ACHIEVING
BUSINESS
EXCELLENCE
ONLINE
BusinessExcellence Weekly ISSUE No. 81 | www.bus-ex.com
aggreko:
Power in place The world leader in temporary power solutions, Aggreko helps governments in meeting the needs of entire populations and keeps industries growing through all contingencies
prepa:
Fortescue Metals Group – Cloudbreak:
aktor:
HERE’S WHY ONTARIO, CANADA
IS YOUR NEXT
BIG IDEA Opportunities for mineral exploration in Ontario abound. Powered by global leaders in innovation and safety standards, our mining practices are among the safest and most sustainable in the world. With business costs lower here than in most G7 countries, Ontario suppliers are more competitive – so you can depend on quality goods and services, delivered on time, on spec and on budget. Innovation is at our core. Make Ontario your next big idea.
YourNextBigIdea.ca/Mining
$2.9B
in non-metallic minerals, including diamonds, was produced in Ontario in 2012
$2.6B in gold
$1.5B in copper
$1.4B in nickel
$787M
in other metals such as platinum and silver
Paid for by the Government of Ontario.
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
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.
Vince Kielty Director of Editorial Research vkielty@bus-ex.com 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
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Dr. Bernard S. Meyerson IBM Fellow and VP Innovation
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issue No.81
6 6 Innovation
Managing sustained innovation for a smarter planet Extraordinary outcomes can be achieved when the right people, infrastructure, and motivation come together.
14
14 hot topic
The rise of the MINT countries Together Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey represent the MINT countries, a collective that could hold the key to future prosperity for countless individuals and businesses.
20
20 Aggreko
Power in place
The world leader in temporary power solutions, Aggreko helps governments in meeting the needs of entire populations and keeps industry growing through all contingencies.
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contents
30 Fortescue Metals Group – Cloudbreak Breaking down barriers
Julie Shuttleworth discusses how Fortescue’s approach to business attracted her to the company, and her goals and objectives for the years ahead.
42 Banro
Producing and prospecting
30
Banro Corporation’s recent achievement of production at its Namoya mine transforms it to a two-mine company targeting more than 225,000 ounces of annual gold production.
54 GeoQuest
Servicing South and Central Africa
GeoQuest has been a principal supplier of vital services for some of Africa’s more prominent developing nations for the last 14 years.
62 aktor
Greece’s construction colossus
62
Greece’s largest construction company, AKTOR has grown to become a major player on both the local and international stages.
72 PREPA – Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority
Bringing change to the Caribbean
Puerto Rico’s principle electricity provider is moving forward with plans to shift the island’s dependence from petroleum products to natural gas and renewable energies.
82 Petroleos Mexicanos – PEMEX
72
Moving Mexico forward
Mexico’s largest enterprise and biggest taxpayer intends to invest a record amount in 2014 in order to maintain its position among the world’s elite oil companies. BE Weekly
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Innovation
Managing sustained
innovation for a smarter planet Extraordinary outcomes can be achieved when the right people, infrastructure and motivation come together Words by
Dr. Bernard S. Meyerson
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I
nnovation has always been essential for any organisation wanting to grow. The importance of sustained innovation however, has been less widely recognised up until recently, but is taking on more significance as a result of two key factors. Firstly, many companies that failed to sustain innovation during the downturn have subsequently struggled or not survived. This trend is evident when comparing the findings of McKinsey’s annual Global Survey of CIOs, CEOs and executives. In 2007 (the year before the financial crash), the ability to innovate was valued highly by 54 per cent of respondents. In 2010, this figure was 84 per cent. The bottom line is that after every major economic downturn, it is the companies that have continued to innovate that have survived. Secondly, we must prepare for a postsilicon era. After decades of consistent improvement in the cost, capability and ubiquity of computing, equally steady progress in silicon technology (often referred to as Moore’s Law) means we have reached the point where ever more material constituents in transistors have shrunk such that quantum phenomena render them useless. The notion of everlasting generations of smaller, faster and less costly technology has run
squarely into immutable laws of physics. Put succinctly, atoms don’t scale. These factors have ensured the rebirth of innovation, with future progress in IT performance being realised through new system architectures and materials, and emerging fields such as cognitive computing and its application to Big Data. But before going any further, some words of caution: It is essential to approach innovation as an engine that can take 30 years to start and three minutes to kill. Companies should acknowledge this before turning the key either way in the ignition. Essential elements There are some key ingredients required to enable sustained innovation within an organisation. The most important element of course is people. The main challenge however, is that a very different type of individual is required to manage innovation than would have been sought in the past – the days of relying on someone with four PHDs and three Masters, but who is unable to communicate their ideas to a wider audience, are gone. Indeed, the type of innovator IBM looks for shares two basic properties: tremendous depth, in that they are exceptionally bright; and the ability
“The type of innovator IBM looks for shares two basic properties: tremendous depth, in that they are exceptionally bright; and the ability to communicate their ideas broadly and operate as part of a team” 8 |
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Innovation
“If sustained innovation had not taken place once the disk drive was invented, the average laptop today with an internal spinning hard disk would weigh about 250,000 tons” to c om mu n ic ate their ideas broadly a nd operate as part of a team. In today’s commercial environment, innovators that are infinitely deep but have no breadth are limited in value, as they are unable to share their ideas or learn from their peers. There are also two types of innovator required for sustained innovation. There are the ‘discontinuous innovators’ that have the ‘big ideas and “ah-ha!” moments, who every now and again invent something groundbreaking. At IBM for example, we have Robert Dennard, who invented the one device memory cell, more commonly known as Dynamic Random Access Memory (DRAM). Dennard also solved one of the conundrums about Moore’s Law by coming up with the right recipe for placing twice the number of transistors on each subsequent generation of chips of the same size, while keeping the power requirements constant from generation to generation. Then there are the ‘continuous innovators’, these are the people who
drive small and steady improvements that are nonetheless vital to sustained innovation. A good example is the team at IBM who drove decades of improvements in disk drive technology. If this type of sustained innovation had not taken place once the disk drive was invented, the average laptop today with an internal spinning hard disk would weigh about 250,000 tons. In addition to a combination of types of innovator, you also need an infrastructure that enables these people to collaborate effectively on a global basis. Such collaboration is necessary across disciplines, organisations, markets, and cultures. Put simply, you don’t get your best result when you have a single, homogenous effort. Scaling versus Moore’s Law Innovation is a matter of increasing importance because information technology is reaching an impasse. One of the core issues is that Moore’s Law has a logical end. If the industry continued to produce a silicon chip that is half the size every 18 months, then eventually
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it would be splitting atoms (and we all know what happens if you do that!). Already, the industry is fast approaching the physical limits of silicon technology. We are also reaching the limits of being able to scale technology out to ever larger systems and data centres. Indeed, what is remarkable with innovation is that you have to revisit every assumption you have ever made about technology. Everyone thinks you don’t have to worry about light being too slow for a given operation but in actual fact it is. Technology today is so fast that one of IBM’s chips performs a complete work cycle in the time it would take a beam of light to travel about 2cm. In the context of a data centre, where many machines can be working together on the same problem but are located hundreds of metres apart, there can be vast delays because the optics employed to transmit signals between them isn’t fast enough. This is why we need to find new ways of making com municat ions faster. Ironically, the
trick is to start innovating by inverting everything that’s been done before in order to improve things. This is where it gets really interesting. With ‘chip stack’ technology for example, it is possible to create an entire system by thinning individual chips to 50 microns, then stacking some 30-50 thinned chips to form a single chip that is just a couple of millimetres high, reducing communications distances within an individual system from metres to millionths of a metre. Light isn’t getting any faster, so you “simply” make communication distances shorter. Data, the new oil Despite nearing its limits, silicon technology will still be employed for many decades yet. The difference is that the innovation will come from the integration of hardware, software, systems, and network functionality, compressing communication distances, as light is way too “slow”. Fundamentally, after years of scaling out systems, the focus has come full circle and the architecture is
“With ‘chip stack’ technology, it is possible to create an entire system by thinning individual chips then stacking them to form a single chip that is just a couple of millimetres high, reducing communications distances within an individual system from metres to millionths of a metre” 10 |
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Innovation
“Data itself has become an issue, because information technology is generating ever-greater volumes of data that needs to be stored” now “scale in” since you get huge benefits from proximity in both reduced communication delays and decreased power requirements to send signals given the much short distances involved. At the same time, chip stacking presents huge technological and material challenges, not least in terms of powering and cooling chips buried mid-stack. You now have 30-50 times the number of chips, and thus transistors, in an area and volume where there had once been only one chip, so this system in a single chipstack presents many issues yet to be fully resolved. Nevertheless, progress is being made with this technology, and since the distance between memory and logic shrinks to microns as opposed to metres or more, the power required for signalling is reduced substantially. There is also some elegant work being done in with optics being integrated onto the chip stack, because conventional electrical signals would not be able to transfer data at the speeds or over the interchip distances as required.
