Bech­tel hires up to 150 new work­ers as LNG ramps up

Article by Owen Jacques, Gladstone Observer • <a href="http://www.gladstoneobserver.com.au/news/bechtel-hires-150-new-workers-lng-ramps/1632500/">View Article</a>

Workers from Bechtel

CON­STRUC­TION pow­er­house Bech­tel is hav­ing to hire between 100 and 150 new work­ers each week as it builds mul­ti­ple gas plants on Cur­tis Island off Gladstone.

With about 8300 already employed across three multi-​billion col­lar con­struc­tion projects, the Amer­i­can firm is ramp­ing up to hav­ing 8800 work­ers when con­struc­tion num­bers peak.

Bech­tel Glad­stone oper­a­tions gen­eral man­ager Kevin Berg told the Queens­land Government’s Major Projects Con­fer­ence on Thurs­day that at least half of all work­ers had been pulled from the Glad­stone area.

When that sup­ply was exhausted, Bech­tel would work “in con­cen­tric cir­cles”, recruit­ing from across the state.

He said this meant 88% of Bech­tel work­ers were Queens­lan­ders, with only a frac­tion of the work­force hired from interstate.

Mr Berg said Gladstone’s sup­port of the projects meant Bech­tel and the town were “hum­ming right along”.

Work­ers are spread across three projects — Aus­tralian Pacific LNG, Glad­stone LNG and Queens­land Cur­tis LNG.

QCLNG is due to be com­pleted in 2014, with the other two expected to be oper­at­ing from 2015.