The 401 apprentices were hired through the federal government’s National Apprenticeships Program and were trained in areas where skills shortages were identified, including instrumentation and control, metal fabrication, boiler making, sheet metal, mechanical fitting and carpentry formwork.
They were progressively deployed across the Queensland Curtis LNG (BG Group), Gladstone LNG (Santos, PETRONAS, Total and KOGAS) and the Australia Pacific LNG (ConocoPhilips, Origin Energy and Sinopec) projects since Bechtel began works to design and build their LNG plants in 2010-11.
After the projects wrap up the construction phase in 2014-15 all the apprentices will be fully qualified tradespeople.
“It’s a whole new start for me,” said John van Nimwegan, one of the 401 apprentices hired by Bechtel.
“It’s given me new skills, it’s going to make me more employable in the future once this project is finished.
“I’ve always wanted to be a boiler maker.”
Bechtel LNG general manager Alasdair Cathcart was pleased with Bechtel’s training achievement.
“This innovative apprenticeship program in Gladstone has helped us meet the high demand for skilled labour on our projects and it brings long-lasting benefits to Australia’s construction industry,” he said.
“It has also given many adult workers the chance to gain a trade qualification that they thought had passed them by. For many, this opportunity has been life-changing.”
People with at least 40% of the competency for their trade qualification were considered for the program.
Those who qualified were provided a flexible program targeting individual gaps that allowed the apprentices to complete their trade training within the construction timeframes of the Curtis Island projects.
To date, more than 150 apprentices who have gone through the program are now fully qualified tradespeople.
The first LNG train for QCLNG is scheduled for completion this year and will help the BG Group to produce 8.5 million tonnes of LNG per annum from Qld.
The other two projects are due for commissioning sometime next year, with the APLNG project set to target a capacity of 9Mtpa and the GLNG project set to produce 7.8Mtpa.
At peak construction, the three projects created 8800 jobs.
