Hi Peter
I recently observed the "Honour Roll" and wish to add my name to it. I worked for Minenco as the project/construction Planning Engineer on the pre concentration and screening plant project and lived in Panguna from 1986 through to mid 1987.
Looking at the photos on the "Honour Roll" website and cannot help with names but met someone years ago that might be able to help.
His name is Phil Billerwell and I met him when he was the GM of the Novotel Northbeach Wollongong in 1999/2000. Phil told me he was the opening GM for Arovo Resort. Lost contact with him since then but if you can locate him he might be able to put names to faces.
I am now living in Sydney. After Bougainville I was sent by Minenco to KPC in Jakarta and was there on and off until I went back as a Commissioning Engineer for KPC in 1990 thru 1991. I stayed in Indonesia until returning to Sydney in 1997 but have been in the hotel/property development sectors since leaving KPC
Running through your website throws up lots of names of people that also ended up at KPC (e.g. Lansell Taudevin who my wife knew very well at KPC). What I am unsure on from your website is how long ago some of the posts were made. The town manager for KPC came from BCL (but I cannot remember his name). Eric Shaw came across as Construction Manager as did Jeff Hocking (who I see on your Honour Roll).
I can remember faces but not many names of people I worked with at Minenco. The accountant had been there with Minenco for years (had his own yacht) but I cannot for the life of me remember his name, Gary??. Was talking to a guy today at Nambawan Super Fund in Port Moresby (Wayne Smith) who also said he was there from 86-89.
Anyway, please keep up the good work. The overarching comments on your website are that it was the best years of their life (whether as a child, wife or employee) and it was.
Regards, Graham
Hello again Peter,
A little more time to reflect and expand on our posts this afternoon.
In my project planning engineer days I marvelled at what had been built at Bougainville when I arrived there in 1986 and wondered what it must have been like to plan the mine and support facilities and get it built. I knew from my planning experience that the combinations of the terrain, environment and remote location must have made it one heck of a tough job. Until today I had never 'met' anyone who was part of the original crew.
Large green field projects like this are rare and unfortunately, a once in a lifetime event. They come along at a time when many qualified and otherwise interested people are too advanced in their career or settled in their lifestyle to be considered for the rigours of site work (although they could probably still hold their own in any drinking contest) or they are still gaining their qualifications and are inexperienced.
Having pondered what it took to plan such an undertaking as Bougainville I could not believe my good fortune to be sent by Minenco to Jakarta straight after Bougainville to perform the planning for Kaltim Prima Coal. This was at the start of feasibility stage where KPC was only about 15 people and mine deposit mapping/reserves was just starting. I had to prepare the project master schedules for;
a) mine development, 6 open cut pits then underground + 20 years with minimal mining engineering completed
b) mine site facilities including crushing, wash plant, stockout etc, from concept artiste drawings
c) overland conveyor, at that time the worlds longest single flight at 13.7km, through 7km of swamp and only 3 conceptual drawings, some aerial survey photos and a lot of advice from the Mt Tom price conveyor crew
d) port stockout, reclaimers, causeway, berthing/loading facilities
e) social infrastructure - 3 townships, schools, recreation, hospital, mosque(s), churches
f) mine infrastructure - airport, road, steam generation, diesel generation, electrical grid, mine buildings, port buildings, potable water, sanitation etc.
g) feasibility infrastructure to extract 60,000t shipments loaded by barge and ship grab for trial burning at potential contract buyers power stations.
All in all a big job and the schedules I put together then were still the same master schedules (but expanded as design/construction/commissioning proceeded) that we used at the end. As I say I was very privileged to have been involved from the start to the end.
I would hope that your experiences on Bougainville were similar to mine at KPC because when I got to Bougainville it was all very well set up and civilised (well almost so).
While my days do not seem as exciting as they did in Jakarta or Bougainville I have been able to provide equally similar challenges for myself by running my own business since coming to Sydney (e.g. refurbishing John Howards offices in Sydney when he was PM).
Thank you for your time and I look forward to following your website.
Regards, Graham
Graham@pertcon.com.au
