Australia's vast and remote northwestern gas reserves are removed in many ways from a provincial New Zealand dam project but Waimea Water’s new chief executive Mike Scott maintains the same principles of good management, skilled people, risk management and proven systems prevail despite the disparity in scale.
For the past three and a half years Scott has been an executive with Woodside Energy. He most recently headed the North West Shelf (NWS) venture as chief executive for the $34 billion project with six multinational partners.
With 27 years’ experience around the world, predominantly in the energy sector, and a civil engineering masters degree from Canterbury University, heading such an enterprise would mark a career high point for an engineer.
Scott acknowledges the enormous project dwarfs not only Waimea but most global energy projects.
The NWS project produces 16.3 million tonnes of liquid natural gas a year at Karratha from a series of offshore fields and platforms and earns, according to Woodside’s 2018 results, about $6 billion a year.
“With an operating budget of about $1 billion a year the NWS is certainly a bit higher than that for the Waimea Community Dam.”
But taking on the markedly smaller project is a chance to reunite with family who have endured his commutes to Perth over the last few years.
“It is about coming home but it is also about being part of a legacy project for this region.”
Just as the North West project injected significant income and economic growth into Australia’s economy, Scott sees the Waimea Dam being a game-changer for Tasman.
It is also one whose need was reinforced by last summer’s severe dry spell.
“This year’s drought in the Tasman region has really highlighted to many the need for the dam.
“The economy was hit badly by the drought and most people I talk to really understand the need to build more resilience into the community and the regional economy.
“Most people I talk to are actually asking me if we can get it built quicker.”
A dawn blessing marked the start of the project in March, with the initial Lee Valley access road construction well under way.
Excavation of dam foundations is to begin soon with the completion date set for late 2021, in expectation the dam will be filled in 2022.
The project’s construction company is a joint venture between two established firms, Fulton Hogan and South Island company Taylor’s Contracting, both experienced in extensive water projects including Central Plains and the Tekapo Canal remediation.
“Later this year we will begin on the starter dam to manage the river flow during construction. As far as dams go this is a reasonably conventional type, a concrete-faced, rock-filled construction, which is appropriate for the location and material being excavated.”
The 53m high project is not the biggest of its type, with similar dams up to 100m high existing around the world.
It is, however, the largest dam built in NZ for the past 20 years and marks a milestone after a number of projects including Ruataniwha fell over.
Beyond the usual high-risk-project stresses that accompany highly capital intensive energy operations Scott has been accustomed to also dealing with geopolitical uncertainties and cost challenges that go with projects in foreign countries including the Middle East and west Africa.
Fortunately, NZ’s political environment is more benign but Scott is conscious of the controversy that has swirled around the Waimea project for almost all the 40 years it has been mooted and the project cost rising from about $20m at conception to $104.4m today. That is a figure he is confident can be met, providing no major geological issues arise.
“We have a contingency there that is designed to manage reasonable risk. There is a risk in the geology and you can do all the seismic surveying and bore logs you like but at the end of the day you may not know until you open up the ground – it could be worse, it could even be better.”
Based on the extensive work done Scott is confident engineers have a good handle on the project’s challenges and risks. He is also confident of his new, small, experienced and highly skilled team.
Coming back to NZ from water-starved Australia where he saw the impact of drought and flood on food prices Scott admits he is surprised and a little disappointed how this country has struggled to leverage greater competitive advantage with its prolific water supply.
“I think there is a need there too to think more holistically about how we use water to help drive our economy.”
