This is the view that I currently wake up to every morning as I look out of my cabin door at the project site in Kone' in the North Province of New Caledonia. Mostly mangroves in the foreground. The local tribes including the Ondju (I haven't learned all their names yet) derive a livelihood from the fish, and especially the shellfish (large crabs) they pull out of these waters. Hard to imagine that there is a huge industrial project going on.
Blue Ocean
Saturday, May 15, 2010
New Project in new Caledonia, beginning April 2010
This is the view that I currently wake up to every morning as I look out of my cabin door at the project site in Kone' in the North Province of New Caledonia. Mostly mangroves in the foreground. The local tribes including the Ondju (I haven't learned all their names yet) derive a livelihood from the fish, and especially the shellfish (large crabs) they pull out of these waters. Hard to imagine that there is a huge industrial project going on.
Saturday, May 8, 2010
Changes in Latitudes
If I step off another curb into oncoming traffic, I will deserve what I get. I have been in Brisbane a couple of weeks, and I still have mental lapses about cars in the left lane. Same thing on the sidewalk, when I occasionally find myself in a pas-de-deux with an oncoming pedestrian. It's not as problematic as in England, though, where the convention seems to be more strictly adhered to.
Indeed, with the exception of left lane traffic and steering wheels on the right, Brisbane looks and feels much like any modern, affluent American city, or better, it is a composite of several American cities. Climate-wise, it is like Miami – subtropical, with hibiscus, bouganvilla and palms trees co-mingled with southern hemisphere species that I can’t identify. Of course the seasons are opposite. We are just now beginning to feel the first chilly mornings when I wished I had worn something warmer as I hurry to my subway stop. I’m not sure I will ever get used to weather reports predicting cold fronts from the south.
The downtown skyline is very new, maybe like Atlanta, with towering and highly stylized designs which, one hopes, will stand the test of time. (although I am reminded of the frozen-in-time look of ‘57’ Chevys and Buicks with the chrome and winged fenders). Portland Oregon is its best comparison as a healthy city – both sides of the Brisbane River are lined with hike and bike trails, and most of the main thoroughfaires have bike lanes. Everyone seems to carry a backpack so they can bike or run to work and shower and change at the office. There are very few out-of-shape people here; I do my part to skew the curve.
In my experience, except for Canada, Australia is the most similar nation to the US. This is not surprising, given their histories, although Australia celebrates its English ties much more than would be palatable in the US. For example many of the public spaces are named Queens this or Reagents that. This bias is to be expected in light of the relative lack of blood mixing. If you asked an American their ancestry, you'll normally hear a significant mix of countries. Not so in the commonwealth, where most folks trace their roots back uniquely to Britain. But I think it is safe to say that the Australian experience, taking into account the things people do, their lifestyles, how they act around each other, their attitudes about the external world, overall is more American than it is British. For what that's worth.
This is a continuation of previous blog entries from my previous two year work assignment in Yemen. For the next two years or so, I will be working for Technip, a French firm, in New Caledonia. Technip is a JV partner with Hatch (Canadian) building a nickel mine and refinery for Xstrata (Swiss) in a remote part of NewCaledonia, a French Polynesian island in the south Pacific. I am currently working out of the Hatch office in Brisbane while I wait for my work visa to process.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Well Water
I logged a partial victory today, mostly due to external forces, but it’s going in the V column anyway.
An interesting cocktail – it has elements of hydrogeology, meteorology, sociology, economics, local politics and spirituality.
This episode reinforced a couple of principles that I hold dear:
Thursday, August 13, 2009
Internet musing
Here in Balhaf, the internet connection speeds at home and office are equally slow. I used to think it was due to our remote location, but I have come to realize that the whole country of Yemen is slow, connectivity-wise. I spent an overnight recently in the Movenpick Hotel in Sana’a – arguably the most luxurious hotel in the country – and the internet was snailish there too.
