EXECUTIVE INSIGHT LEADING THE PROFESSIONAL CHARGE ISSUE #50FALL 2022 EXECUTIVE INSIGHT SPEAKS TO ERIC VILLENEUVE, CONTRACTS MANAGER, BLOOM LAKE PHASE 2 PROJECT of TheProcurementPower
EXECUTIVE2 INSIGHT MAGAZINE I FALL 2022
of Procurement Power
3 EXECUTIVE INSIGHT MAGAZINEFALL 2022 I EXECUTIVE INSIGHT MAGAZINE
The
T he Bloom Lake Property is an open-pit iron mining operation located in the province of Quebec, Canada. The pro ject is fully owned by Champion Iron through its subsidiary, Minerai De Fer Québec, known in English as Quebec Iron Ore (QIO).
Quebec-located Bloom Lake Property, an open-pit mining operation run by Quebec Iron Ore, is being expanded to double its current output. The success of the project depends to a certain degree on a network of contractors, vendors and suppliers –an area under the watchful eye and managed by Eric Villeneuve, the company’s Bloom Lake phase 2 Contracts’ Manager.
www.shetush.ca Germain Vice-PresidentSt-Onge Uashat,283,germain.stonge@shetush.caboulevarddesMontagnais(Québec)G4R5R1 Téléphone: (418) 968-8112 Cellulaire: (418) 961-3468 Electrical Services Provided Residential CommercialInstitutional Industrial
For more than 30 years, Shetush Electric has been a company located in the community of Uashat mak Maliotenam. The compa ny distinguishes itself by hiring members of the Innu communities and by working in the residential and commercial fields. A pillar of its community, it aims to empower the communities located in Northeastern Quebec. A specialized service offer in electricity is offered in Innu for the Aboriginal communities.
When the opportunity arose in 2010 for Shetush Electric to work with Consolited Thompson, the company sought out a company with experience in the industrial field to form an electrical company called Shetush/Ondel. The mission of this joint venture was to carry out industrial electrical work in order to contribute to the training and support of Shetush Electric so that the latter would be able to manage its contracts in the mining world in the future.
Germain St-Onge, Vice President of Shetush Electric, wishes to underline the important involvement of Minerai de Fer Québec and all of its personnel, as well as its field teams, in the company’s success, through the proper training of its employees. With this partnership, Quebec Iron Ore has given Shetush Electric the opportunity to establish itself in the industry for large scale projects.
Shetush Electric
The feasibility study for the Phase II expansion was announced in January 2019 with Champion Iron’s board of directors approving the expansion. With full funding authorized in November 2020, the expansion project proposes to double the current iron concentrate production of the mine while offering a potential life of mine of 20 years.
Conveyor 4 leading to load-out silo
In May, the company announced that the com missioning of Phase 2 was achieved ahead of schedule and work is under way to gradually increase the mine and plant’s full capacity towards commercial production, which is anticipated to occur during the 3rd quarter 2022.
5 EXECUTIVE INSIGHT MAGAZINEFALL 2022 I EXECUTIVE INSIGHT MAGAZINE
Stock-pile reclaim conveyor Tunnel leading to A Frame
A remarkable success, and one that could not be achieved in isolation. A success that has depend
With the learning achieved in the last 12 years, Shetush Electric is proud to assert itself as a company specialized in electrical work in the large industry.
The Bloom Lake assets were acquired by Cham pion Iron in April 2016. A feasibility study was completed in February 2017 followed by a restart of operations in February 2018.
mining maintenance program for mechanics and piping.
ed heavily on managing the company’s partners –contractors, vendors and suppliers – to make sure that all was on site as and when required.
Eric’s input has contributed to allowing the project to proceed to the best of all possible outcomes. His previous on-the-ground experience with planning and cost control on previous pro jects, combined with his usual weekly / bi-weekly conversations with contractors, have enabled him to keep progress under tight control, and pass relevant invaluable information to the compa ny’s project managers, allowing for proper deci sion-making.Heexplains that local content in the deliver ies was high. The company pre-screened all the different businesses that could be of service to the project, and vendors, suppliers and contractors within an 800 km radius of the site were consid ered to be local.
