Bechtel to sends engineers abroad to work

Bechtel to sends engineers abroad to work

JAKARTA (JP): Giant engineering and construction company
Bechtel International Inc. of the United States will send 50
percent of its Indonesian engineers to overseas operations due to
the decline in business activities here, the company said
yesterday.

Company vice president and country manager in Indonesia F.
Richard Erskine told The Jakarta Post yesterday that the company
would send 42 of its 90 local engineers to work at the company's
operations in New Zealand, Taiwan, Singapore and Malaysia.

The company has already sent some of the engineers and will
send the rest soon, he said.

"In New Zealand, they -- who are all our top engineers -- will
work at a pulp and paper plant construction project. Elsewhere,
they will work at chemical and petroleum plant constructions,"
Erskine said, adding that they would be there for six to 12
months.

Erskine said Bechtel had demobilized most of its workers after
completing most of its big projects last year and the company had
not secured new projects in the country to absorb them.

However, he said, Bechtel saw the current economic slump as an
opportunity to realize its long-term commitment "to develop local
human resources".

He said the local engineers would expand their international
experience by working outside the country, and Bechtel's
operation in Indonesia would benefit from this experience when
they returned to the country.

Bechtel will benefit further from the policy in that its
overseas offices would pay its Indonesian engineers less than its
foreign engineers due to the drop in the rupiah's value against
the dollar, Erskine said.

The Indonesian engineers will be paid the equivalent to what
they receive in Indonesia, plus a supplementary income and
facilities to make life overseas affordable, Erskine added.

Bechtel announced last year its program to develop the
country's human resources and set up the Bechtel Foundation to
help develop various college studies, including engineering and
economics in the country.

Last year the foundation donated US$10,000 to the Bandung
Institute of Technology to support engineering studies there. It
also recently donated $10,000 to the University of Indonesia in
Jakarta to support business, economics and accounting studies.

Resource

Erskine said Bechtel, which has operated in Indonesia for 47
years, was optimistic about the country's ability to overcome the
economic crisis which has plagued the country since mid-last
year.

He believed investors would not abandon Indonesia in view of
its rich natural resources, including oil, natural gas, timber,
coal and mining products.

"Indonesia will remain the major energy sources supplier in
the Asia-Pacific," he said, adding that the company was eying
some projects in the oil and gas sector.

He also noted that the country had human resources that were
willing to work to overcome the crisis.

Bechtel is constructing a carbon disulfide plant in Cikampek,
West Java, for Akzo Nobel and is nearing completion of a copper
mill expansion for PT Freeport Indonesia in Irian Jaya.

It is also acting as consultant to the developers of the 1,095
megawatt Muara Tawar combined cycle power plant in Jakarta owned
by state-owned electricity company PLN.

Bechtel completed several big projects last year, including
the construction of an aromatics plant in Aceh for the Humpuss
Group and the installation of 370,000 telephone lines in West
Java for PT Aria West. (jsk)