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Bir Ali
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Friday, April 10, 2009
Portugal
[photos shown above, not in very good order: 1] Castle of St George in Lisbon; 2] the 3 km winding pathway leading down from the Moors castle back to the historical village of Sintra. This alone was worth the trip to Sintra. 3] battlements of the Moor Castle (circa 900AD) overlooking the Atlantic. 4] folk dancing in the Rossio (Lisbon)on a Sunday afternoon. 5] elevated view of Rossio seen from the hilltop Sao Jorge castle, one of the cool old structures that withstood a major earthquake and tsunami that flattened most of Lisbon in 1755.
Many times the poorly-prepared approach to travel yields unexpected benefits, as for example, my visit to Portugal. I had really wanted to spend a few days in Lisbon, but when I queried the Travelocity website for the cost of a 4 day-stopover enroute to Rio de Janeiro, it was prohibitive: eg, my round trip flight from Sana’a to Austin, including a ten day stop in Brazil was $3900USD. When I modified the search to include four days in Portugal, it brought the cost up to about $8K. So I booked the non-refundable Travelocity itinerary to Brazil and Austin, and later discovered the requirement for a Brazilian tourist visa. I had no choice, so I got off the flight in Lisbon fully expecting to have to purchase another Lisbon to Rio ticket after obtaining the visa from the Brazilian consulate. What I found out was that the Travelocity paper tickets are valid for six months. For multi-city itineraries, you can stop and stay at intermediate locations without any advanced notice, and no penalty costs. One of the perks of paper tickets… and poor planning.
Regarding Portugal, the 2 days I had to hang close to the Brazilian Consulate because pf poor planning notwithstanding, my impressions are based on walking around Lisbon and a couple of day trips to out-of-town tourist destinations, so its not like I am ultra informed.
The culinary offerings are unimaginative: it is hard to screw up fresh fish, which is available in abundance – especially cod, hake, sardines, swordfish, grouper, squid and octopus – but the preparation that I observed was uniformly underwhelming, even at the time-honored traditional restaurants, which were generally uninviting, with chairs and tables lined up like a grade school classroom. I wouldn’t have arched an eyebrow to see menus printed on mimeograph paper.
Portugese art is underrepresented on the world stage. There are several art museums in Lisbon, but nothing of acclaim. There is little by way of film or written accomplishment, and there is no Portugese entry in the classical music repertoire. I had a beer at a cool music bar in the Barrio Alto district and asked the bartender if she could play something Portugese. She told me that Portugese people don’t really listen to Portugese music.
On the other hand, I warmed to the unpretentious Portugese hospitality. I, as an Austinite, especially appreciated their “laid back” personality. Lisbon is a great place to visit as long as you are not looking for the splash that visitors normally expect from European capitols. What I found was a comfortable and unstressed place to relax, and once I ratcheted my expectations accordingly, I began to discover and enjoy the neat places where the locals hang out, especially the Chiado and the Barrio Alto. Plus, everything is ridiculously cheap – at least outside of the tourist districts.
As I wait in the airport for my flight to Rio de Janeiro, I am reminded to mention that Portugal is totally safe. As I roamed the streets of Lisbon by myself at night, I never once felt uncomfortable about the people around me. This might change in Brasil.
Saturday, April 4, 2009
Daybreak in Rome, April 4, 2009
I had forgotten about some of the unique aspects of Rome that I had experienced several months back during a week-long vacation here. From the waiting area where I have set up my laptop I can see the silhouettes of the famous pines of Rome; I had forgotten about the Roman landscaping technique of trimming the pines like poodles. Or maybe they just grow that way, not sure. I am sure that this is the only place where I have seen cumulous puffs of pine boughs floating on the horizon. It’s a surreal sunrise scene after a harrowing and sleepless 6 hour flight in steerage on Yemenair flight 633.
I stopped into a bustling café for some cappuccino and a brioche, and was reminded of the roman penchant for bustle. It dawns on me that the impatient rudeness of waiters and cab drivers in New York probably derives, at least in part, from the influence of Italian immigrants. Same style and substance; they don’t intend to offend, it’s just that they are so heavily burdened with responsibility for so many customer expectations.
