Group ASI News and Announcements

Calgary's Flint Energy Services bought out by US Corp. in $1.25 billion deal!

2012-02-22T11:04:00.000-08:00

CALGARY — San Francisco-based URS Corp. is taking over Calgary's Flint Energy Services Ltd. in a $1.25-billion deal that gives the U.S. construction firm a foothold in the Canadian oilsands, which it believes will be one of North America's best hopes for economic growth.

The company is well known for building big oilsands projects at a time when foreign interest and investment in the deposits is growing.

Koffel said the deal will give Flint access to URS's significant construction resources to help it accelerate growth.
"Flint will now have the resources to oversee more projects and simultaneously take advantage of the significant growth opportunities in its markets," he said.

Don't Blame the Workers I ENR: Engineering News Record I MacGraw-Hill Construction

2012-02-13T14:23:00.000-08:00

The article "Don't Blame the Workers" is three pages long and the more I read of it, the more I realized that the theories discussed within are very similar to an Alberta based Best Practice called WorkFace Planning (WFP). In 2006, WFP became a Best Practice for the Construction Owners Association of Alberta (COAA).

The COAA website states, "The Construction Owners Association of Alberta (COAA) is committed to examining the issues facing the Alberta construction industry today and delivering practical solutions to safety, workforce and project challenges that can be implemented by all construction stakeholders. One of these issues is cost overruns on large oil and gas construction projects."

The COAA website continues to point out that, "It is not uncommon for large construction projects to experience cost overruns of up to 100% of the original cost estimate. Insufficient planning was identified as a possible contributing factor to cost overruns. On a typical large oil and gas construction project, 40% of the total cost is normally due to direct and indirect labour. A COAA focus group reviewed the productivity losses due to wait time, travel time, early break time, and planning time and estimated that up to 25% of the lost time could be recovered through more detailed execution planning or WorkFace Planning as it has been termed today."

WorkFace Planning (WFP) is defined, by COAA, as the process of organizing and delivering all elements necessary before work is started, to enable craft persons to perform quality work in a safe, effective and efficient manner.

I have included a few paragraphs from the article "Don't Blame the Workers" and if you would like to read the article in it's entirety follow this link. http://enr.construction.com/business_management/workforce/2011/0601-DontBlameTheWorkers-2.asp

Workers already had been polled on the subject. As part of a 2006 CII survey, 1,996 crafts persons listed what kept them waiting around: no forklift to move the Sheetrock, no reply from the engineer about unclear plans and specs, fixing prefabricated items and looking for tools, among other responses.

“Crafts guys want to be productive,” says Chris Buck, president of Productivity Enhancement Resources (PER) in Simpson, N.C. and the Keynote Speaker for the 3rd annual COAA WorkFace Planning Conference, held in Calgary, Alberta and organized for the third year in a row by GroupASI (www.groupasi.com) on COAA's behalf. “You’re going to have your exception here and there, but the vast majority want to be productive. If we can take away the barriers for them to produce, they will take the reins and go.”

“When you explain the process, there are very few things you can blame on the [crafts workers] other than late starts or early breaks,” he says. “What you find are management issues—the materials aren’t there, designs aren’t there, equipment is not there. All of a sudden, the [crafts workers] see what you’re doing, and they open up.” Mark Stofega, principal construction support engineer at Fluor.

Oil Sands Project Report - Wood Buffalo (August 2011) Published by the Government of Alberta.