Construction & Expertise PG works as a consultant and contractor for all types of work in the mining sector ranging from the repair of concrete structures, main tenance of mining equipment, industrial piping to the fabrication of mining equipment (conveyors, special ized structures, spirals, etc.). PG also offers inspection services and maintenance programs for this equipment. The company stands out for its great versatility and its rapidity to mobilize on site, to respond to both emer gency and longer-term needs. This partnership of the last few years between MFQ and PG has allowed us to increase the services offered by the company and to develop work efficiency and collaboration synergy. It is an honor for PG to work with the great and talented team that is Quebec Iron Ore.
www.pgconstruction.ca/enConstruction & Expertise PG is also a leader in executing works in Northern Quebec and is proud to offer its services to the entire Quebec territory as well as Newfoundland and Labrador.
ous EPCM contracts within the industrial and mining industries.
Local focus
Complete
“For local vendors and contractors, we knew of the packages to be issued. We pre-screened on that basis and these vendors became part of our bidders list. Also, QIO had a partnering agree ment with the local First Nation communities. Whenever packages could be issued for tender or even on a sole-source basis award to First Nation
& Expertise PG is a construction and civil engineering company. At Construction & Expertise PG, our team consist of engineers and technologists fully qualified to plan and execute residential, commercial, industrial, civil engineering or mining projects. “We take great pride in having participated and performed the concrete works on the Bloom Lake Mine project with the help of our specialized and professional team”
A simple task? Not by the sound of it, as ex plained by Eric Villeneuve, Quebec Iron Ore’s (QIO) Contracts Manager, who has acquired a wealth of experience from his buyers and con tract administrator management under numer
Construction Expertise PG
Construction
CONTACT:
Sebastien Tessier: stessier@pgconstruction.ca (Tel) 001 514 713 9308EXECUTIVE6 INSIGHT MAGAZINE I FALL 2022
7 EXECUTIVE INSIGHT MAGAZINEFALL 2022 I EXECUTIVE INSIGHT MAGAZINE
Loading area view toward stocking silo and concentrators
points out.
focused on exe cution. “We conveyed to our contractors the importance of the role we wanted them to play in the success of our project, and chose 2 contractors per dis cipline, i.e. civil, struc
vendors or contractors with consideration of competitive pricing and capacity to execute the work, they were. In some contracts 2-4% of the trade workers were from the First communities,”NationheTrain
tural steel, mechanical, piping and electrical. Because our engi neering was already in progress, we could award on the basis of a completed packages to the “Whenevercontractor”asub
Fast and simple Building the supply chain partnership net work at QIO was not without its challenges but from the begin ning, the company de fined a strategy simply
Eric explains that his procurement management style has one important feature: “In the execution of our project, no requisitions! With some other projects I’ve seen, 1 requisition leads to one pur chase order which leads to one invoice; when you are buying 35 km of cable for a given area of the plant staggered over 3 months, that can equate to hundreds of invoices, hundreds of cheques to raise or wire transfers, it’s just not a proper use of human capital to process all of this, it’s also falling in line to ensure all expectations are adhered to in spend management and for this we have a sys tem called capital cost commitment authorization (CCCA) for management to approve the funds in lieu of the goods and services request”.
OEM Contractor
Despite its well-defined strategy, funded progress and efficient contractor management, the project was hit by the unexpected force of Covid-19. Eric recalls that in March 2020, public health officials had ordered that office work be halted. Then by the end of April, the preparatory on-site work was shut down and contractors were demobilised. Still, like many other companies, QIO found new ways of operating, with the discovery of the Teams Remote
and Industrial
Proud Partner MFQ Project
number of additional subcontractors on site.
He admits it was a challenge to convince the short-listed bidders while evaluating tenders to come on board with this strategy but this challenge was handled successfully. To simplify and speed up the executing process, the company also set up its own site supporting services contracts early on, directly contracting for cranes, scaffolding, land sur veyors, on-site general services contractor. Again, this saved time and money, as well as limited the
No requisitions
decision was to keep trans port and the logistics of equipment deliveries under the project’s governance, with secured purchase orders with trucking companies and a warehouse facility in Montreal acting as a hub for storing equipment when not needed, and when required, they can be delivered promptly when ready to be installed on site. In this way, QIO, not the vendor, has retained control of the shipments while being able to plan all shipments to site in a timely manner with consolidated shipments.