Even data itself has become an issue, because information technology is generating evergreater volumes of data that needs to be stored. More importantly, it must be used effectively. In the words of respected sof t ware i n du s t r y ent repreneur and technology leader Ann Winblad: “Data is the new oil. In its raw form, oil has little value. Once processed and refined, it helps power the world.” Data is now an asset, but it will call for a petabyte of storage class memory, or some vast new high-speed storage device to manage it, as well as a new suite of software tools – or ‘analytics’ – to understand it. Again, how we approach data requires an inversion of the conventional model of data management – i.e. quantities of data are now so vast you cannot move it to a central compute engine, you must invert that process and have many compute engines operating on a vast central yet constantly evolving data store. Even more critical, over time one must innovate so as to analyse incoming data “on the fly”, and store only ones
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The IET Prestige Lecture Series Bernard Meyerson presented t he IET/BCS Turing Lecture at the Royal Institution, London on Monday 24 Febr ua r y, Cardiff University on Tuesday 25 February, The University of Manchester Wednesday 26 February, The University of Edinburgh, Thursday 27 February, a webcast of the lecture can be viewed here. The free to attend lecture was part of the IET’s Prestige Lecture Series, many of the lectures were established in memory of engineers who achieved exemplary and ground breaking work in their day. The speakers invited to give IET Lectures are of that calibre – innovative, forward-thinking and at the top of their game. The IET is one of the world’s largest organisations for engineers and technicians. It has 153,000 members in 127 countries and is leading the development of a global engineering and technology community to share and advance knowledge to enhance people’s lives. Showcasing the latest ideas and technologies, the nine lectures cover a variety of engineering disciplines, ranging from general interest to the more technical. www.conferences.theiet.org/lectures
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learnings, disposing of the vast raw data flow that might drown one over time. Shooting for the moon Integrating analytics tools with realworld data opens up great possibilities for improving lives, enabling problemsolvers to be proactive instead of reactive. For example, advances in data analytics makes it possible to predict the flow of traffic, and combat congestion and traffic jams. In Singapore, models can now predict future traffic jams from current road conditions, and electronic road pricing is implemented to manage traffic patterns through toll prices and other measures that steer traffic into new flows to eliminate a jam that would have otherwise developed. One literally alters the future. The uses for Big Data are literally boundless, but the IT industry and its partners must use these analytical tools to enable solutions for a smarter planet. Probably one of the biggest societal changes passed by virtually unnoticed in 2010: It was the first time in the history of mankind that more people lived in a city than in a rural area. Move forward 20 years and there will be almost 2 billion people migrating to major urban
“The uses for Big Data are literally boundless, but the IT industry and its partners must use these analytical tools to enable solutions for a smarter planet”
Innovation
“The Apollo space programme cost is estimated at $25.4 billion, about $150 billion in today’s money, but it ushered in an exciting new era of technological development and has delivered countless innovations”
centres. This is a sobering thought, and why it is so important we get cities right. Back in 2008, IBM’s chairmen Sam Palmisano said that the company would fund great ideas for a Smarter Planet to the tune of up to $100 million, challenging all employees to propose sustainable businesses serving the public good in key areas of challenge. Sustainability was key, as then society benefits on an ongoing basis. Setting such a grand challenge is the best way to drive a team to innovate, and possibly the greatest example in modern history is the US space programme. In 1961, President Kennedy challenged NASA to land a man on the moon and return him safely to earth before the end of the decade. NASA’s space programme
saw the Apollo 11 astronauts realise President Kennedy’s dream on July 20, 1969. The Apollo space programme cost is estimated at $25.4 billion, about $150 billion in today’s money, but it ushered in an exciting new era of technological development and has delivered countless innovations of huge benefit to society – from freeze drying technology to the materials used in frying pans. We’ve certainly come a long way since man first landed on the moon. The Apollo Guidance Computer had just 4K RAM and a 2MHz CPU; the average smart phone today has 256 MB of RAM and a dual core 1.2 GHz CPU. The rub is that the technology shrink that achieved these gains has almost run its course, so we need to find other ways to push things forward.
About the author Dr. Bernard Meyerson serves as Vice President of Innovation at International Business Machines Corporation. Dr. Meyerson served as the Chief Technical Officer and Vice President at IBM Technology Group. He has held this position since October 2005. Dr. Meyerson joined IBM as a Research Staff Member in 1980 and was later promoted to the Vice President of the Communications Research and Development Center.
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The rise
MINT cou
Individually, Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria increasing importance. Together they re that could hold the key to future prosperit Words by
14 |
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Wil
Hot topic
e of the
ountries
a and Turkey are growing economies of epresent the MINT countries, a collective ty for countless individuals and businesses
ll Daynes
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Hot topic
F
irst coined in 2001 by Jim nations and become the next standout O’Neill of Goldman Sachs, the group of emerging nations. acronym BRIC, referring to the Originally known as MIST, before countries of Brazil, Russia, India South Korea was dropped in favour of and China, is today an almost universally Nigeria in October 2013, average growth recognised entry in the economic of the MINT economies between 2009 dictionary. While the fact that the four and 2012 was recorded at 4.7 percent by countries account for over a quarter of the the International Monetary Fund’s World world’s land mass and are home to more Economic Outlook, a figure projected than 40 percent of the world’s population to grow at around 5.2 percent through cannot be denied, projections of the to 2018. Such a result would see the future power of the BRIC countries more than keep nations have always pace with the BRIC differed widely. At one nations, narrowing end of the scale there a gap that has been are those that believe shrinking since 2009. that they may overtake So what is it about the economies of the G7 the aforementioned Of the world’s population live in nations by 2027, while countries that afford a MINT country more conser vative them such high esteem? predictions it will be For starters all four after 2050 that the boast large, young and combined economies of expanding populations, the BRIC countries will eclipse those of a quality that differs significantly from the current richest nations in the world. the likes of China and its rapidly ageing Either way it is clear that impact of the population and one that in theory BRIC countries will continue to be felt for should lead to increases in domestic the foreseeable future. consumption in the near future. In the meantime, a new neologism The MINT countries also benefit from has entered the business lexicon, again their respective geographic positions. popularized by O’Neill. The neologism Mexico has enjoyed increasing demand in question is MINT, referring to the for exports from the US in recent years, economies of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria Indonesia lies at the heart of Asia and and Turkey, countries that O’Neill and in close proximity to the likes of China other likeminded economists expect and Australia, Nigeria stands poised to to take up the mantle from the BRIC become a hub of Africa’s blossoming
40%
“Growth of the MINT economies between 2009 and 2012 was recorded at 4.7 percent by the International Monetary Fund’s World Economic Outlook” 16 |
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Rise of the MINTs ($ trillions) Gross Domestic Product 2012
Estimated GDP in 2050
Ranking
16.24
US
1
China
52.62
8.23
China
2
US
34.58
5.96
Japan
3
India
24.98
3.43
Germany
4
Euro Area
2.61
France
5
Brazil
9.71
2.47
UK
6
Russia
8.01
2.25
Brazil
7
Japan
7.37
2.01
Russia
8
Mexico
6.95
2.01
Italy
9
Indonesia
6.04
1.84
India
10
UK
5.69
1.82
Canada
11
France
5.36
1.53
Australia
12
Germany
5.22
1.32
Spain
13
Nigeria
4.91
1.18
Mexico
14
Turkey
4.45
1.13
South Korea
15
Egypt
3.61
0.88
Indonesia
16
Canada
3.47
0.79
Turkey
17
Italy
3.42
0.77
Netherlands
18
Pakistan
3.33
0.71
Saudi Arabia
19
Iran
3.19
0.63
Switzerland
20
Philippines
3.17
0.26
Nigeria
39
22.51
Source: World Bank, Goldman Sachs
“As is the case for many an emerging market, the MINT countries continue to face issues including bribery and corruption on a large scale� economy, while Turkey exists as something of a gateway into Asia and Africa for the European Union. Despite the positive features the MINT countries possess, a number of concerns and challenges remain that can potential lead to issues for those individuals and organisations looking to commit capital into these respective regions. As is the case for many an emerging market, the MINT countries continue to face issues including bribery and corruption on a large scale, high levels of debt, governance issues, poor infrastructure development and inadequate education systems. No doubt spurred on by the knowledge that only by being seen to be tackling such issues will alleviate the fears potential
investors will have surrounding these issues, leaders of the MINT nations are at least working towards solutions to these challenges. In Mexico a programme of energy reform is well underway, while changes to its education system, fiscal policy and even the structure of its government are in their formative stages. Meanwhile, Nigeria is taking great strides towards solving a long standing issue, that being energy shortages. For decades now the country has relied solely on gas as its principal energy source and this is a situation that it and the World Bank are hard at work trying to correct. What they both hope will be the answer is the attracting of a $100 million clean technology fund that will help boost the
MINT: The pros and cons Mexico
Natural resources
Location (USA)
Crime
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Indonesia
Young population
Drugs
Strong central bank
Corruption
Natural resources High inflation
Location (Asia)
Inequality
Political uncertainty
Hot topic
availability and use of renewable energy in the country. Diversification of Nigeria’s energy sector is seen as one of the best ways of bringing investment into the country, thus helping its economy to grow as a result. Even with the above challenges the advance of the MINT nations seems set to roll on unopposed. According to Londonbased research service WealthInsight, MINT countries will this year surpass both their BRIC peers and the G8 block in the global race for millionaires. In the service’s study and its list of countries set to create the most millionaires this year, the MINTs are poised to rank within the top eight, led by Indonesia, which is expected to see a 22 percent increase in the number of millionaires this
year. Indonesia is then followed by Nigeria with a ten percent increase, Turkey with an 8.5 percent increase and Mexico with a seven percent increase. BRIC has been a popular phrase in the world of business for some 13 years now, however there is a new group of countries on the scene, each positioned ideally to shine in the way Brazil, Russia, India and China have in the last decade. If current trends continue it goes without saying that the countries of Mexico, Indonesia, Nigeria and Turkey will become increasingly important figures on the global business stage. The big question that leaves us with is what will be the next acronym to take the world be storm?
