Going nuclear needs a coherent plan

I refer to Dr Kelvin Kemm’s lucid article in Business Report on September 8, “Nuclear power is the only sensible way to go” and would like to expand upon one important matter to which reference briefly was made in the article.

Kemm emphasised the need for good project management to prevent cost overruns and schedule delays and it is upon this aspect that I should like to comment and to make some suggestions.

For the nuclear project’s being considered by the South African government it would be necessary ab initio to form a project management team to advance and protect the owner’s interests. The owner team would not commit the folly of undertaking the project management function itself and one of its first tasks would be to appoint not only the nuclear vendor, but also an Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management (EPCM) contractor to be responsible for the entire project other than the nuclear island.

The owner team would oversee at the macro level the project management performances of the vendor and the contractor, applying the principle of divide et impera, divide and conquer.

This EPCM contractor would design, procure, construct and commission the units and infrastructure outside the battery limits of the nuclear island and the ground works within these limits. For this, the contractor would use certified information from the nuclear vendor who, in turn, would be responsible for all the above ground work within its area.

The owner team would contain professional persons spanning the project management function and all engineering disciplines, and these resources are available in South Africa.

The team would mandate its project management requirements to the nuclear vendor and the EPCM contractor before their appointment, namely at regular intervals to provide the owner team with objective information to allow, inter alia, the determination of their compliance with the stipulations of the budget and schedule. This would permit the owner team from an early stage of the project to ascertain the likelihood of a budget or a schedule deviation and to enforce effective remedial action while there is still time to do so.

Recognition of these deviations only at a late stage of the project invariably results in a fait accompli and an inability to redress an unfavourable state of affairs.

The vendor and contractor in turn would be required to enforce these project management requirements upon any and all subcontractors subsequently appointed by them.

Another compelling argument for the early appointment of an owner team would be the necessity to ensure that the social foundations for a large project are in place.

By way of example, I mention the Sasol Two project at Secunda in the late 1970s.

Before any work on the plant began, Sasol commenced building accommodation for the hundreds of workers, expatriates, managers, engineers and artisans who would be employed there.

The first process facility to be commissioned at Secunda was the sewage treatment plant for this accommodation. The houses subsequently were sold to private persons once construction activities waned. All the project’s skilled artisans were sourced nationally and the total workforce numbered twenty-five thousand at the peak of construction.

Sasol also provided an amenity, the Sasol Club, at Secunda. The club included a restaurant and a theatre where amateur groups both from Secunda and from Johannesburg regularly presented shows. It was not too difficult to find these thespian accomplishments at Secunda due to the presence there of talented individuals from South Africa, Europe and America all with their own national characteristics. To an extent Secunda became a cultural melting pot.

The absence of these social foundations at the Thyspunt site would ensure the truth of the maxim – the devil finds work for idle hands to do.

I must state that the execution of the proposed nuclear energy project, from a project management perspective, would not be unduly complex.

The design and construction standards for a nuclear plant are understandably onerous, far more so than those for a conventional process engineering facility, but these exacting standards would not make the project management function, per se, unnecessarily complicated. Apart from the nuclear enclave, the rest of the facility is straightforward and no different from a traditional process engineering project.

Another early task for the owner team would be to specify that all pipe fabrication, to the greatest extent possible, be done at the Thyspunt site. It does not make economic sense for the pipe spools to be fabricated elsewhere and transported to the site. The chosen EPCM contractor would be required to set up this fabrication shop and also to ensure an adequate supply of coded welders.

The best way to supply these welders would be for the EPCM contractor to recruit suitable candidates from the local communities and to train them under professional supervision in a welding and fabrication school at the site.

These candidates would be guaranteed employment on the site after graduating from the school and would acquire the skills needed at Thyspunt and, for that matter, at any subsequent nuclear energy sites. The nuclear vendor would be asked to gauge the degree to which the piping for the nuclear enclave also could be fabricated on the site.

It would not be in South Africa’s longterm interests for welders from overseas to be recruited for Thyspunt and to depart with their skills once the plant has been commissioned.

An initial assignment for the EPCM contractor would be to survey the various routes to Thyspunt from the sea ports, airports and inland. These routes would have to be assessed for the ability of any bridges to carry heavy loads, headroom below bridges, turning radii to accommodate heavy equipment on long trailers and clearances below overhead cables (which may have to be raised). For the transport of heavy equipment over long distances suitable lay-bys along the routes would have to be provided for over-night stops.

All these would require collaboration and liaison with the several municipalities along the proposed transportation routes.

Finally, the presence at Thyspunt of what effectively would be a captive workforce for several years should encourage a spirit of entrepreneurship among the local communities in creating service industries to provide personal needs not otherwise available.

David Milne is a professional engineer registered with the Engineering Council of South Africa and has been involved in the management of large projects in the mining, process and industrial sectors of the local economy for over thirty years. He was a founding director and is a Fellow of the Cost Engineering Association of Southern Africa and is a member of Project Management SA.

Rich Mkhondo is absolutely correct when he says what we need is an organised and more formal investment in tertiary education by all companies. We also need greater investment from our government.

As recently announced by the Minister of Labour, Mildred Oliphant, the Department of Labour has approximately R123bn in its reserves invested through the Public Investment Corporation (PIC). These monies are supposed to be used to ensure that there is some sort of job creation in South Africa.

We all know and understand that the government does not create jobs, but merely creates an environment whereby jobs will be created by the private sector. The Department of Labour has failed us in this regard and it would be useful for it to take some of those monies invested in the PIC and spend it on education for those that can’t afford to go to university.

We obviously need to ensure that those who are going to be studying on these bursaries will be studying in the sectors that are needed by our economy. I believe that these sectors would benefit from the educational bursaries that could be put up by the Department of Labour.

I trust that the Ministry of Labour will see the benefit of using some of its fallow monies being beneficial to the universities and the education of our next generation.

And so began the modern Life of Brian era at Eskom, with apologies to the talents of Monty Python.

MICHAEL BAGRAIM MP LABOUR SPOKESMAN DA