security.

It works to provide safe and orderly environments and solutions in the area of prevention, acting with strength, reliability and integrity. It provides its personnel specialised trainning by working in partnership with highly regarded training instituitions and regularly evaluates them to ensure the high level of performance is maintained and at the same time treating them fairly and respectifully. As a result, it can offer a unique service to take ensure the safety and peace of mind of its clients.

“WE LOOK AFTER YOUR POSSESSIONS AS WE LOOK AFTER OUR OWN FAMILY”.

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Holanda E N G E N H A R I A LT D A

Phone: +55 024 3355-6047

www.holandaengenharia.com.br

Quality Control, Field Supervision & Consulting • Consulting with focus on durability of structures and prevention of pathologies • Pathologies identification and repairs methodologies • Concrete Quality Control from selection of materials until placement • Quality Control of Soil Structures

Over 25 millions m3 of controlled concrete Through staff trained in laboratory of concrete, soil and rock, we elaborate characterization studies of building materials, experimental concrete dosages and field supervision in control of the works.

Weekly Because a month is a long time to wait...

Your weekly digest of business news and views www.bus-ex.com

LLX (Açu Superport Project) hydraulics, storekeeper, steel HOLANDA fixer and administrative Operating for over 25 years with excellence in the area assistant training. of Quality Control, the experience of the company states A series of initiatives for in major works such as dams, ports, harbors, canals, the fishing community are tunnels, industrial structures, and now proud to be one also being implemented. of the key contributors of the construction of the Latin These include a dentists Americas Largest Port Facility (Açu Superport Project).

Further emphasizing the development and implementation surgery and IT laboratory in of building methods in the area of civil works as well as the fishing community, the the investigation of pathologies including the definition refurbishment of the fishing of repair and recovery systems aimed at durability of offices in Barra do Açu, the structures. refurbishment of schools, We work with quality manuals and procedures the donation of equipment of construction in accordance with the technical to legalise fishing boats, specifications of each work, and in particular in accordance with the standards established by ISO 9001. donation of a head office www.holandaengenharia.com.br for the fishermen’s village, diagnosis of education levels and delivery of navigation kits, with buoys, lifejackets and flags.

On the environmental front, LLX is developing programs aiming to recover and preserve the environment in the region where its ventures are installed. One such program is the Biodiversity Conservation Program, which helps develop applied research for the handling and protection of coastal ecosystems. The program entails initiatives for environmental recovery, area protection and environmental education, in addition to studies conducted by the company itself and supporting scientific research carried out by a number of institutions. One of the program’s flagships is the creation of the Caruara Private Natural Heritage Reserve (RPPN), the largest private reserve in the country, occupying 3,845 hectares.

LL X also invests in initiatives to bolster family-based farming. T he

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LLX (Açu Superport Project) initiatives include the arrangement with the municipal government of São João da Barra and the State Agriculture, Fisheries and Supplies Department of Rio de Janeiro to help small rural producers and associations by building greenhouses in the fifth district of São João da Barra.

The program uses sustainable practices for greenhouse cultivation, adding value to products and rural properties and enabling year-round harvests, in addition to boosting producer income.

In partnership with Companhia de Desenvolvimento Industrial do Estado do Rio de Janeiro (CODIN) and the municipal government of São João da Barra, LLX is building Vila da Terra, a rural housing settlement in São João da Barra. It is here that 90 areas in the location are being allocated to families losing their homes due to the creation by CODIN of the Industrial district of São João da Barra in the municipality.

Relocation to Vila da Terra is being offered to families who are resident in the area and own less than ten hectares of land.

At present more than 7,000 people are working on the port’s construction, 50 percent of whom live in either Campos or São João da Barra. Once operational the port and the industrial complex are expected to generate as many as 50,000 jobs, while at the same time attracting investment of around R$100 billion to the region.

For more information about LLX (Açu Superport Project) visit: www.llx.com.br

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CHUM

New CHUM for Montreal After a decade of uncertainty Montreal, is soon to benefit from a $2.5 billion state of the art teaching and research hospital that anyone will be happy to visit â&#x20AC;&#x201C; or work at

written by: John Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Hanlon research by: Vincent Kielty

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Construction in progress and the CRCHUM in the background, almost completed

CHUM

M

ontrealers have become accustomed to seeing the large building site in the heart of the city that will house the new hospital complex that is being built there. The new CHUM is bounded

by Boulevard René-Lévesque, Rue SaintDenis, Rue Sanguinet and Rue Saint-Antoine towering 20 storeys above ground. The City of Montreal will finally have one of the most advanced teaching hospitals and medical research facilities in the world.

The Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM) and its associated Research Centre (CRCHUM) will be truly world class institutions. They were financed under two separate PPP project agreements. Substantial completion of the CRCHUM in the end of September 2013, and substantial completion for the first phase of the hospital is April 2016.

This major redevelopment project is much more than a stunning architectural group of buildings to grace this key site on the edge of the old city. The project has been clouded by uncertainty since it was first mooted more than a decade ago, in 2000.

Sylvain Villiard, Secretary General and Associate Executive Director, has been juggling the project since its inception, through a series of changes of administration and policy. The present site was finally chosen in 2005, by which time, he says, his team had become very good at site evaluation! Then there was a period of discussion about the size of the hospital: it replaces three existing facilities with a total of 1,000 beds, so the government’s preference for a much more smaller facility had to be questioned. At last

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A BUILDING IS A LEGACY Your legacy is to deliver a building that serves all your stakeholders – not just for today, but for the century ahead.

We help define your facility for the future by delivering flexible, energy efficient and sustainable designs that serve today’s needs as well as those of generations and technologies to come. As your consulting engineering partner, we apply our 90+ years of engineering expertise to solve your challenges.

HH Angus – an engineering partner for the life of your building. hhangus.com

CHUM

HH Angus and Associates Limited HH Angus is pleased to be participating in the CHUM project - the Centre Hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal. More than 50 members of the HH Angus staff are providing Mechanical and Electrical Consulting Engineering and Security Design to the project, which is being designed to target LEED® Silver.

Founded in 1919, today HH Angus and Associates is one of Canada’s largest private consulting engineering firms. The company focuses on serving clients in the healthcare, technology, commercial and energy system sectors. We’re proud of our reputation for delivering superior engineering design and innovative building solutions to industry leaders.

We are fortunate to work with clients who trust us to incorporate new concepts and refine current ones to provide them with the best solution. With that trust comes the obligation to ensure our design fully meets our client’s expectations.

Recognized as industry leaders with international scope, HH Angus has a history of satisfying clients who require solutions to complex projects. Regardless of a project’s size or intricacy, we work with the design team to understand the character of the facility and to design appropriate systems, on schedule and within budget.

During the lifespan of a facility, operating costs will substantially exceed capital costs.

We understand that, and take a collaborative,

integrated design approach. Our design team works closely with stakeholders to deliver building design solutions that will be efficient and flexible and that will serve the needs of the owner/operators over the lifecycle of the facility.

Our staff of over 200 includes 50+ licensed professional engineers and 60+ employees who are LEED® Accredited Professionals.

We’ve been delivering energy efficient designs since before anyone thought to call them sustainable. To us, it just makes sense…why would we work any other way?

Our ability to provide technical support, design and project management for building services projects offers our clients a comprehensive range of services from concept to commissioning.

In addition to mechanical and electrical consulting engineering, our services include: Commissioning • Project Management Vertical Transportation • Lighting Design Communications & Security Peer Review • Renewable Energy Consulting Master Planning • Feasibility Studies • Energy Modeling • Photometrics • Inspection Lifecycle Costing • Simulation Operations Training • Compliance Consulting T. 416.443.8200 or toll free 1.866.955.8201 E. info@hhangus.com www.hhangus.com

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a compromise was reached, and CHUM will have 772 beds and 39 operating rooms.

The main hospital replaces three existing hospitals, the Saint-Luc Hospital that stands at the corner of Saint-Denis and René-Lévesque – that landmark will be demolished as part of the project – the Hôtel-Dieu and the Hôpital Notre-Dame. It is being constructed under a public private partnership (PPP) between the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal and four equity partners that together make up the CHUM Collectif. Innisfree is a UK investment group with 23 active hospital projects, four in Canada; OHL is based in Spain and has built hospitals totalling 60,700 beds in 14 countries; Laing O’Rourke is the UK’s largest privately owned construction company and Dalkia Canada is a subsidiary of the global facilities management group.