“All four boast large, young and expanding populations, a quality that differs significantly from the likes of China and its rapidly ageing population”
Nigeria
Natural resources
Foreign investment
Poor infrastructure
High unemployment
Turkey
Exports (Petroleum, Rubber, Cocoa)
Location (Europe and Asia)
Construction projects
Poverty
Political unrest
Volatile currency
Industry (Textiles and mining) Corruption
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Po
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Aggreko
ower in place The world leader in temporary power solutions, Aggreko helps governments in meeting the needs of entire populations and keeps industries growing through all contingencies
written by: John O’Hanlon research by: Gareth Hardy
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Banro Resources, DRC 8 MW power project
Aggreko
A
ggreko was founded in the Netherlands in the early 1960s to provide temporary power generation to local companies. In 1973 it moved to the UK, establishing its headquarters at Dumbarton in Scotland, the first step in an expansion programme that has brought it to where it is today, present in 47 countries and employing around 6,000 people. The London Stock Exchange-listed company, a member of the FTSE-100 index, provides power and temperature control solutions to customers who need them either very quickly, or for a short or indeterminate length of time. Examples would be the supply of power to a mining or industrial site which needs to service its permanent power supply, supplying a whole city in times of power shortage, or providing a major sporting event with power and cooling systems. The key being that power can be delivered anywhere, anytime. Now we should make it clear from the outset that we are not just talking about providing gensets for pumps, traffic management, individual manufacturing units or the many other uses in general construction. That is an important business, and is comprehensively covered by local service centres around the globe. Larger projects calling for much more complex solutions, are also delivered globally through Aggreko’s Power Projects business. When it comes to large scale power needed in remote parts of the world, whether the need is short or long term, Aggreko is the company to go to. It supplies multi-megawatt temporary power solutions to companies in the electric utilities sectors, oil & gas (O&G) and mining
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amongst other key sectors. With more than 117 locations across North, Central, South America and The Caribbean, and 194 globally, it boasts the world’s largest generator rental fleet. “Aggreko’s power solutions are rapid, flexible, and highly reliable,” asserts Asterios Satrazemis, President of the Americas Region, where Aggreko lists among its customers every major mining and exploration company as well as most governments and national power grids. In this region the Power Projects division handles large scale projects, defined as anything from 10 MW to over 200 MW. Its client base is primarily utilities, mining and O&G companies. In many South American countries, he explains, hydro power accounts for up to 60 percent of the matrix. “During periods of drought or an El Niño event these sources drop off and we often get asked to provide an interim power solution for anywhere from a few months to several years on a large scale basis to meet the shortfall.” Until hydro-generated levels recover, the national power company needs to put in an interim solution to keep the lights on, and the only way to do that is to call in a specialist who can deploy equipment quickly. “We can effectively deliver a complete power solution within weeks,” says
Satrazemis. “The Power Projects business is conceived around a modular design, where all the equipment is packed in 20-foot ISO containers. It is a plug and play approach so we can deliver assets very quickly with minimal civil works required. We can connect into virtually any voltage they need on the grid, and supplement power to major cities as well as in hard to reach remote areas.” Aggreko has implemented single projects in
“The Power Projects business is conceived around a modular design ... a plug and play approach so we can deliver assets very quickly” 24 | be weekly
Aggreko
Aggreko power plant, Ressano Garcia, Mozambique
Asterios Satrazemis
Latin America in excess of works, installation of the fuel 100 MW, he adds. system including the storage These are not always in tanks, and maintenance the easiest locations. In Peru and operation of the power Aggreko was recently able to plant. In this industry, for The number of locations supply a total of 30 MW of every thousand metres of Aggreko operates from power 3,423 metres above sea altitude, a generator loses in the Americas level to two separate electricity on average ten percent of its generating companies. This power. However thanks to equipment, comprising both the advanced technology of generator units and transformers, provides Aggreko’s generators the total loss above sea partial cover for the power which the level will not be 35 percent, but just ten percent Machupicchu Hydroelectric Power Station over the entire 3,423 metres. will be unable to supply during construction As we frequently note in this magazine, of the Santa Teresa Hydroelectric Power many large scale mining projects are in the Station. This is a turnkey solution for these high Andes. Others are in remote parts of the clients, adding to the supply of equipment the Amazon Basin where the grid will perhaps preparation of ground and civil engineering never reach. In these places localised power
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generation is the only solution either for power until that line arrives and not affect communities or for mines, where reliable, the schedule of production at a multi-billion cost-effective power has to be secured to dollar mining complex. It is an excellent make them viable. “We do a lot of work in long or short term solution to maintaining Colombia, for their onshore O&G projects. schedules. Our modular system allows us to Aggreko can come in and provide turnkey increase or decrease capacity very quickly.” power, including all the manpower they need If any single factor has played into Aggreko’s as well as the equipment and its maintenance. success it is the ease with which its equipment Many mining projects in can be moved to the site. A more accessible regions, 20-foot container can be where power lines can be shifted by train, truck, boat built, get delayed through or aeroplane. Each unit can civil unrest or simply because be kept below 40 tons, which the local power utility does means it is unlikely to be not have the funds,” says affected by weight restrictions People employed Asterios Satrazemis. “We can or snaking roads. However, by Aggreko go ahead and provide interim as some of the examples
6,000
CP Mining, Australia
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Aggreko
“We can effectively deliver a complete power solution within weeks” given above show, a site does not have to be inaccessible to benefit from the flexible power generation available from Aggreko. “We are working on heavy fuel oil (HFO) solutions as well to get lower fuel cost for our clients.” HFO is the fuel of choice in many island countries says Asterios Satrazemis, and Aggreko’s modular HFO packages are making a big impact on the market. In other situations liquefied or compressed natural gas (LNG or CNG) stand out as
solutions that allow companies in the hydrocarbons industry to reduce their power generating costs and guarantee seamless operations. In Colombia Aggreko’s economical CNG-based solutions don’t demand high investment in energy supply services like equipment purchase. Aggreko’s affordable rental services include the installation, operation and maintenance so helping push forward production and boost the oil industry with less capital expenditure. For example a Colombian oil company turned to Aggreko to generate power in three of its exploration blocks in the country and improve its production and operating costs. The most widespread fuel source there is diesel, but Aggreko was able to provide this client with a gas solution resulting in considerable savings and an improved carbon footprint. In March of last year the company announced an ultra-efficient 1 MW engine that will provide its customers with 14 per cent more power at 12 per cent lower cost. The G3+ is the product of a three–year, £6 million development programme and it is the first time Aggreko has moved into developing its own engine technology. The G3+HFO variant of the new engine is also the first of its kind that can run on HFO, producing power at around half the cost of traditional diesel alternatives.
