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Chemical Technology • November 2015
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MINERALS PROCESSING AND METALLURGY
• Customs clearance and customs restrictions.
• Security services and liaison (police and military).
• Quality, safety and security of hotels and guest
houses.
• Emergency support services for victims of theft or
crime, unsubstantiated detention and medical emer-
gency and evacuation capabilities.
• Public health facilities (hospitals, trauma units, site
clinics and ambulances).
• Electricity availability, reliability and capacity.
• Condition of access roads to the site for use by heavy
vehicles.
• Petrol and diesel qualities, capacity and availability.
• Telecommunication type, availability, reliability and
capacity.
• Water supply (drinking water, waste water/sewage,
stemming of surface water in swamp areas).
• Food availability and average costs from outlets that
sell basic commodities.
The results of the above assessments will indicate the ex-
tent of detail required in the Security Management, Disaster
and Risk Mitigation, Business Continuity and Emergency
Response Plans.
Evaluating different contract risks
Contracts can be any of the standard types, eg, FIDIC, NEC
or a client contract, but nevertheless it is the content of the
contract that needs to be properly reviewed and understood
in order to determine the risks.
Evaluation of the following should be done:
• Law of the contract
• Currency of the contract and exchange rate risks.
• Which taxes apply.
• Allocation and understanding of responsibilities for deal-
ing with the country’s revenue services.
• Understanding the country’s laws and penalties.
• Labour laws and their interpretation (handling disputes,
dissatisfaction and strikes, standard work week and
overtime, minimum pay rates, etc).
• Understanding the specified contract deliverables or get
them properly defined.
• Discovering old grave sites and how they should be
handled.
• Dealing with the local community on issues such as ob-
taining land for water, fuel, electrical and road servitudes.
Preferably the Client should be handling this.
• Responsibility for “Gifts” for the surrounding community
chiefs or leaders.
• Security of the construction site and the project personnel
in a warring country.
• Responsibility for supplying medical facilities, medical
personnel and their quality and competencies.
• The responsibility for the provision of communication and
data transfer systems if they are not available and, if they
are, what is the capability and reliability.
• Availability of construction materials, eg, structural steel,
electrical and instrument cable, cement, suitable backfill
material, etc.
• Responsibility for the accuracy of site information on
brownfield projects, ie, survey beacons, bench marks,
buried services, etc.
• Responsibility of setting up and operating an off-site
labour bureau to obtain suitable local skilled and un-
skilled labour.
Using citizen resources of the country in which the project
is being executed could have an impact on the project’s
cost, schedule and quality.
Firstly the project has to be properly estimated and
materials and equipment can generally be done with rea-
sonable accuracy if the scope of work is well defined and
proper estimating processes are adhered to. The difficulty
will come in estimating the contractors’ productivity factors.
Most of the large engineering and construction companies
use the Gulf Coast Factors as a reference against which
to adjust the factors for projects in different parts of the
world. Africa as a whole is not nearly as efficient as the
Gulf Coast and therefore more manhours and resources
are generally needed to complete the work in a reasonable
time. But there is also a limit to the number of workers that
can work in an area without causing congestion, which
becomes unproductive and unsafe.
Competent and experienced site supervision is a key
requirement which is not always found amongst the local
citizens and without which there will be a lack of leader-
ship and team work, neglect of safe work practices and a
drop in quality, all resulting in schedule slippage and cost
increases.
Acknowledgements
The author wishes to thank his Fluor South Africa (Pty)
Limited colleagues for their assistance and input in the
writing of this paper.
Editor’s Note
This article was written in 2012 and thus references to matters
such as tax implications and dealings with the countries’ rev-
enue services, import controls and duties at borders, security
risks due to war zones, cross border attacks and unstable gov-
ernments, labour laws, residential and work permits, etc, may
well be different now; however, the content remains relevant
related to project and construction management in mining,
petroleum, power and other projects.