2012-02-07T11:14:00.000-08:00

This report lists oil sands projects located in or adjacent to the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo and their current status: operating, under construction, proposed or on hold. The report looks at both mining and in-situ oil sands projects, as well as upgraders. New or proposed projects are included only if they are active or can reasonably be expected to start construction within the next two years.
Complete version of the Oil Sands Project Report

Quick Fact (Pg. 3): "The Oil Sands Developers Group estimates that each permanent oil sands-related job generates nine additional direct, indirect and induced jobs across Canada. More than 456,000 jobs are linked to the construction and operation of oil sands facilities. (For more information visit oilsandsdevelopers.ca)"

TOTAL's oil sands project receives the green light from the Canadian Government

2011-12-13T10:54:00.000-08:00

EDMONTON JOURNAL
~ By Jeffrey Jones And David Ljunggren, Reuters December 9, 2011

CALGARY - The Canadian government gave Total SA approval on Thursday to start construction on its $9-billion Joslyn North oil sands project in Alberta, marking the fifth mining development in the vast crude deposit.

Total, the French oil major, and its Canadian, U.S. and Japanese partners aim to start production in 2017-18, hitting a peak of 100,000 barrels a day.

Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver announced the decision as controversy spreads at home and abroad over the environmental impact of developing and transporting oil sands crude. Ottawa has made boosting and diversifying exports of the unconventional oil a top priority.

Environmental groups at the United Nations climate summit in Durban, South Africa, have been sharply critical of Canada's aim to foster more development of the vast oil sands resource, which accounts for rising emissions of greenhouse gases.

Still, Mr. Oliver told reporters in Ottawa that a six-year approval process for the Joslyn North project showed the need to streamline regulations for investors in the oil sands, which is part of the federal government's push. Mr. Oliver said he favours a two-year review process.

"The oil sands are generating jobs in just about every sector of our economy, from welders to office workers to engineers. But we cannot take these jobs for granted. Oil sands development does not just happen. Investors have other opportunities," he said.

The approval comes two days after regulators said they extended the hearing process for Enbridge Inc.'s Northern Gateway oil sands pipeline to the Pacific Coast by about a year to the end of 2013, possibly pushing back the start-up date should the controversial project be approved.

The Joslyn North project is located 65 kilometres northwest of the tar sands hub of Fort McMurray, Alta. Total said its construction workforce will peak at 4,100 people.

The company said it expects to eventually process the crude at the Voyageur upgrader it plans with partner Suncor Energy Inc.

Total has a 38.25% stake in Joslyn North and is the operator. Suncor holds 36.7% and Occidental Petroleum and Japan's Inpex hold the rest.
© Copyright (c) National Post

To view the original article (found in the Edmonton Journal) click here. http://tinyurl.com/828dhma

Alberta construction down, but not out

2011-07-11T11:29:00.000-07:00

April 18, 2011

By Dan Sumner (ATB Financial)

http://www.calgarybeacon.com

Overall, Alberta’s economy has been strong over the last nine months, save for a couple of specific sectors, like construction.

Investment in non-residential construction in Alberta dipped in the first quarter of this year to $2.13 billion, down from $2.20 billion in Q4 2010. The decline observed in Alberta was the largest among all provinces and marks the ninth consecutive quarter of declining non-residential construction activity.

The sole driver behind the fall in Q1 was lower spending on institutional projects, specifically educational and healthcare facilities in Alberta. Since the peak of institutional construction spending one year ago, investment in that category is down 34 per cent. Although this drop may seem precipitous, it is largely expected since institutional construction ramped up so much during the recession, and is now normalizing (see graph).

The other two categories of non-residential construction, commercial and industrial, both had positive showings in Q1, rising 1.3 per cent and 15.0 per cent respectively. Investment in these two categories has also grown fairly strongly over the past year.

Both housing starts and non-residential construction have been slow to bounce back in Alberta after the mid-decade boom. Moving forward, as long as institutional spending continues to normalize it will be hard for overall non-residential construction activity to grow much. But, as long as commercial and industrial construction remains positive, activity in the sector will not fall too far.

Labour crunch impacts Alberta's construction plans

2011-07-11T11:27:00.000-07:00

February 2, 2008
CanWest News

CALGARY — As a week marked by massive pre-election spending draws to a close, the $1.3-billion question facing Alberta is whether the province has the manpower — and capacity — to complete government's ambitious construction wish list on time and on budget.