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Aggreko Unlike many businesses, the recession has not been hard on Aggreko which recorded revenues of approximately $2.5 billion in 2012 and an operating profit of $612 million. Delays have dogged power schemes and projects that depend on them have depended increasingly on temporary power. “In those cases, where power has to be delivered reliably we are often the first to meet that gap.” It’s a trend seen all over the world, he observes, and a strong driver for the Power Projects business which is growing rapidly in every part of the world, from Africa to the Americas region that he leads. The company has offices serving all of Latin America, the United States and Canada: from these any and every problem relating to temporary power can be solved quickly and reliably. Satrazemis, who has been in his present post since 1 January 2013 was formerly Aggreko’s Managing Director responsible for the Australia-Pacific Region. In his current role as President of The Americas he is enthusiastic about the flexibility of the service available across the region. “On any given day we will be running base load power for a number of mines, large or small, around the country, where if the power goes down they could potentially start losing millions of dollars in revenue. While the emergency and high profile projects get the headlines, providing businesses with power security on a day to day basis is just as important.” Ressano Garcia, Mozambique
For more information about Aggreko visit: www.aggreko.com
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Breaking dow
Fresh into her role as general manager of discusses how Fortescue’s approach to bu workforce attracted her to the company, and
written by: Will Daynes |
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Fortescue Metals Group - Cloudbreak
wn barriers
the Cloudbreak mine, Julie Shuttleworth usiness and embracing of diversity in the d her goals and objectives for the years ahead
research by: Jeff Abbott
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I
think it is fair to say that Julie Shuttleworth recognises a great mining development when she sees one. For 13 years Shuttleworth was a part of Barrick Gold, working at various sites in Tanzania and at its Granny Smith mine in Western Australia where, in her role as general manager, she led a team of around 700 people. It was during her tenure at Granny Smith that she would also earn a number of industry accolades, including the title of Australian Mining mine manager of the year in September 2011 and being named among the top ten influential women in mining. “Having achieved a great deal during my time with Barrick, I reached a point where I wanted to look for a new challenge when it came to my own career development,” Shuttleworth tells me. “Fundamentally I was looking for an opportunity whereby I could be general manager of a larger mine site, and preferably one located in Western Australia.” Bearing the aforementioned criteria in mind, the opportunity to take on the role of general manager at Fortescue Metals Group’s Cloudbreak mine, located 89 kilometres westsouth-west of Nullagine in the Pilbara region of Western Australia couldn’t be more tailored made for Shuttleworth if it tried. It was with this opportunity on the table that she joined Fortescue Metals Group in October 2013. Cloudbreak was Fortescue’s first mine site, making its first iron ore shipment in May 2008. With a workforce of approximately 2,000 employees and around 1,000 contractors, the mine today processes some 40 million tonnes of iron ore per annum. This ore is prepared and refined within the screening, crushing
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Loading ore at Port Hedland
Fortescue Metals Group - Cloudbreak
40 million tonnes Of iron ore processed by Cloudbreak per annum
Train loaded with ore
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and desand plants based at the Cloudbreak ore processing facility before being stockpiled ahead of transport to port. Meanwhile the site’s train load out facility feeds up to 16,000 tonnes of ore per hour onto 2.7 kilometre long trains that make the journey along a custom built railway to unloading facilities based at Herb Elliot Port in Port Hedland. “My first impressions of Cloudbreak were very positive indeed,” Shuttleworth continues. “The first thing that strikes you is the highly positive energy around the place and the go-getting attitude. There is a major emphasis on team work, with everyone from all levels of the workforce keen to help one another. Fortescue as a business has always possessed a strong set of values based on concepts such as family, enthusiasm and empowerment, and those are clearly present at Cloudbreak.” Coming into the fold as general manager at an operating mine was always going to be a challenge in itself, with the most important thing being to hit the ground running and get up to speed with things as soon as possible. Therefore it was all the more important that Shuttleworth came into her first day in the job with a clear set of objectives for the mine. “One of the main objectives I have is to drive continuous improvement forward in the area of safety and health across the
Fortescue Metals Group - Cloudbreak
Nev Power, CEO, and Julie Shuttleworth, GM, in open pit at Cloudbreak
mine site,” she states. “That is a fundamental requirement for any general manager and I am working constantly with the whole Cloudbreak team, including leadership and safety representatives, to implement greater improvement across the business. The other area of focus for myself is the production side of the mine, particularly working with the processing department to optimise throughput of Cloudbreak’s ore processing
facility, while also handling a number of other important ongoing areas such as managing costs and so forth.” This is certainly a good time to be a part of the Fortescue family. In the last five years the group has undertaken a massive ramp up program, bringing online several other mines and thus increasingly the group’s total production volumes. This in itself is a huge achievement given the dip in price iron
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Fortescue Metals Group - Cloudbreak Feature text to go here... sedDespite do eiusmod tempor ore suffered in elit, 2012. the pressure Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, incididunt ut labore etsuccess dolore this created Fortescue’s ongoing consectetur adipisicing elit, magna aliqua. enimand ad once again highlighted that a Ut flexible minim quis adaptable business willveniam, invariably benostrud able to sed do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore exercitation weather challenging times. ullamco laboris magna aliqua. Ut enim ad ut aliquip ex ea commodo Fortescue alsonisi holds the distinction of being minim veniam, quis nostrud consequat. aute irure one of the biggest supportersDuis of Aboriginals in exercitation ullamco laboris Australia, leading the way the employment dolor in in reprehenderit in nisi ut aliquip ex ea commodo of Aboriginal people andvelit the esse contracting voluptate cillum consequat. Duis aute irure of Aboriginal run companies. Two months dolore eu fugiat nulla prior to Shuttleworth joining the business, dolor in reprehenderit in pariatur. Excepteur sint is a caption in August 2013,occaecat Fortescue announced it voluptate velit esse cillum This is a caption this cupidatat that non has reached its target of awarding $1 billion dolore eu fugiat nulla proident, sunt in culpa qui pariatur. Excepteur sint occaecat cupidatat in officia deserunt anim id to estAboriginal laborum. contracts and mollit sub contracts non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia businesses Lorem ipsum dolor by the endsit of amet, 2013, aconsectetur target that deserunt mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem had been setelit, in 2011 was achieved six adipisicing sed and do eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore magna aliqua. First train fromsit Solomon ahead of schedule. ipsum dolor amet, mine consectetur adipisicing months
WÄRTSILÄ POWER PLANTS Wärtsilä Power Plants is a leading global supplier of power plants of up to 600 MW operating on various gaseous and liquid fuels. Our portfolio includes unique solutions for flexible baseload, peaking, industrial self-generation, reserve and load-following power generation, as well as for balancing intermittent power production. Wärtsilä Power Plants also provides LNG terminals and distribution systems. High efficiency of Wärtsilä engines, even in hot, high and dry conditions, results in substantial reduction in fuel consumption thereby improving profitability. Wärtsilä engines have high load acceptance capability, a feature which is required for starting of large loads in remote mining operations. Wärtsilä power plants
with multi-unit configuration provide high availability; units can be started and stopped according to load demand without impacting the maintenance schedule. Wärtsilä DualFuel (DF) engines offer fuel flexibility; DF engines operate on natural gas (with only 1% diesel consumption) but can switch to 100% diesel mode in the event of interruption in gas supply. In addition to the technical advantages, our fast track deliveries of complete power plants, together with longterm operation and maintenance agreements, provide our customers with complete solutions– in urban areas as well as in the most demanding remote environments. www.wartsila.com
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In the months since Shuttleworth entered the general manager’s office at Cloudbreak these efforts have continued with January 2014 seeing Fortescue reach the $1.5 billion milestone, a feat it achieved by awarding a further 145 subcontracts to Aboriginal businesses. “Fortescue recognises the importance and great benefits gained from employing Aboriginal people and subcontracting work out to their businesses,” Shuttleworth enthuses, “ Fortescue has always believed in
the benefits of having a diversified workforce, one made of up of men and women who can bring different backgrounds, experience and ideas to the table.” At the end of January 2014, 525 employees of Fortescue were Aboriginal, 13 percent of its total workforce, while a further 450 were employed by contractors. More than 250 of Fortescue’s Aboriginal employees living in the Pilbara region also receive housing assistance. Since 2006, Fortescue has had in place a
“Fortescue recognises the importance and great benefits gained from employing Aboriginal people and subcontracting work out to their businesses”
VTEC Aboriginal graduation in Port Hedland
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Fortescue Metals Group - Cloudbreak
Cloudbreak OPF and product stockpiles
Vocational Training and Employment Centre (VTEC) in South Hedland and established a second centre in Roebourne in 2010. Together, they have assisted more than 1,000 people. Fortescue’s VTECs aim to break down employment barriers for Aboriginal people, identifying job opportunities within Fortescue and its contractors, and then developing courses in partnership with various training organisations to equip people with the right skills. All successful graduates from the program are guaranteed a job. An average of 150 – 200 Aboriginal people graduate from Fortescue’s VTECs every year, the vast majority of whom are local Traditional Owners.
