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.
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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)