Copied from NMS thread, aug22 afr...
THE POWER AND THE PEOPLE
as the lng boom gathers pace,demand will
rise for the workforce with the right skills.
every engineering,construction and industrial services firm in the country seems to be anticipating a liquefied natural gas boom and
is jockeying for a slice of the
action-even with those with a realitively minimal presence in oil and gas
take brisbane based
engineering group Ausenco,
which in the half yearto
june 30 made more than $200 million from minerals and
process infrastructure but only $2.6 from energy
earlier this month,Ausenco
struck a deal to take 50% interest in engineering firm
Kramer group,giving it a bigger
presence in papua new guinea
as the $US16.5 billion
($20 billion) Exxon -Mobil -
operated local LNG project was
underway.the company is also hoping to win work rom the
numerous LNG projectsslated for Gladstone in Queensland
just exxons mobils projectalone is $15 billion odd,
and who knows how many are going to happen in queensland.
chief executive Zimi Meka tells the weekend AFR." but even if only a couple happen,it could
be north of $10 billion.
"I f you add it all up,its a significant pie that we'll be quite happy to share in
Ausenco has not been as active chasing workfrom the LNG projects in Western Australia but Meka believes
Chevrons $50 Billion Gorgonproject off the Western Australian coast will sustain many contractors.
the US energy company has already awarded more than $1.7 Billion in contractsto services groups for the work on Barrow Island, which will host a giant plant processing gas for the Gorgon fields,while in june the PNG LNG joint venture partners approved the start of $ US600 million worth of work.
Other developments for which contracts have already been awarded inclue the Pluto LNG project off the Pilbara coast in WA.
In the past week,Woodside has more than tripled its plans
for Pluto,which will lift the price tag beyond the previous esitmateof $14 Billion.
"We're going to go back into a shortage of peopleif all this comes off,because these are big big projects" Meka says
Geoff Knox,chief executive of diversified engineering group Downer EDI ,is not worried about increased competition for LNG work.
"We have noticed everybodies fascination with the LNG sector absolutely" he says
"But i,ve been involved with oil and gas and LNG all my career on and off and its a very specialised area
"To do all the quality work ,you need specialists that
understands the safety requirements,the workpermitting requirements,the design requirements,the quality system requirements,and wethink that provides a nice natural filter"
Other Australian companies in this field include
Worley Parsons,Clough, NEPTUNE MARINE SERVICES,and Mermaid Marine,while foreign specialists such as Haliburton will also be in the hunt for contracts
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