Environmental awareness is another big theme within the group, understandably given the remote nature of its operations. As well as having reclamation and waste material programs in place, arguably the most important area of importance at Cloudbreak comes in the form of water management. “When mining a resource like Cloudbreak one of the things you need to do is pump out the groundwater within and around a pit before you can mine it,” Shuttleworth says. “Rather than this water being lost, we transfer the pumped out groundwater into a nearby aquifer downstream from the mine itself. Fortescue’s managed aquifer recharge
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Excavator loading truck at Solomon mine
Fortescue Metals Group - Cloudbreak system is called Papa Warringka, which is Nyiyaparli for ‘water in the ground’ has been operational since 2008 at Cloudbreak and since 2011 at the neighbouring Christmas Creek site. As well as conserving valuable brackish water it also helps to mitigate environmental impacts associated with surface discharge and groundwater level drawdown. Such has been its success that the innovation was awarded with the International Water Association’s prestigious Global Innovation Award for Water Management and Infrastructure. Turning back to Shuttleworth, I ask her what her goals are for the rest of 2014 and beyond. The response is instant and shows a clear strategy in place that will help shape the immediate future for the Cloudbreak mine. “In addition to ensuring we continually improve our safety performance and field leadership within our workforce, I also want this to be the year we increase throughput and reliability of the ore processing facility, reduce our operating costs through various initiatives and increase our own Aboriginal work force from 200 to 300 individuals,” she concludes. “From a longer term perspective it is about looking at optimising grades of material we send to ore and reduce what we send to waste. In doing so we will not only increase efficiencies across the business, but ultimately extend the life of mine as well.” For more information about Fortescue Metals Group - Cloudbreak visit: www.fmgl.com.au
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Banro
Producing and prospecting Banro Corporation’s recent achievement of production at its Namoya mine transforms it from a one-mine company with less than 100,000, to a two-mine company targeting more than 225,000 ounces of annual gold production
written by: John O’Hanlon research by: Richard Halfhide
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Banro
P
olitical uncertainty and the serious lack of infrastructure development have gone hand in hand to hold back the development of mineral resources in the DRC. We frequently cover gold mining projects in both West and East Africa that have been in development since the mid 1980s, however though it’s among the richest natural resource countries in Africa, the DRC seems to have lagged badly. At last the picture is beginning to change. Since the election of Joseph Kabila in 2006, and following the introduction with the support of the World Bank of a new mining code in 2003, the country has experienced a revival of interest on the part of both major and junior international mining and exploration companies. Meanwhile, the World Bank, the IMF, USAID, and the ‘Paris Club’ of major global economies, as well as the European Union and South Africa, have committed billions of dollars to social and economic recovery in the DRC. Nevertheless, the DRC continues to raise concerns among global investors who remain to be convinced their money will be safe there. However that has never been the view of the management of Banro, a Canadian gold company that started intensive mineral exploration in the DRC in 1996, starting out with a handful of experienced geologists from Ghana, Tanzania, and the UK assisted by a group of new graduates from the Bukavu Technical Institute. Within a few years, they had delineated over eleven million ounces of gold and identified 16 new targets for follow-up in the DRC’s eastern provinces of South Kivu and Maniema – surely one of the
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Banro most Banro successful featureexploration text to go of dolore et strike. magna This represented aliqua. Ut here... Lorem ipsum dolor sit enim ad minim veniam, programs in recent African less than 20 percent of quis this amet, consectetur adipisicing nostrud exercitation ullamco history. In a short period identified mineralised trend elit, sed do eiusmod tempor laboris nisi kilometre ut aliquiplong ex of time, Banro has become on the 210 incididunt ut labore Twangiza-Namoya gold belt in ea commodo consequat. an integral part etofdolore the emerging magna aliqua. story of UtCongolese enim ad the South and Maniema Duis auteKivu irure dolor in economic minim veniam, development, quis nostrud and provinces of the in DRC. To date reprehenderit voluptate an importantullamco exercitation partner laboris in the Banro esse has identified 10.18 velit cillum dolore social nisi ut fabric aliquipofexthe ea commodo country. million ounces of Measured eu fugiat nulla pariatur. consequat. The storyDuis started aute in irure 1996 and Indicatedsint resources, plus Excepteur occaecat when Banro acquired control Inferred resources cupidatat non proident, of sunt 7.01 dolor in reprehenderit in Stacking thethis heap pad in of the Twangiza and This is a caption is aleach caption million culpa ounces qui officia along deserunt this voluptate velit property, esse cillum during the year, highly-prospective mollit anim id estgold laborum. belt. dolore eu following fugiat nulla undertookExcepteur pariatur. a $9 million sintexploration occaecat cupidatat program Lorem ipsumthedolor amet,of consectetur Twangiza, most sit advance Banro’s four which non proident, included sunt10,490 in culpa line-kilometres qui officia deserunt of properties, first producing adipisicing became elit, sedBanro’s do eiusmod tempor mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum incididunt pit gold ut mine labore when et dolore it entered magna production aliqua. airborne geophysics, 1,613 samples from open 16 adits, dolor sit amet, and 8,577 consectetur drill core adipisicing samples from elit, in Ut October enim ad2011, minim commencing veniam, quis commercial nostrud 9,122 sed dometres eiusmod of core tempor drilling incididunt along 800 ut metres labore production exercitation in ullamco laboris2012. nisi ut With aliquip ex September mill
SLR SLR Consulting (SLR) is proud to be associated with Banro’s Namoya and Twangiza projects in the DRC. SLR was commissioned by Banro in 2009 to first site and then design a 170m high valley type Tailings Storage Facility (TSF). The challenges associated with this project were diverse and included the diversion of streams around the valley fill dam, sourcing of large volumes of suitable materials for massive earth embankment construction and the design of the embankment to ensure dam safety within the seismically active region. The principles of designing for ultimate closure in a safe and sustainable manner were incorporated in the design approach. The steep topography presented significant
challenges in terms of the design of access roads and stream diversions. SLR was commissioned by Banro in 2011 to prepare an ESIA for the Namoya project. SLR was also appointed for the design of the TSF, return water dam and related infrastructure. The brief included the specialist geotechnical investigation for the TSF, surface water management & flood risk assessments for the mine , geochemical studies to assess the pollution potential of heap leach materials, tailings and associated liquors and groundwater studies including contaminant transport modelling. www.slrconsulting.com
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Operates in 5 African Countries; Kenya, Tanzania, DRC, Zambia and S Sudan. locations Provides total fuel management solutions assuring control and quality.
www.dalbitpetroleum.com
Zambia. Commissioned Phase I of 50 MW . Total Capacity in 2015 will be 100MW. Signed PPA for 20 years. prudent practices reducing generating costs.
www.ndolaenergy.com
Creating Fuel Storage infrastructure of 80,000 m3. Providing High standards construction services for Fuel storage turnkey projects. Prudent Project Management practices. Application of Latest Construction & Design techniques
www.belgraviaservices.com
Banro throughput at full capacity of DALBIT / NECL / BSL 1.7 million tonnes per year, MOVING AFRICA FORWARD WITH Twangiza was projected to TOTAL ENERGY SOLUTIONS produce upwards of 10,000 Significant presence in Fuel supplies and logistics, Creation ounces of gold each month of Fuel Storage Infrastructure and venturing into providing with an expected mine life power solutions in the remotest locations to the Mining of seven to eight years from companies and other Infrastructure players in Africa. www.belgraviaservices.com currently-defined reserves. It is still working towards that level, having produced 22,858 ounces of gold in the fourth quarter of 2013, approximately ten percent higher than in the previous quarter last year. In all Twangiza produced 82,591 ounces of gold for the full year 2013. Banro’s President and CEO Dr John Clarke expressed his satisfaction with this result: “We are pleased with the progress made at Twangiza during the last half of 2013 and look forward to both increased throughputs and recoveries in 2014 following the enhancement project completion in Q1 of this year.” At this time it is a distinct advantage for any junior company to have even one producing and highly prospective property on its books. But now Banro has another. Its Namoya mine, at the southern end of the TwangizaNamoya gold belt in Maniema province and approximately 225 metres south west of
“We are pleased with the progress made at Twangiza during the last half of 2013”
Secondary oversize conveyor 12-CVR-05 belt
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Banro
Re-handling of crushed ore from the primary product stockpile to the heap leach pad
Bukavu, successfully began gold production This is a significant and exciting milestone with the pouring of the first 320 ounces on for Banro, said John Clarke. “We would like December 30, making it Banro’s second gold to thank our professional operations teams, mine to come into production in just over business partners, consultants, regional two years. Construction began at Namoya governments and the local communities for in the fourth quarter of 2012. Remaining assisting us in this significant achievement. building work will continue in step with We look forward to continued growth, new commissioning operations in business opportunities and the first quarter of this year, a long association with the while commercial production DRC”. The start of production is expected to be achieved at Namoya is also a before the end of June 2014. tremendous achievement for At full capacity, gold from the DRC, clearly signifying the Namoya mine is expected that the emerging mining to double the company’s nation is a place to find, projected gold production to finance and successfully Ounces of gold a rate of between 225,000 build new gold mines. delineated at Lugushwa and 240,000 ounces a year. In addition to Twangiza
5.6
million
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Plant make-up water dam and the heap leach pad
“We look forward to continued growth, new business opportunities and a long association with the DRC” and Namoya, Banro has two other key licensed projects, Lugushwa and Kamituga, and more than a dozen exploration targets including Ntula, Mufwa, Tshondo, Luhwindja and Kaziba. At Lugushwa a Measured & Indicated mineral resource of 1.13 million ounces of gold has been delineated, and an Inferred mineral resource of 4.48 million ounces of gold in close-to surface material, where the focus is on oxide resources. Exploration is continuing, with the objective of increasing the oxide resource and further plans include
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undertaking a scoping study. High level analysis of the Kamituga gold project was completed in 2009 and exploration drilling continued into 2012 to increase the confidence of the existing inferred mineral resource for this property to 0.92 million ounces of gold in the Measured & Indicated category. Banro does not subscribe to the view that the Congo is an intransigent place to do business. “We have quite a different view of working in this country, where we have found people eager to leave the troubled past behind
Banro
Heap leach ponds and pad
and build a future characterised by economic opportunity, social development and political stability,� says Martin Jones, Chairman of the award-winning Banro Foundation, which has been formally recognised in the DRC and Canada for its contributions to social and economic reconstruction in the DRC. One of the biggest challenges the company faced was to prove to the DRC government that it was committed to promoting social and economic development and to ensuring that mineral development significantly benefited local communities. After more than a decade of work, five key lessons have been learnt, he says. 1. Ongoing consultation and dialogue at all levels of society is absolutely critical to success in the DRC.
