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New Zealand
Updated story of Kiwi welders sent in by Ross Hunter shown in picture. Ross and his team are building a geo thermal power plant on an island. These Kiwi welders have no borders. You can contact Ross at the address listed. This story is provided as a service to the welders who sent it. Please direct all questions regarding this story to Mr. Hunter. All information in the article is provided by the author. Ross G Hunter New Plymouth 4310New ZealandBack Row Left to Right: Gabby Asi; Oscar Angu (From PNG & Trainee Mechanical Fitters.)Front Row Left to Right: Kamos Bomok (From PNG & Trainee Rigger.) Ross Hunter (NZr, Supervisor Fitter/Welder.)
Kiwi Welders Install Geothermal Power Station
on Remote New Guinea Island The Lihir gold mine is located on the remote island of Lihir, in Papua New Guinea’s (PNG) New Ireland Province, about 700km north east of Port Moresby. The island is very mountainous with dense tropical rainforests; numerous rivers, creeks and waterfalls throughout the interior; a lot of active geothermal activity and is fringed almost entirely by coral reef. Being very near the equator Lihir has a tropical climate with a very high rainfall (about 3,700 millimetres per year) and humidity averaging about 80%, with the temperature varying between 20ºC and 30ºC (68ºF and 86ºF), with a recorded maximum of 34.7ºC (94.5ºF). Staff of the New Zealand based engineering company Robt. Stone & Co. Ltd have been working on the island for the last 2 years fabricating and installing a 50 Megawatt geothermal power station, driven by piped-in naturally occurring underground steam reserves. The power plant has been developed in stages with an initial 30MW facility being commissioned in July 2005, taking LGL’s geothermal generation capacity to 36MW. The 30MW facility has now been expanded through the addition of another 20MW, due for completion; tie-in and commissioning early in 2007. That will lift total geothermal capacity to 56MW, meeting all of Lihir’s current electrical power requirements. Further expansion of the power plant is also being investigated, to meet additional demand from anticipated increases in gold processing capacity in the future. The geothermal power plant is progressively replacing electricity currently generated by an old oil powered power station. When the expansion is completed, the geothermal power generating facilities will significantly reduce the mine’s `CO2 greenhouse gas emissions’ by approximately 280,000 tonnes per annum, while the oil powered station will then be used only for emergencies.Staff have completed the project working 12 hour days ~ 7 days a week on a 5/1 week rotation, while being accommodated in modern `single man camps’.Although the power project is now nearing commissioning, myself and other Robt. Stone’s staff will be returning in 2007 to complete new expansion projects on the mine’s processing plant.At times this has been a hard (temperature & geography); difficult (language & access) but definitely interesting and exciting project to be a part of, especially working alongside of and undertaking the training of `National Tradesmen’. I hope this has been of interest to `brother welders’ worldwide and I will endeavor to keep you up-to-date with our progress.
26th Dec 2006 Ross G Hunter
Taranak New Zealand Nigeria UPDATE FROM NIGERIAWinter 2007 Update: Recently Professor Colton recieved a brief phone call from Mr.Isu. He is doing well. Also in a recent e-mail he shares that he has purchased some Miller welding equipment for his students to train on. He continues his work trying to develop training opportunities for persons who want to learn to weld. We look forward to more information in the future about Mr. Isu and his efforts. Summer 2007 Update: Sent in by Mr. Derek Isu of Nigeria. All information is provided by Mr. Isu for information regarding welder training in Nigeria. The Nigeria institute of Welding: The Nigerian Institute of Welding is now a full member of the international Institute of welding (IIW). AWS Certified Welding Inspector’s Program: in the welding industry in Nigeria, there is now awareness among the veteran welders that they can till be useful to the industry by challenging the AWS CWI exams and achieve a certification with global recognition and so with this awareness a lot of experienced welders and filters who are between 10 to 15 years working experience are now back in class acquiring the knowledge and getting them selves prepared for their exams which is conducted a minimum of twice in the year by the two consultants approved by the American Welding Society for Nigeria. Last year a Pipe fitter by name Robinson Degaulle challenged the AWS CWI exams and achieved certification as an AWS Certified Welding Inspector, three days after he got the information of his success and made it known to the industry he received job offers from several multinational construction companies in the oil and gas sector and he had to settle down with one companies. Robinson’s success has inspired his colleagues and a lot of them are saying, if Robinson can make it, we can make it also. This boils down to hard work and commitment to studies. With the increase in the construction of more and more facilities for deep-water oil and gas ventures in Nigeria as a result of the increase in demand for oil and gas globally, there has been in recent times an increase in demand for certified welding inspectors. Welder Skill Training: Two friends Derek C. Isu and Victor Igbriwi came together and registered Derash and Patvic Welding Academy Limited with the Corporate Affairs Commission (CAC) in Nigeria with the registration number RC 642231 with a goal to provide quality Welder skill training and Certification with an International recognized standard.So far, Derash and Patvic have been very much involved in organizing Welding Inspectors preparatory