8605, Parent Boulevard, Trois-Rivières, Québec G9A 5E1 (819) 375-2888 www.fournierindustries.com
In the execution of our project, no requisitions! “
Working in Teams
“
stantially completed engineered package would be ready to award, we had the flexibility to award to one of the two contractors already in the field through a change order, and that saved a lot of time. Secondly it allowed for healthy competition between contractors of the same discipline, and it gave us the flexibility to award to whomever had the capacity to take on additional work and whoev er was performing best.”
“We prefer to assign one purchase order to a given vendor whenever possible. We asked our vendors to hold off to the end of the month before issuing their invoice, compiling all the shipments and packing slips onto one invoice per month, i.e., one cheque or wire transfer. It’s a lot easier to track shipments, it reduces paperwork and is easier for monthly accruals, invoicing and costAnotherforecasting.”important
EXECUTIVE8 INSIGHT MAGAZINE I FALL 2022
“I had hardly ever used this software, I never had to,” admits Eric. “Remote working
reading and sharing drawings had to be done remotely. Meet ings were orchestrated under this regime for the next 18 months.”
He acknowledges that moving online during the lockdowns has changed their way of working forever. When QIO’s site was
Screening Area
9 EXECUTIVE INSIGHT MAGAZINEFALL 2022 I EXECUTIVE INSIGHT MAGAZINE
Spiral Banks
was all new to us. Engi neering and the diffi culty of whoengineeringinteractionscollaborativebetweendisciplineswereusedto
Collaborative Commu nication Platform.
AG Mill Ring gear
AG mill view towards screening area
EXECUTIVE10 INSIGHT MAGAZINE I SUMMER 2022
Sustainable progress
As of March 31, 2022, cumulative invest ments of CAD$633 million, including pre-ap proved tier funding, were deployed on the project. In line with its sustainability focus, QIO has recently purchased a decommissioned pellet plant, to be fed from a high-grade iron ore plant which would allow for a 69% iron ore grade from a flotation process extract to meet the growing demands from steel producers in several markets.
administrators, buyers, expeditors, logistics and transportation coordinators, who have played an important part.
11 EXECUTIVE INSIGHT MAGAZINEFALL 2022 I EXECUTIVE INSIGHT MAGAZINE
“I’ve been working on this project for three years now, and it’s been a fast-track project, not a nine-to-five job. Often working at nights or during weekends. But it’s been most rewarding. ‘’My as piration is now to complete the project as planned and look forward to a lighter work load over the next couple of months concludes Eric Villeneuve.
Towards commercial production
I’ve been working on this project for three years now, and it’s been a fast-track project, not a nine-to-five job. “ “
exempted from being shut down in July 2020, with another incremental envelope of funds secured, things began to pick up. By November 2020 with a fully financed project secured, calls for tender and recommendations and contracts started to go out.
R.C.I. 48, William-Dobell avenue, Baie-Comeau, Quebec G4Z 1T7 phone : 418 296-2854 / mail criverin@renaldcote.com
Mining and Construction
“Work has become very effective this way, and despite all its tragic consequences, this has been one positive outcome of the pandemic,” he says, pointing out that another unexpected benefit of people communicating online.
He acknowledges that as of the end of May 2022, his team had issued 691 purchase orders for purchas es of equipment, materials service contracts, and site services, 43 construction contracts with 1347 change orders processed, and 53 service contracts.
Remarkable progress has been made since the Bloom Lake Property takeover, and that despite the challenges imposed by the Cov id-19 pandemic, phase 2 has been a resound ing success. Given the hurdles faced, there is a need for admiration to the team of contract
Speaking of sustainability, the hot topic being discussed across all industries, Eric emphasises that the company’s activities need to be looked at within in the context of its history, when QIO acquired the project from a bankrupt company. The infrastructure was already in place based on a 2012 design, but then improved based on 2022 equipment and materials technology.
“Although of course people returned to site for the physical work, many of our staff, including myself, have remained on home office. Teams has enabled us to work almost in the same way as if we were holding face-to-face meetings – I can see my colleagues online or in meetings, and we all save a huge amount of time not having to spend hours on commuting.”
Executive Insight Magazine published by J S International Media ©2022 EXECUTIVE INSIGHT LEADING THE PROFESSIONAL www.mineraiferquebec.comCHARGE