Plant site
2. Along with consultation comes the obligation to listen with great sensitivity and to follow through fully on commitments. 3. Mining companies wishing to work in the DRC must have a strategic and comprehensive commitment to community development. 4. Transparency is critical. 5. Job creation and on-the-job training must be No1 commitment. Under each of these heads the company has honoured its commitment in concrete terms – detailed in the Banro Foundation’s brochure, it is well worth reading. For more information about Banro visit: www.banro.com
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GeoQuest
Servicing South and Central Africa An independent geological and environmental consultancy and contracting group, GeoQuest has been a principal supplier of vital services for some of Africa’s more prominent developing nations for the last 14 years
written by: Will Daynes research by: Candice Nice
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Geological mapping
GeoQuest
H
aving previously worked as a professional exploration geologist in Eastern Europe, Australia, and Central and Southern Africa for a number of leading mining and exploration companies, including Tesla, KGHM, Rio Tinto and Caledonia, it was in 1999 that Julian D. Green founded GeoQuest. A Chartered Geologist, Mr Green is qualified under the Australasian Code for the reporting of exploration results, mineral resources and ore reserves (JORC Code), and under the Canadian National Instrument 43-101, SAMREC and PERC codes to be a ‘competent or qualified person’ capable of preparing public reports on exploration results. Prior to his founding of GeoQuest, Mr Green held the role of Exploration Manager for Caledonia Mining Zambia Limited and was responsible for not only its day to day operations, but also for the supervision and liaison of joint venture projects with the likes of Cyprus Amax Zambia Corporation and BHP/Motapa Diamonds Inc., Dunrobin Mining Limited in Zambia and Gecamines – SODIMICO within the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). “When Julian established GeoQuest in 1999 in Zambia, it was to provide a dedicated service to the mining industry based in Zambia initially, where at that time there were no other service providers active in the country which offered a package including exploration and logistics services,” Managing Director of GeoQuest SARL Tobias Posel explains. Made up of a dedicated core team of Zambian and DRC based professionals, GeoQuest has grown in the last 14 years
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into a fully independent consultancy and contracting group with offices in Zambia, DRC and Zimbabwe. In that time the company has worked throughout Central and Southern Africa in countries including Botswana, Gabon, Congo/Brazzaville, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, Tanzania and Uganda. During its early years based out of its Lusaka office the company conducted
localised projects in the fields of mineral exploration and groundwater management. It was then in 2004 that GeoQuest embarked on its expansion into the DRC, establishing offices in Kolwezi and Lubumbashi, from which it began taking on work on projects both there and in neighbouring countries. In the meantime the company continued to develop and increase the capabilities available at its Lusaka office with the addition
“GeoQuest has grown in the last 14 years into a fully independent consultancy and contracting group with offices in Zambia, DRC and Zimbabwe�
GeoQuest field vehicle
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GeoQuest
Weighing samples
of its Geographic Information “Today we have ten Systems (GIS) department in geologists based in Zambia, 2006 and its Environmental a further four in the DRC Services division in 2008. and around 50 additional Regardless of the country in permanent staff across The year that Julian D. which its activities are taking the business,” Mr Posel Green founded GeoQuest place GeoQuest remains continues. “This latter figure committed to providing high increases dramatically quality and cost effective during the dry season to technical and logistical solutions for clients sometimes well over 200 people. We operate in the mining and mineral exploration, two offices out of Lusaka and Lubumbashi, environmental and hydrogeological sectors. boast a combined fleet of 20 off-road vehicles It achieves this through the deployment of and possess camping gear, GIS equipment, select, hands on, multi-disciplined teams a large data library, four XRF analysers or individuals, including geoscientists and and other equipment. Furthermore, we are technicians tailored to meet the particular using the latest IT systems in the field of requirements and needs of each client. communications and data management, using
1999
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Bulk weigh
“I would strongly advise any new investor planning to operate in the DRC to always seek the guidance of an experienced and well reputed, locally based company” GIS software and the aforementioned XRF tools to gather and process data in the field, as well as utilising the newest geophysical and remote sensing methods.” Zambia as a country remains a hugely important market for GeoQuest, while the DRC, particularly the Katanga and Kasai Provinces are of particular significance as
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the company continues to enhance its core offering and also build up its environmental and logistics services in the country. “To this day we remain the only provider of exploration services to be based within the Katanga Province in the DRC,” Mr Posel states. “Our current aim is to be working for between three and five
GeoQuest
Core cutting
different large clients in the country this year, with our principal activity being the carrying out of practical technical services in the field, services such as geochemical soil sampling, sample preparation and analysing, camp building and management, geological mapping and the management of drilling programmes.” As far as the company’s plans for the rest of 2014 are concerned, GeoQuest aims to also become ever more active in Gabon and in Brazzaville, the capital of the Congo. Mr Posel’s final thoughts however refer back to the DRC and his advice for those potential clients looking to establish operations in the country.
RC drilling
“I would strongly advise any new investor planning to operate in the DRC, particularly its mining sector, to always seek the guidance of an experienced and well reputed, locally based company. In approaching such companies one will always be better poised to avoid the difficulties and pitfalls which can arise when setting up here, giving one more time to concentrate on how to capitalise on the opportunities that exist.” For more information about GeoQuest visit: www.geoquest.co.zm
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AKTOR
Greece’s construction
colossus Greece’s largest construction company, AKTOR has grown to become a major player on both the local and international stages
written by: Will Daynes research by: Jeff Abbott
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Abu Dhabi National Exhibition Centre
AKTOR
B
eginning life in the early 1960s as a general contractor for medium to large scale projects occurring within Greek territory, AKTOR would go on to expand rapidly during the subsequent decades making it one of the leading players in the Greek construction sector by the mid-1990s. Buoyed by a combination of Greece’s economic growth between 1998 and 2007, which was in part driven by the country’s first build-operate-transfer (BOT) schemes, projects related to the 2004 Olympic Games and the significant improvements made to Greece’s infrastructure network, AKTOR would go on to amalgamate local contractors to become the largest construction company in the country. AKTOR’s expertise extends to a number of important areas, including buildings, industrial, waste water treatment, mining and quarrying, and facility and project management. In 2012 the company’s turnover reached €904 million, while as of November 2013 its construction backlog has reached a value of 2.8 billion euros. Today AKTOR boasts a presence in 17 different countries and has over 8,000 collaborators at home and abroad. “On the back of the experience we had gained through the realisation of countless milestone projects in Greece, the last ten years has seen the company embark on a programme of overseas expansion,” explains General Manager, John Bournazos. “The first steps in this programme saw the company establish a presence within the Balkans and the Middle East. These two remain regions within which we continue to experience
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“AKTOR has a moral commitment towards maintaining a long-term corporate social responsibility program” strong demand, while they also provide a good foundation from which to continue growing our regional activities.” With the company obliged to adhere to European Union policy on providing financial assistance to what it calls pre-accession countries, road, rail and metro based infrastructure projects remain the thrust
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of AKTOR’s activities today. Nevertheless, recent demand for renewable energy projects has seen the company establish a strong position as part of crucial solar, wind and hydroelectric schemes, while also taking on roles in the construction of waste water treatment plants and various other facility management projects.
AKTOR
Egnatia Odos Metsovo Bridge
When asked what he thinks has contributed to the company’s success, Bournazos has no hesitation in giving his option. “Without doubt our highly qualified and specialised manpower, combined with our fully owned fleet of equipment and the way we implement strict HSEQ procedures in each and every project, have contributed immeasurably to the continued advancement of AKTOR.” It is these strengths and characteristics that have seen the company take responsibility for countless important, prestige projects that fall into the road, rail and metro infrastructure, and industrial and building project fields. Recent infrastructure projects of significance include the company’s work
on several Greek road concession schemes that are transforming the country’s road networks into modern motorways following the success of the Athens Ring Road, and the expansion of sections of the metro lines in Athens and Thessaloniki. Further afield AKTOR was also charged with the construction of the 16 kilometre long Dubai Fujairah Freeway, which included the construction of five bridges crossing over water and gas pipelines, and was involved in the finalisation of sections of Corridor X along the TransEuropean Road Network in FYROM (Macedonia) and Serbia, as well as the completion of the Tirana to Elbasan Motorway in Albania.