classes and they currently have all the materials required to run the program and have achieved a tremendous pass rate with the candidates they prepared for America Society Certified Welding Inspector’s exam. This program is being organized in two major cities in Nigeria: Port-Harcourt and Lagos, despite this program they are still focused on organizing the welder skill training program, with a lot of young Nigerians out there that have the dream of becoming certified/coded welders and the disappearing vocational training centers. D and P is an answer to the prayers of these young people.I would like to refer to a caption of AWS president: Mr. Damian J. Kotecki’s editorial in the AWS Welding Journal of December 2006, he said that without welders we have no welding industries. It is interesting to know that thee issue of the shortage of skilled welders is not just restricted to some parts of the world but is a problem of emerging and developed economies. Last year the state owned NNPC; Nigerian Content Division (NCD) advertised in the dailies calling for applications for welder skill training and certification, we looked at this as a bold step because with the current level of projects in the Oil and Gas industry and more and more projects coming in as new fields are being developed coupled with the fact that the Nigerian government is insisting that a good percentage, if not all of thework should be done in Nigeria this implies that if the government’s request is fully complied with there won’t be enough coded/ certified welders to work on all the projects. The very good Nigerian welders are in their fifties and soon retiring. These guys mainly come from the Niger delta, which remains the core skills base in the country. With so much work ongoing and more work coming in, we currently have different nationalities of welders in the country, from the Philippines, Korea, India, Malaysia, Thailand etc. I am impressed with what is going on in the U.S as companies out there are donating towards workforce development. In Nigeria, we have a lot of young people both males and females who would like to become welders and be useful to themselves but they cannot afford to pay the fees to go for the training, this is one of the challenges that Derash and Patvic is faced with, also because we never have constant electric power supply this goes to increase the cost of training, welding machines and filler metals are also imported into the country etc. we are not giving up because of these challenges, we believe we will overcome them with time. The faculty of Derash and Patvic are Mr. Derek Isu and Mr. Victor Igbriwiri. Mr. Derek C. Isu has Higher National Diploma (HND) in Welding and Fabrication Engineering technology with an Upper Credit grade from the Petroleum Training Institute, Effurun, Delta State, Nigeria, he is an American Welding Society Certified Welding Inspector/Educator (AWS CWI/CWE) a Certified Welder, qualified in accordance with the AWS D1.1 Structural Welding code for steel, he has a Certificate in Arc Welding technology from ESAB University, ASNT level II in Radiograhic Testing , Radiographic Film Interpretation, Penetrant testing and Magnetic Particle Inspection, ACCP Level II in Visual and Optical Testing from the American Society for Non Destructive Testing, a Diploma in Quality Assurance and ISO 9000, a Diploma in Quality control and ISO 9000, Nigerian Institute of Professionals (NISP) H.SE Level III Certificate and various other qualifications. He is a member of the American Welding Society (AWS) and the American Society for Non Destructive Testing. He has written several articles published in Nigeria and abroad, the most recent was titled “Quality Control in Stainless Steel welding” published by stainless steel World journal in Europe last year August 2006.Mr. Derek C. Isu has Ten (10) working experience in the Oil and Gas Industry Onshore, Offshore and in the Swamps and he has worked in various capacities. Mr. Victor Igbriwi is a Coded Welder trained in France, qualified in accordance with the AWS D1.1 Structural Welding code for steel on the 6GR position, qualified in accordance with ASME Section IX and qualified in accordance with the API 1104 for Pipelines and Related Facilities. He has over Ten (10) working experience behind the Mask and is well known by all in the industry for producing X-ray/ Gamma ray quality welds. He has excellent skills with the Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW), Shielded Metal Arc Welding (SMAW), Gas Metal Arc Welding (GMAW) and Flux Cored Arc Welding (FCAW) processes. Our goal is to produce highly skilled Welders with sound knowledge about Welding Technology. We currently have a place at number 66 Iwofe/ COE Road and we are working on getting the necessary equipments in. As soon as we are ready we will advertise on our website, the Nigerian Guardian Newspaper etc. We are looking at training more of GTAW welders were there is a serious shortage in the Industry in Nigeria and a few SMAW welders, we plan to train Entry level welders on the SMAW process and for now we will only be able to take experienced SMAW welders on the GTAW welder training program.As Health and Safety in Welding is a very important topic/subject, all our Trainee Welders would be trained on Health and Safety using the Canadian Welding Bureau’s (CWB) Module 1 on Welding Health and Safety which they must pass before they leave our academy. Last year we conducted a seminar titled Welding procedures and Approvals to ASME Section IX, we got a Trainer with over 25 years working experience with the ASME Boilers and Pressure Vessels code and it was a huge success, this seminar was targeted at the Welding Inspectors, Q.C. Inspectors, Q.A./Q.C. Engineers etc. and it was a huge success, we plan to organize this Seminar again by the last quarter of 2007. Peru South America
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