I forgot about the lovely language (not so much the overly-burdened café proprietors). The wisps of the conversations I hear from bustling passers-by hurrying to their flights are pleasantly melodic: Italian made the work of Verdi and Puccini a cinch. The Arabs that I interact with at work know nothing of this; their language is a cruel and accusatory in cadence and intonation. To the uninitiated, “what a pretty hat” sounds like “I kill puppies.” Not so, Italian. Sentences are micro-concerts, with introductory theme, an arpeggiated midsentence (modulation to a minor key signals materia trista) coming to rest gently on a punctuating bass note which invites the start of the next sentence. Rhythm is important, which explains the hands; every Italian is his own conductor. Of course I have no clue what they are saying but it sounds like: fulMINici dellA formAGGio a LOUra. Translation, in my mind: roses are the perfect expression of God’s divinity. More likely: I placed a pipe bomb in the suitcase of the Travelocity tourist.
At 11:55AM I will board the TAP flight to Lisbon where I will stop over for a few days while my visa to Rio is processed. I don’t have an itinerary; don’t know anything about Portugal except porto and Magellan. I am thinking about renting a motorcycle for some cruising along the coast. Same with Rio where I will spend a week before continuing on with Delta airlines, arriving in Austin on April 15. Actually I know a bit more about Rio; I know I enjoy the music. And the photos of the beaches are inviting. I hope to dispense with my normal have-to-see-everything travel credo. The beauty of Travelocity, for me, is that the cost is less than the normal flight faire to my home of record, and therefore I can expense the entire cost of the vacation travel. So if I feel like lounging on a beach chair just reading and drinking capirinhas all day, I just might feel good about it.
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
2009 photos
Gas arrives at the Marine Flare from Marib, 320 km away
jetty in background, significantly complete, as is Tank1 (the closest one)
The jetty extends 1 km offshore to the ship berth, where it will load up and head to the handful of global ports that have regasification plants, notably Sabine Pass and (soon) Corpus Christi, Texas.
March 2009, Balhaf, Yemen
But this spring is different from last year because we are seeing the beginning of the end of this project. The gas tie-in with the Marib pipeline is complete, and with it, a heightened awareness of things-that-could go-wrong. Sometime in the not-too-distant future we will move in to the SIMOPS phase, which means that Train 1 will be brought online and turned over to Total to operate. Simultaneously, construction will continue on Train 2, with all the welding, cutting, grinding and other sparky activities that are so often disdained in areas where new valves, flanges and threaded fittings are getting used to the idea of carrying explosive gas at high pressures. But this stuff is boring. There are other could-go-wrong scenaria with human interest flavor to type about.
Here’s an example of a situation which could have turned ugly, but didn’t, except for the principals involved.
One of the large Subcontractors, Gama, a Turkish firm, announced their demobilization schedule. Gama has a large number of Yemen (of course) and Indian laborers. The schedule was skewed towards demobing Yemenis during the first wave. The argument, which has a kernel of truth, is that the Yemen laborers are not as detailed-oriented as the HVE Indians. As we move towards SIMOPS, lots of the final work will be in the form of punch list items, which requires attention to detail, because you might be working on one task for two hours, then move to a different task. Each task requires different equipment and materials and, notably, moving to a different work location without wandering off, or just stopping. As a general rule, the Indians are better at doing that than the Yemenis. Not that any of the work is complicated: we’re talking shovels and wire brushes.
The Yemenis, predictably, played the Yemenization card, which is an agreement between Total and the Yemeni government for preferential hiring of Yemenis in lieu of HVE (highly valued ex-pats. used to be TWN - third world nationals, but the PC police forced the change). Gama refused to negotiate, arguing that the Indians were more expensive – higher pay, and transportation costs – why would they keep them instead of Yemenis if the qualifications gap didn’t require it?
So, after several days of unrest and demonstrations (unnervingly centered on the Yemgas main building) one morning 600 Yemenis refused to go to work. The management reaction was swift, and 250 Yemeni military came onsite and rounded up 60 of the identified ringleaders. Rather than busing them out, they made them walk 2 km through the camps, shouting and chanting the whole way.
In hindsight, it is pretty clear that the ringleaders were all tactics and no strategy. No teamsters these guys. One imagines the post mortem among the evictees:
“So what do you think went wrong; strikes are supposed to bring employers to their knees?”