The Research Centre to the south-east of the main hospital site and separated from it by Rue Viger, is being delivered via a separate PPP agreement with Accès Recherche Montréal (ARM), a partnership between Fiera Axium Infrastructure and Meridiam Infrastructure, and built by a joint venture of two Quebec companies, Pomerleau and Verreault SENC. In fact it is almost finished – the fabric of the buildings is complete, and the services and equipment are going in under the overall

supervision of Sylvain Villiard who in 2011 handed over the project management of CHUM itself to Paul Landry.

The new centre brings together six former locations – imagine the advantages in communication between the researchers! No wonder they are keen to move in, something they will begin to do in October 2013, a remarkable achievement on the part of ARM and Pomerleau-Verreault says Villiard. “The

“It is a tribute to our partners that after 42 months of construction we are on schedule, on budget and within one percent of our original specification” 294 | BE Americas

CHUM

Amphitheatre and main entrance of the New CHUM

CRCHUM consists of two very be a further reassurance to high tech buildings amounting know that these systems will to 68,800 square metres. It is be competently maintained a tribute to our partners that for at least the 30 years of the after 42 months of construction PPP agreement. The facility Number of beds in the we are on schedule, on budget will be formally handed over new hospital on October 1, 2013 and by and within one percent of our original specification.” The January 1, 2014 six hundred buildings that the staff will be people will have moved in. leaving behind are up to 150 years old – their In addition, 5,500 pieces of equipment are inconvenience and inefficiency couldn’t be a being moved – in all $100 million-worth of greater contrast to the fail-safe systems they new equipment is being installed, 40 percent will enjoy in the new facility. of it brand new.

The research facility is linked to the Even the power supply comes in from two separate grid sources. Hydro-Québec and new Integrated Teaching and Training an additional link will give access to power Centre (CIEF) by a bridge that spans one of within the Research Centre. Honeywell is the Montreal’s busiest link roads. Not that you’d facility management partner in ARM – it will know it, because it is an underpass that runs

722

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â&#x20AC;&#x153;The main hospital will take a little longer to complete, but it is progressing well and is in the hands of a robust partnershipâ&#x20AC;? below the site itself. The CIEF is a key part of the hospital: some 6,000 students a year pass through it: now they will be able to work in an environment that contains a great deal of innovative learning technology and is close to a great deal more. The hospital

296 | BE Americas

is already working with a company involved in simulation to develop new products for surgical, ultrasound and clinical simulation, which apart from its relevance to diagnostics and treatment is increasingly important in teaching. CIEF will have 41 clinical training,

CHUM

Overview of what the New CHUM, including CRCHUM, will look when it’s finished

self-training and skills evaluation rooms and simulation laboratories. It will also include two rooms equipped with virtual simulators and computer operated mannequins.

The main hospital will take a little longer to complete, but it is progressing well and is in the hands of a robust partnership says Paul Landry, who had delivered two large hospital projects in Ontario before coming to CHUM in 2010. The main hospital building, or D Block, comprises three units, he explains, with each storey running out at around 20,000 square metres. The first eight storeys contain all the diagnostic and treatment departments,

including the 39 ORs while above them rise two parallel towers that contain 28 of the 36 in-patient wards.

Connecting directly to the D Block at all levels, block B1 contains the ambulatory care centre, or outpatient facility. It houses 35 different specialist clinics. A good example is the specialist burns unit, one of only two in the province – the other is in Québec City.

In terms of patient numbers, ambulatory care visits represent a major component of overall clinical services, says Landry: “Approximately 500,000 outpatients visits per year are anticipated. That’s one reason it has

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been situated right behind the amphitheatre this system instead of the traditional large that forms the main entrance to the hospital. pneumatic tube system for removing soiled We wanted a direct link between the main linen and refuse which takes up a large entrance and this large volume of ambulatory spatial and electromechanical footprint.” visits for ease of patient access.”

The use of AGVs for in-hospital logistics is The eight-storey logistics building will be not new, and the team visited other hospitals the service and goods handling hub of the including Forth Valley in Scotland to see it hospital. It houses the automated guided in action. However the CHUM system is the largest and most modern vehicle system that was introduced at an early stage in North America, and the by the CHUM Collectif, first in Canada. The robots something Landry gives the follow wi-fi controlled paths partners full credit for. “Our with location precision of 1 centimetre, moving from partners were determined to Anticipated outpatient exceed our expectations, and floor to floor on dedicated visits each year at changed their design at the elevators. “The automated Nouveau CHUM bidding stage to introduce transportation equipment

500,000

A view inside the CRCHUM

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CHUM

“Art and culture in the healing environment is integral to our vision of creating a leading edge patient focused design” that has been conceived for this project is really key to the overall operations of the logistics centre,” he says, adding that robotics will form part of leading edge equipment in the pharmacy and even the operating rooms.