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€2.8 Billion Value of AKTOR’s construction backlog as of November 2013
Lukoil Refinery, Burgas Bulgaria
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In Greece the fruits of AKTOR’s labour can also be seen in the form of various buildings. These include the New Acropolis Museum in Athens, a unique structure that provides testimony to both the country’s history and its modern architecture, the restoration of the iconic 19th Century Municipal Theatre in Piraeus and the construction of the Costa Navarino in Messini. This latter project involved the building of two luxury five star hotels within 1.3 million square metres of seaside landscape and the transformation of a further 200,000 square metres of surrounding area into both hard surfaces and green areas housing over 4,000 trees and 300,000 shrubs. Internationally AKTOR was heavily involved in the building of the New Doha International Airport in Qatar, constructing the aircraft maintenance hangar, the service cargo complex, maintenance facility building, motor transport workshop and training centre, while it currently chases new opportunities in the country including Doha Metro. Meanwhile, in Abu Dhabi, the company has worked on several Phase 2 developments on behalf of Abu Dhabi National Exhibitions Company (ADNEC). These included the building of four exhibition halls, a multipurpose hall and two multi-storey car parks.
AKTOR
New Acropolis Museum
Industrial projects brought to life by the company include waste water and water treatment plants in major cities in countries including Greece, Cyprus, Germany, Croatia, Slovenia and the UAE, as well as refineries on behalf of Lukoil in Bulgaria and EL.PE./EKO in Greece. Furthermore, AKTOR has built both underground and above ground facilities for the exploitation of polymetalic deposits within the Cassandra mines, operated by Eldorado Gold.
In addition to its obvious objective of growing as a profitable business, AKTOR has what it describes as a moral commitment towards maintaining a long-term corporate social responsibility programme. “This program involves a number of important responsibilities,” Bournazos enthuses. “These include ensuring the preservation of the cultural heritage of regions that are of particular natural beauty, participating alongside various charities, being a sponsor
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Navarino Resort
AKTOR of sporting activities, supporting research programs and local multi-technical schools, and providing private medical insurance to all of our employees. These are just some of the things that make us a responsible and consciences member of the communities in which we operate.” In recent years, particularly in light of the economic downturn that has affected several of its key markets, AKTOR has recognised the need to become more extrovert. It has done so by internationalising the business to the point where more than 50 percent of its turnover originates from overseas markets. “In the coming years our strategy will pivot around several key axes,” Bournazos says. “The first will require us to galvanise our market leading position when it comes to project construction throughout Greece by not only taking on more public and private projects, but also by enhancing our input within co-financed projects. Achieving increased vertical integration will be ever more vital, while further expansion overseas is something we are aggressively pursuing not only in Europe and the Middle East, but also in North Africa and other selected territories. Last, but certainly not least, we will continue to improve our operational and managerial models in ways that will increase our production optimisation and secure sustainable development for the company for many years to come.” For more information about AKTOR visit: www.aktor.gr
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PREPA – Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority
Bringing change to the Caribbean As Executive Director, Juan F. Alicea Flores discusses, Puerto Rico’s principle electricity provider is moving forward with game-changing plans to shift the island’s dependence from petroleum products to natural gas and renewable energies
written by: Will Daynes research by: Abi Abagun
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ocated to the east of the Dominican Republic and to the west of the Virgin Islands, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico is renowned for its exotic locations, white sandy beaches, mountains, valleys and various natural splendours. Classified by the World Bank as a high income economy and as the most competitive economy in Latin America by the World Economic Forum, it also boasts the highest GDP per capita of any other nation in the Caribbean. It is also in Puerto Rico where the island nation’s electric power authority, PREPA, is working diligently to usher in a new era of energy usage that will greatly benefit not only Puerto Rico but the region as a whole for generations to come. “The biggest challenge we face today as a nation is the high cost of electricity,” states Executive Director, Juan F. Alicea Flores. “As the only energy supplier in Puerto Rico it is our goal to reduce these costs. We currently have a number of important projects taking shape across Puerto Rico, one of which involves the development of the infrastructure necessary to receive natural gas, specifically the creation of a major floating storage facility and the converting or replacing of 14 power generation units.” Founded in 1941, PREPA is responsible for providing electric energy to its customers in the most efficient, cost-effective and reliable manner possible. Today it produces, transmits and distributes virtually all the electric power used in Puerto Rico. PREPA’s workforce of approximately 8,240 employees are spread across various operational and support areas
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PREPA – Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority
Central Cambalache
A REMARKABLE
ENERGY FUELING FRONTIERS Puma Energy is a global energy business: bringing fuel to the lives of millions of people in oil consuming, high growth markets. Email: enquiries@pumaenergy.com | www.pumaenergy.com
PREPA – Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority Puma Energy Caribe tempor incididunt ut labore including generation, transmission and et dolore magna aliqua. Ut feature text environmental to go here... protection and distribution, Lorem ipsum dolorand sit customer amet, enim ad minim veniam, quis planning, finance service, and consectetur adipisicing elit, nostrud exercitation ullamco human resources. laboris nisi ut aliquip ex sed“Puerto do eiusmod temporportfolio today Rico’s energy incididunt doloreof demand for ea commodo consequat. highlightsutalabore high etlevel magna aliqua. Ut Alicea enim ad Duis aute irure dolor in petroleum fuels,” continues. “What minim quis nostrud reprehenderit in voluptate we at veniam, PREPA want to do is reduce this exercitation ullamco velit esse cillum dolore dependence on oil andlaboris transfer it to cleaner, nisi ut aliquip ex easuch commodo eu fugiat nulla pariatur. cheaper sources as natural gas. We consequat. Duisat aute irureoil dependence Excepteur sint occaecat calculate that present is a caption dolor in the reprehenderit in This amongst population stands at around 55 this is a caption cupidatat non proident, sunt in culpa qui officia deserunt voluptate velit dependence esse cillum on natural gas percent, while dolore euapproximately fugiat nulla pariatur. Excepteur stands at 28 percent, coal 16 mollit anim id est laborum. Lorem ipsum dolor sint occaecat cupidatat energy non proident, sunt sit amet, consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do percent and renewable one percent. in qui officia mollit anim in id eiusmod tempor incididunt ut labore et dolore It isculpa our aim to havedeserunt a situation whereby est Lorem has ipsum dolor sit as amet, Ut enim ad minim quis 2017laborum. oil dependence fallen as low two magna aliqua. Executive Director Juan F.veniam, Alicea Flores consectetur adipisicing elit, sed do eiusmod nostrud exercitation ullamco laboris nisi ut
PUMA ENERGY We are a global energy business delivering high quality fuels safely, swiftly and reliably at a fair price. A professional energy business taking great pride in our work. An ambitious energy business, growing fast by answering the unmet energy needs of markets across five continents in over 35 countries. With over 6,000 employees, we bring secure, safe and affordable fuels, lubricants and other oil products to millions of business and retail customers every day. Our storage, refining, supply, retail, business to business, wholesale, aviation, bunker and LPG businesses help to fuel growth in frontier markets. At the heart of Puma Energy is a simple imperative- to always exceed our customers’ expectations.
Meeting our customers’ needs in full is just a starting point. Our brand stands for something extra, for added value that delights customers, so they trust us and choose our products and services time and time again. Added value means different things to different people, but there are consistencies in the way we make it happen. It starts by setting high safety standards and delivering excellent service, always personal and frequently unique to a single customer. It requires speed of thought and response, plus the right balance of flair, innovative thinking and solidity. WE ARE PUMA ENERGY. www.pumaenergy.com
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percent and natural gas, which by that point will be the primary fuel in our generation systems, will have risen to 72 percent.” Look closely and you will see that the moves made by PREPA are already starting to make a difference. At the beginning of 2013 the cost of energy on the island was recorded at 30 cents a kilowatt. Today it
stands at 25.5 cents per kilowatt and Alicea is convinced that by the time PREPA has its entire network of infrastructure up and running in 2015 the cost will have fallen to 22 cents per kilowatt. With such ambitious targets to aim for it will be of little surprise to find that PREPA is already hard at work putting the
“Puerto Rico’s energy portfolio highlights a high level of demand for petroleum fuels”
Energy Control Center
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PREPA – Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority
Workers attending to a power outage
infrastructure it needs in rest of the United States will place, with work currently welcome the introduction of focused on the south of the new Federal Air Regulations, island. The south presents the legislation that will target best opportunity for PREPA the amounts of particulate to initiate the construction released into the atmosphere. phase of its plans by the end of In preparation for this PREPA 2014, in advance of its target also has a number of other Amount being invested to start receiving natural clean energy projects in into transforming Puerto gas by 2015. The north of operation across the island. Rico’s energy mix in 2014 the island in comparison is a These include a 75MW wind farm which is integrated much more complex area to work in, what with it being home to Puerto into its power network and a 20MW solar Rico’s major metropolitan centres and prime energy project. This is just the beginning tourist locations. Nevertheless, PREPA is however what with PREPA planning to have adamant that despite this, natural gas will added an additional 400MW in renewable be circulating the entire island by 2017. power by the end of 2014 alone. From April 2015, Puerto Rico and the “As well as recognising the need to
$300 million
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Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority Main Building
“What we at PREPA want to do is reduce this dependence on oil and transfer it to cleaner, cheaper sources such as natural gas” integrate natural gas and existing renewable energy sources into our energy portfolio we also have one eye on the incorporation of less established technologies that we believe will grow in importance in the years to come,” Alicea explains.