Unions and taxpayer groups worry an overheated construction market and chronic labour shortages will cause cost overruns and delays on the flurry of projects Alberta has announced recently, including schools, hospital redevelopments and roadwork.

In the past dozen days, spending announcements made by Premier Ed Stelmach's government totalled more than $1 billion, according to a Canadian Taxpayers Federation tally of the promises.

The spending comes as government estimates $245 billion worth of megaprojects are underway or slated to move ahead in Alberta over the next two years, fuelled largely by massive expansion in the oilsands.

"It's obviously a concern to us," said Gil McGowan, president of the Alberta Federation of Labour.

"(Oilsands) projects are going to require a construction workforce of more than 200,000. These public projects are just going to make it much more difficult for contractors to find the workers they need."

But Alberta's associate minister of capital planning said the government projects are part of a long-term plan, which the province also unveiled this week, and will be staged to ensure the work is manageable.

"I don't understand the negativity," said Gene Zwozdesky. "It's not all going to happen all in one day. It's a strategic plan that takes you over a period of several years."

The promises come in advance of an expected provincial election call next week.

But they also come at a time when Alberta faces a labour shortage and a new Calgary Economic Development forecast suggested the problems will continue in the future. The report released this week concluded 244,000 jobs, including construction positions, could be added to this city over the next decade.

In recent years, a shortage of construction workers has delayed projects, while the rising expense of materials and labour has sent costs soaring.

WorkFace Planning can save millions

2011-07-11T11:25:00.000-07:00

June 27, 2007

Continuing Education

by Peter Kenter

Journal of Commerce

http://www.joconl.com/article/id23378

Alberta’s SAIT Polytechnic is offering a series of new courses called “Workface Planning.” According to research conducted by the Construction Owners Association of Alberta (COAA), productivity on large scale oil and gas construction projects weighs in at about 37 per cent in tool time, because crews are routinely kept waiting for resources, equipment and materials.

The new course addresses those concerns by shifting more of the scheduling and planning to the front end of construction projects and helping participants to break down larger tasks into more manageable segments.

Classroom-based instruction

SAIT Polytechnic instructor Lloyd Rankin conducts a team-building exercise as part of the school’s Workface Training program.

“The feedback we’re getting is how surprised the participants are with the simplicity of the technique,” says Bill Luxton, SAIT’s Director of Corporate Training, North America.

“Foremen, project managers and lead hands traditionally spend too much time fighting fires and taking care of scheduling crises. On multi-billion dollar projects, the inefficiencies add up quickly to millions of dollars in productivity losses.”

The educational program includes half-day management overview courses, and four-day courses in which participants from various construction disciplines work together to build a stylized pipe rack as a classroom project.

Completing the project requires participants to employ teamwork and to exercise planning and conflict-resolution skills. The course also helps to identify ways in which tasks can be broken down into smaller components.

“In real life that translates into scaling down planning into smaller pieces of work, such as structural scaffolding and ensuring that these one- or two-week components proceed smoothly,” says Luxton.

The course stems from research conducted by SAIT on behalf of COAA to demonstrate how efficiencies could affect schedules and bottom lines.

Several pilot projects demonstrated the efficiency model could deliver project cost savings. Course developer and senior instructor Lloyd Rankin, says that that Workface Planning is now acknowledged as a contractual requirement of more than $30 billion in construction projects in Alberta, including such major companies as Shell, Suncor and Petro-Canada.

Luxton estimates on a $6 billion project, the cost of implementing Workface Planning could range between $24 million and $48 million, but could save as much as $600 million through increased efficiency.

The COAA estimates labour requirements on major projects could also be reduced by about 25 per cent, easing labour shortages.

“There’s strong support for workface training in the industry,” he says.

SAIT is delivering the courses under a three-year contract with COAA.

Courses are scheduled to be held in Calgary, Edmonton and Fort McMurray in the coming months.