However the smartest thing about this massive building project came right at the planning stage. The original submission called for 55 percent of the facility to be delivered

in Phase 1 leaving a substantial proportion to follow in Phase 2. The Collectif sought a derogation from the government to allow a five-metre height increase to the building and a displacement of the phasing line from the hospital. This meant that in Phase 1 they would be able to deliver 85 percent of all the clinical services. By doing that they avoided in effect building two hospitals, with all the associated high tech infrastructure split between two phases. This way the bulk of the critical elements were shifted into Phase 1 with lower spec outpatient clinics, and administrative services in the second. “Our partners really stepped up to the mark with a great architectural solution, reducing the footprint, freeing up more space around the focal auditorium and main entrance and allowing more natural light to come into the hospital itself and also to reach the street.”

From the point of view of the hospital it was a tremendous advantage to get nearly all of its clinical services; its in-patient services, its diagnostic treatment services, plus all 772 beds and most of its outpatient clinics in one go. Virtually everyone will be able to relocate from the three existing hospitals by 2016, he observes with satisfaction, with the remaining 15 percent of ambulatory clinics delivered by 2020 in Phase 2.

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The CRCHUM is almost complete and will open this year

CHUM No account of the new CHUM would be complete without mentioning its aesthetic aspects. Apart from the rigours of delivering a hospital to LEED Silver standards (Gold is not out of the question) in a climate that can range from minus 20 to 30 degrees Celsius, the design will enhance the city’s identity.

Its most striking feature is hard to put one’s finger on. One contender is the remarkable curved amphitheatre, but the incorporation of two old Montreal landmarks is hard to trump.

The bell-tower of the 1866 St-Sauveur church that stood on the site has been taken down stone by stone to be re-erected at the corner of the new hospital close to its entrance, rising in front of six storeys of the hospital.

The associated Garth House façade is to be incorporated inside the entrance hall. “The design of the façade had to be just right and I think Cannon Design and the local architect Neuf Architects together did a marvellous job of designing this new hospital,” says Landry.

We can’t say much – yet – about what will undoubtedly be a keynote of the design. A competition is in hand to design an eight-storey image covering the façade of the ambulatory centre. One percent of the cost of every building project in Quebec must be reserved for artwork and the designers of CHUM enthusiastically complied, says Paul Landry: “Art and culture in the healing environment is integral to our vision of creating a leading edge patient focused design.”

For more information about CHUM visit: www.nouveauchum.com

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ESACHS

A clean bill

of health General Manager, Javier Fuenzalida, discusses the vital contributions ESACHS makes towards Chileâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s well-respected health care system

written by: Will Daynes research by: Louisa Adcock

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quick glance over Chile’s basic health indicators makes one thing clear. With infant and maternal mortality levels amongst the lowest in Latin America, and the average life expecting coming in at close to 76 years, a figure that is up from just over 60 years in the early 1970s, it is plain to see that much of the country’s population is benefiting from what is an advanced health care system.

It was eight years ago that ACHS, Chile’s most comprehensive private network of occupational health and injury prevention centres, further contributed to the evolution of the country’s health care system by establishing the ESACHS. “Our main line of business,” states ESACHS General Manager, Javier Fuenzalida, “is to manage health centres, polyclinics and First Aid rooms within the business premises of various sectors of the economy.”

As well as operating primary care facilities that deal with complex workplace injuries and occupational health issues, ACHS provides comprehensive occupational risk prevention and training courses, and up-to-date information on workplace and in-transit accident prevention. Using innovative management systems, in line with the needs of an evolving workforce, ACHS routinely conducts new risk research in order to implement specific programmes for individual industry sectors. It also strives to promote healthy habits and behaviour in order to improve the quality of life of its affiliates, most notably through a range of special programs and education campaigns.

ACHS’ operations are based on a culture of

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ESACHS

Patient rescue service

quality, in which on-going staff training, state-of-the-art technology, and definition of processes and standards figure highly.