“Uh, 40% unemployment in Yemen?”
“No specialized, hard-to-replace skills?”
“200 guys standing around outside begging for low skill jobs?”
“What about those lowlifes, taking our jobs, there ought to be a name for people like that.”
Tuesday, January 13, 2009
Christmas Eve in Yemen
Monday, January 12, 2009
Sunday, September 21, 2008
Rotation #5
I decided to take up yoga. Someone loaned me a book on the subject, and I gravitated immediately to the section on supine postures. The first one, Shavasana, was pretty straightforward – lying with my back on the floor. The second one - Ekapada Uttanasana – built on the Shava by pointing the toes and stretching the upper muscles of one foot, followed by a six second leg lift. On the first Eka, I pulled a foot muscle, and I’ve been limping around for the last two days. People inquire, but I refuse to confess that it is from a supine exercise. I am reminded of my mother, who complained once that she had pulled a muscle in her neck while reading in bed. I was pretty ruthless for a couple of weeks with jokes about pillow-related injuries. Pretty ironic - karma got to me through Yoga.
My postings of late have been spare; looks like the most recent one, in July, promised a Part 2 follow up on the subject of social responsibility. This is probably not the right time for that, inasmuch as I had to fire an employee today for his role in smuggling copper cable out of the compound, and the recycling contractor that I had gone to great lengths to select from a pool of his peers based on his demonstrated professionalism and sterling character, was also implicated. Also, yesterday the US Embassy was attacked, again, which means we are back on orange alert, which stuffs my ability to move around within the local area. And lately the Yemenis workers have been getting rattled. Maybe it’s related to Ramadan. I don’t know. Almost every day there is some kind of a demonstration or protest of some kind, some involving violence, although, so far, it has been minor.
To be fair, it’s not just the Yemenis. Yesterday the Bangladeshis trashed their cafeteria at the SKS camp. SKS, a Korean firm, has four kitchens: Chinese, Bangladesh, Yemeni, and Korean. The Korean kitchen is actually quite good, not surprisingly, but the Bangladeshi is awful. I upbraided the SKS camp boss a while back about hygiene lapses in the kitchens and he told me that the different cultures have different standards (hinting that the problem was a figment of my cultural ignorance.) I asked him which of the cultures sought out dysentery and salmonosis. Anyway, regarding the Bangladeshis, you don’t usually think of them as outspoken or violent. I remember hearing an NPR radio report once about a Bangladeshi gang in LA, and imagined the futility of “please to hand over your wallet.” [truth in advertising – it is a PH punchline, gotta give credit.]
Earlier, I had to deal with about 100 Yemenis working for Gama, a Turkish firm, over a frivilous complaint about water quality. For clarification, most of the complaints from laborers about living conditions in the subcontractor camps are well grounded. I mean, I've seen things you wouldn't believe. But it is not unusual for laborers to vent their frustration about working conditions by making up a lame-o complaint about something unrelated. Water is a volatile issue; we're in a desert, right? Since I am in charge of water quality, I drew the short straw to go talk to the Gama Yemenis. I had seen the latest test results, so I was able to quell the complaints about "Gama is trying to poison us" by gulping down 750 mls right out of the tap while they watched. It was one of those minor victories that rarely presents itself, at least to me, involving an accusatory loudmouth surrounded by psycophants braying about an alleged atrocity, the rancor escalating with each breath. To nuke him in front of his peers with incontrovertibilia; the ridiculousness of his argument crystallized into a single, robust and punctuating belch. I didn't even need a translator. Mostly there was a bit of fidgeting, some looking around, and at length they wandered off when someone mentioned the Premier League match on satellite pitting Cheltenham against Coldchestershire.