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One such example of these less established technologies is the use of Ocean Thermal Energy Conversion (OTEC). OTEC uses the temperature difference between cooler deep waters and warmer shallow waters to power heat engines which in turn produce
PREPA – Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority
Optic Fibre line installation
electricity. “Due to the geographic nature of Puerto Rico we have an incredible opportunity to capitalise on this rapidly developing technology,” Alicea enthuses. With a budget that exists independent from Puerto Rico’s central government, PREPA plans to invest as much as $1,500 million over the next five years into transforming the island’s energy mix, $300 million of which will be spent in 2014. “PREPA has always employed the very finest technicians and individuals who specialise in identifying future trends and how best to approach them,” Alicea
Costa Sur
concludes. “It is these individuals who will continue moving PREPA forward in its integration of a more varied energy mix and I believe that when we look back on all this in 20 years’ time we will all be extremely proud of what we achieved and how that has impacted the lives of future generations of Puerto Ricans and their Caribbean neighbours.” For more information about PREPA – Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority visit: www.prepa.com
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Moving
Mexico forward Mexico’s largest enterprise and biggest taxpayer intends to invest a record amount in 2014 in order to maintain its position among the world’s elite oil companies
written by: Will Daynes research by: Abi Abagun
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Petroleos Mexicanos - PEMEX
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Petroleos Mexicanos - PEMEX
O
In order to achieve its aims PEMEX relies ne of the select few oil companies in the world to upon the expertise of its various subsidiaries operate through the length and affiliated companies, PEMEX Exploration and breadth of the industry, and Production, PEMEX Refining, PEMEX from exploration and Gas and Basic Petrochemicals , PEMEX distribution through to the commercialization Petrochemicals and PMI Comercio of the end products, Petroleos Mexicanos, Internacional. PEMEX Exploration and or PEMEX as it is better known, is Production is the body tasked with Mexico’s biggest enterprise, the largest maximizing the long term economic value of taxpayer in the country and one of Latin Mexico’s oil and natural gas reserves. Its main America’s largest companies. activities include exploration, transportation, Created in 1938 through the nationalization storage and the marketing of terminals. of petroleum and the expunging of all The basic functions of PEMEX Refining private foreign and domestic on the other hand include companies at the time, industrial refining processes, PEMEX today boasts a total the processing of petroleum asset worth of $415.75 and petroleum products, billion, making it the d i st r ibut ion, storage and first-hand sales. world’s second largest nonPemex Gas and Basic publicly listed company Petrochemicals (Pemex by total market value. In The record amount Gas) is the subsidiary of recent years the company’s PEMEX is to invest in its PEMEX responsible for the crude oil production levels operations in 2014 processing, transportation have remained stable with and marketing of natural gas, it producing 2.548 million barrels per day in 2012, as well as just over liquid hydrocarbons and basic petrochemicals such as ethane, natural gasoline and six million cubic feet of natural gas. PEMEX’s mission is to maximize the value sulphur. Meanwhile, PEMEX Petrochemicals’ of Mexico’s oil assets and hydrocarbons, main activities stem from the non-basic meeting the domestic demand for products petrochemical processes derived from the through reliable, quality, safe and cost primary processing of natural gas, methane, effective service. In doing so it aims to be ethane, propane and gasoline. Last, but recognized by the Mexican population by no means least, PMI is the commercial as a socially responsible organization arm of PEMEX on the international stage. striving to permanently increase the value With operations throughout the world of its assets, while remaining responsive, PMI handles the imports and exports of transparent and innovation in its operations crude oil to and from PEMEX’s operations. As Mexico’s largest enterprise PEMEX and long term strategy.
$27.7 Billion
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CHEMISA, S.A de C.V CHEMICAL INDUSTRY
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Tel: 52+(55) 5557-0988 Email: carlos_maldonado@chemisa.com www.chemisa.com
CHEMISA IS YOUR RELIABLE SOLUTIONS SOURCE IN THE FOLLOWING AREAS: MAIN SERVICES • Consulting • Technical and economical feasibility studies • Estimated investment and cost analysis • Quality Assurance • Industrial safety • Energy Saving ENGINEERING SERVICES • Conceptual Engineering development • Basic Engineering development • Detailed Engineering development • Project management FIELD SERVICES • EPC projects • REVAMP projects • Turn key projects
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Telephone: 001 403 444-6853 Email:mcc@jvinternational.net MCC Joint Ventures Canada International Inc. (MCC), in collaboration with our partners in the energy industry, has built training and assessment programs to offer the qualification and certification of craft professionals in the energy industry. The shortage of skilled craft professionals is critical today; we encourage corporations to close the skills gap by maintaining safe and efficient operations. Critical competencies require continuous upgrading!
Our Current Craft List: Operator Qualification Services: Our instructors utilize the tools provided by NCCER training and assessment, EWN (Energy World Net), OQSG, Veriforce and MEA to conduct knowledge assessments and performance verifications for operator identified cover tasks. MCC provides OQ (Operator Qualification) training, resulting in Operator Qualification, customized to an individual company in the following pipeline areas:
MCC provides OQ (Operator Qualification) training, resulting in Operator Qualification, customized to an individual company in the following pipeline areas: • Gas Pipeline Operations • Liquid Pipeline Field Operations • Liquid Pipeline Control Center Operations • Pipeline Corrosion Control • Pipeline Electrical & Instrumentation • Pipeline Maintenance • Pipeline Mechanical • Written OQ Plans and regulatory support Power Operators • Power Generation Maintenance Electrician • Power Generation I&C Maintenance Technician • Power Generation Maintenance Mechanic • Power Line Worker
Safety • Field Safety • Safety Orientation • Safety Technology Management • Fundamentals of Crew Leadership • Project Supervision • Project Management Construction • Pipefitting • Pipe layer • Rigger/Signal Person • Instrumentation • Welding Other services: • OSHA & Safety • Records Management • Contractor Management • Master Evaluator Certification New MCC area of expertise: Cooling Tower management & training
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Petroleos Mexicanos - PEMEX carries with it a huge Chemisa amount of responsibility CHEMISA is a leading provider of effective, efficient when it comes to social and and reliable process solutions. For the last 14 years we sustainable development, have served the Oil & Gas, Chemical and Petrochemical and when it comes to industries with Engineering, Procurement, Construction, leveraging its petroleum Start-up and support services to their entire satisfaction. A based operations to help long list of successful installations backs up an increasingly beneficial relationship with PEMEX, based on quality, improve the living conditions responsiveness and trust. of the country’s population. www.chemisa.com As such PEMEX is a strong supporter and promoter of regional development initiatives, seeking at all times to harmonize its own growth with that of the areas in which it operates. Such an attitude also extends to the company’s commitment towards developing itself in a sustainable, environmentally conscious manner. PEMEX considers itself to be among the most proactive of companies in the oil industry when it comes to conservation and ecosystem management, compensation and reclamation. Meanwhile, across its vast operations one will find a shared desire to ensure it succeeds in achieving increasingly efficient use of energy and water. Today PEMEX finds itself one year into its “Business Plan for Petroleos Mexicanos and Subsidiary Entities 2013-2017”. The plan in question has been laid out to plot the course
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“Projected investment for this year will be 6.5 percent greater than the amount invested last year� of the company over the coming years so that if stays in line with its mandate to create value and achieve operational and financial sustainability in the long term. In putting the plan together a total of 15 objectives were identified and grouped into four separate lines of action, those being growth, operational efficiency, corporate responsibility and management modernization. The objectives include increasing inventory revenues through new discoveries and reclassification, the increased
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production of hydrocarbons, increasing efficiency levels above international standards in gas usage and production costs, and achieving operating performance levels about the industry average when it comes to processing. Other continuously evolving long term aims include strengthening customer orientation, developing human resources, supporting growth and business improvement through the development of technology and maximizing the value of international opportunities.
Petroleos Mexicanos - PEMEX
This year the company plans to invest approximately $27.7 billion across its operations, the most in its history. The vast majority of this, 85 percent to be exact, will be put towards crude oil exploration and production. According to the company its projected investment for this year will be 6.5 percent greater than the amount it invested last year and a massive 154.1 percent greater than the investment made a decade ago. Approximately $3.4 billion of this total investment fund will be used to build four new ultra-low sulphur diesel plants and modernize a further 14. The new plants will be built at three different existing refineries, Madero in the north-eastern state of Tamaulipas, Minatitlan in the Gulf
coast state of Veracruz, and Salamanca in the central state of Guanajuato. Four other plants at the Salina Cruz refinery in the southern state of Oaxaca and the Tula facility in the central state of Hidalgo will undergo a thorough modernization process, while the remaining ten will undergo a less extensive renovation. The diesel project, which will take an estimated 45 months to complete and employ best industry practices, is to be coordinated by a specialized team from the company’s refining unit, Pemex Refining, and an external oversight body. For more information about Petroleos Mexicanos - PEMEX visit: www.pemex.com
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