Since its creation ESACHS has developed a reputation for delivering high quality service that conforms to the provisions and regulations imposed by the Chilean Health Authority. In order to deliver rescue and patient transfer services throughout the country, the company operates a fleet of more than 300 vehicles, including emergency ambulances, mini buses, trucks and cars.

In order to meet the needs and interests of companies across all manner of industry sectors ESACHS has developed specific health units. These include First Aid and Nursing Rooms in which trained professionals can deliver emergency care, Procedure Rooms and Polyclinics. These Polyclinics are kitted out with all the necessary equipment and facilities to deliver complete care, and come with additional sampling and x-ray rooms. It is at this level that the company shares a hugely important link with the major national and international mining companies operating in various sectors throughout Chile.

From an administrative standpoint the company specialises in providing all manner of services to health centres, ranging from the implementation of First Aid rooms to complex

health units, with its work recognised by a number of vital industries such as the country’s mining sector.

Today ESACHS employs approximately 1,500 employees, while its coverage across Chile spans from the Tarapacá region to the Los Lagos region encompassing a total of 21 agencies found in the most important cities within each region. “In the years since ESACHS first came into being,” Fuenzalida continues,

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ESACHS

Esachs fleet of vehicles

“we have accumulated a significant level of specialized knowledge within our field of work, much of which is based on the more than five decades worth of experience in the health sector possessed by our parent company.”

With the evolution of mining in Chile in recent times making it an ever more critical component of the country’s economic growth it comes as little surprise to find that ESACHS has made every effort to accompany this growth, in the process delivering its polyclinic and First Aid room management services to some of the most important companies in the sector. Such companies include BHP, CODELCO, the Doña Inés de Collahuasi Mining Company, Lumina Copper, Goldcorp, KGHM International, Antofagasta Minerals, Xstrata Copper, CAP Mining, Yamana Gold and ESO ALMA.

As part of the company’s drive to become even further integrated into Chile’s mining sector it will be attending the EXPONOR 2013 exhibition, which will take place between 17 and 21 June in Antofagasta. Organised by the Antofagasta Industrial Association, the event will bring together more than 1,000 exhibitors from around 30 countries.

“This year marks the very first time that ESACHS has attended EXPONOR,” Fuenzalida says. “Being a participant at this year’s event is a great honour for all of us here and we are very excited to have the opportunity to interact face-to-face with not only many of our current customers, but hopefully some future clients as well.”

In addition to working with the above mining companies ESACHS also provides

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its services to a number of other important sectors and areas of economic activity, such as the education and banking sectors, the forestry and fishing communities and the metalworking, communications and consumer products industries. Furthermore, the company has a strong track record of providing services to Chile’s prisons and its collection of observatories.

“The greatest asset we have as a business,” Fuenzalida explains, “is our dedicated staff, all of whom are fully qualified to deliver

pre-hospital care. Simply put, the reasons behind the quality and efficiency of our services can all be traced back to the work of our employees and it is for this reason that we continue to invest heavily in our people.”

Obviously the services ESACHS provides are very staff intensive in their nature and it is because of this that it also works hard to contract out its external activities, such as transportation, accommodation and deliveries of food and supplies, to its premises to other local businesses. In doing

“Our operational excellence is arguably best demonstrated by our ever-present willingness to develop and improve ourselves”

Ambulance service

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ESACHS

Javier Fuenzalida, General Manager

so the company is also doing its bit for the wider Chilean economy by helped to generate further employment opportunities that local and region businesses can capitalise on.

As it continues to grow as a company ESACHS is constantly in the process of reviewing and expanding the range of services it provides, while always ensuring that at the end of the day its customers have the peace of mind of knowing that they can rely on the company to deliver quality health care.

“Our operational excellence is arguably best demonstrated by our ever-present willingness to develop and improve ourselves,” Fuenzalida highlights. “To this end we are constantly looking to incorporate the latest technology and technological advances into every facet of our operations, from the emergency vehicles we use to the way in which we equip health centres.”

The evidence that this philosophy of selfimprovement is paying off can be seen in the fact that ESACHS’ customer base has increased steadily over the last eight years, and continues to do so now. “Literally every month we are being invited by companies from different economic sectors to participate in proposals related to the management of various health centres,” Fuenzalida concludes. “It is with great pride and satisfaction that we can stand here today and say that we are proving beyond doubt that we are the leaders when it comes to the delivery of such vital services.”

For more information about ESACHS visit: www.esachs.cl

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