People have been asking me whether the embassy attack has had any effect on this project here in Balhaf. We have a lot of fence and military protection, much more so than at the embassy. The surrounding terrain is impassable volcanic rubble that even the camels avoid, so I think we are adequately protected against any outside threat. It is the conditions inside the fence that probably present the greater danger, especially as we begin the reduction in forces and they start escorting people to the gate. Sometime during the next 12 months, this project will demobilize 8000 construction workers, leaving behind “the chosen” 500 permanent operating employees. Some of the more outspoken laborers, and the local tribes have begun protesting that no Yemenis should be laid off until all of the HVEs are sent home (semi-skilled Indians and Phillipinos.) We’ll have to see how that bad idea resolves itself. In the meanwhile, we continue to prepare for the imminent arrival of the pipeline, which is snaking its way across the desert towards us.
Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Social Responsibility
I ran into Social Responsibility again at BP, which is where I landed after Enron crashed. BP’s SR mission was more results-oriented. They were emphatic about documenting early compliance with the Kyoto protocol. My job, a 3-month contract position, was to calculate greenhouse emissions from its San Juan Basin coal bed methane operations. In talking with my counterparts from the other business units, it was clear that, although the calculations were legitimate, the comparisons with the base case were flawed, resulting in exaggerated claims of greenhouse gas reductions, which, of course, were trumpeted by the annual reporters.
These two exposures to Social Responsibility flavored my initial impression of this new and growing corporate mandate. Fast forward to Yemen, 2008.
As environmental manager for the YLNG construction project I am on the front lines. Gone are the slogany SR platitudes, the flowery vernacular, the business suits. I work in close quarters with 5,000 Yemeni workers, every one of them two generations removed from the 14th century, the cream and the crud of Yemen’s future: the clueless losers, opiated by religion, who resent the fact that their job is not an entitlement; and the up-and-coming laborers, foremen and professionals who see this project as a stepping stone to a better life for themselves and their families. I also have a somewhat unique position within Yemgas in that I interact with the local community in developing contracts, specifically for transportation and waste recycling services. Social Responsibility, seen from ground level, is real and pregnant with opportunity, for both sides – the developer and the developed.
The obvious example is teaching Yemenis basic skills that allow them to work efficiently. I’m talking basic skills, like, to begin with getting up every day and going to work. This ethic is ingrained in the western mind, whether we are employed or looking for employment, the lifelong struggle for compensation is a routine that occupies most of the daylight hours, most of the days of most of the weeks. The Yemen mind does not think this way, and by enlightening them, they can go out and share this insight with friends and relatives, and it will incrementally improve the competitiveness of an abysmally uncompetitive workforce.
Labor force development is not reported per se in any annual report as a social responsibility achievement, but the better managers at Yemgas are aware of the impacts they are making on peoples lives, and they go out of their way to teach their employees things that are useful, but are not necessarily applicable to the job at hand.
In recruiting contractors from the local communities, we initially tried the bid process; it was a disaster, resulting in contractor liens when the low bidder didn’t pay his employees and his equipment rental companies. So we adapted a procedure I learned at TxDOT: qualification-based selection. This was a zinger to the tribal mentality predominant here in the Shabwa Governate, a backwater even by Yemeni standards. We issued a Request for Qualifications along with a disclaimer stating that submitting an SOQ would not guarantee a contract. Most of the 12 proposals that we received were unreadable, or worse. When asked what was their proposal for disposing of non-recyclable waste, most answered something like “we’ll do whatever you ask us to do.” We selected a firm that had some experience with municipal garbage hauling.
Many competing firms couldn't grasp the concept of competition. They thought that the selection should be based on tribal status, and then once selected, the firm would figure out how to provide whatever service was needed. We had to blacklist one of the tribal heavies from entering the jobsite because he threatened our Community Relations manager. The government-privilege faction barraged us with angry visits from Ministers of this and that whose son or nephew was not selected. But we offered a contract debriefing to the 11 unsuccessful firms to explain where their proposal fell short. My expectation is that the next round of contracts in 12 months will yield to Adam Smith’s invisible hand: the tribes and government fatcats will tone down their bloviating and instead focus on giving the client what it asks for. This concept is the basis of every western business model; but it is, or was, until now, utterly foreign to the movers and shakers in Shabwa, Yemen. In a self-serving way we expect that this enlightenment will promote a better local contractor pool to support the upcoming 20 years of YLNG operations, but, one hopes, the ripple effect will penetrate into the broader business community as south Yemen continues to develop its natural and human resources.