In mega projects, unnecessary political and commercial pressure on contractors to deliver, while overlooking realities, often leads to rushed commissioning. South Africa’s Medupi, Kusile, and Ingula projects show how this oversight ends up costing more – way beyond the initial budget – to fix the problem.
By Jimmy Swira
In an interview with Machinery Maintenance Matters, Grant Villet, Aurex Constructors’ Sector Director: Turnarounds & Maintenance and International Expansion, highlighted the obligation of the team of contractors to ensure that plant construction projects are finished “on time, to the expected quality standards and within budget”. In a nutshell, he particularly mentioned the importance of meticulous planning and thorough execution.
On the flipside, equally, clients have the obligation to ensure that their expectations are realistic. They should not put undue pressure on the team of contractors to rush project completion.
The reality
The reality is that a project may have the best team in the game, with the best intentions. However, they may not always produce the expected extraordinary results when conditions don’t allow or are not ideal. Unfortunately, this is what contractors sometimes have to contend with in the course of project delivery.
The client’s rationale
One may ask: What could be the client’s rationale to interfere and influence the project outcome to suit their unrealistic ends?
Conspicuously, where such cases occur in both public- and private-sector projects, there is a peculiar trend.
If the client is a government, it could be something to do with the political implications of the project’s completion (or non-completion). Probably, the completion, for instance, of a power plant would help fulfil the promise of ending capacity-related power outages made during elections.
Sometimes, politicians can go to the extreme, throwing their weight around. They would call the CEO of the client organisation, even at odd hours.
It could be worse if it the client organisation is a state-owned entity. Threats of blackmail would be thrown into the conversation – failure to deliver as directed leading to termination or non-renewal of contract. In response, the CEO would call contractors on site, issuing ultimatums (or threats).
Without question, one of the classic cases of political pressure on a project is in South Africa. In 2014, the then government promised that Medupi Unit 6 would be synchronised before the May election. Pressure was put on the contractors, and duly the deadline was met, notwithstanding frailties.
For a private company, it could be that the overzealous board may have assured investors that the new power station, refinery, or factory would be operational by a certain period (perhaps the third quarter). With a focus on increasing output to get more revenue, they may push for the plant to be operational – at all costs – by a certain date.
Applying extreme pressure, the client – if it is an oil, gas, or mining company – would demand: “We need the barrels, megawatts, or tonnes now.”
Skipping or cutting critical commissioning steps
Reluctantly, in response, the hapless contractors would start skipping or cutting critical commissioning steps to meet the deadline.
Reports indicate that this was the case in the Medupi, Kusile, and Ingula projects in South Africa. The following have been cited as some of the oversights during work:
• Shortened or skipped chemical cleaning of boilers and piping
• Temporary strainers left in for years instead of weeks
• Incomplete loop checking and calibration of instruments
• Waived factory and site acceptance tests
• Steam blows and oil flushes done half-heartedly or not at all
Premature commissioning
Typically, what happens is that, despite the shortfalls, conveniently, the plant is declared complete: on time, within budget, and to expected standards. Accordingly, mechanical completion and ready-to-start certificates are signed off, paving the way for operation.
As you would expect, politicians and executives would pop champagne bottles, celebrating the “extraordinary achievement”, “history being made”, and showering plaudits on the team’s “great effort”.
The inevitable consequences
True to form, within three years, the consequences of a rushed job cruelly surface, as occurred in the South African projects, where the following were some of the issues encountered:
• Medupi Unit 4 – in 2021, debris from skipped cleaning caused a generator explosion
• Kusile Units 1–3 – experienced fabric filter collapse, repeated fires, and permanent derating
• Ingula – chronic flooding and silt damage have caused availability to remain stuck at less than 60 percent (not good enough!), resulting in frequent trips to fix the problem and forced outages.
Throwing money at the problem (to no avail)
In most cases, in a desperate measure to remedy the situation, more money (way beyond the original budget) is thrown at emergency fixes and modifications. This is what has happened (or is happening) in the South African projects.
Currently, the combined repair bill for Medupi and Kusile is more than 50 billion South African rand (close to 3 billion US dollars, and that could be a conservative estimate). And it doesn’t get more bizarre than re-commissioning a plant years after the original “completion”.
Neither saves money nor time
What is the moral of the story?
Rushing commissioning to serve short-term goals neither saves money nor time. It merely shifts the real commissioning effort and costs from the project phase to the operating phase.
After factoring in the cost of downtime – when you do the maths – the figures would be staggering. In some cases, the final cost could be three times or more than the original CAPEX (see table).
Expensive self-deception
In short, the cheapest and fastest plant is the one that is given enough time to be commissioned properly the first time. Otherwise, everything else is an enormously expensive self-deception.
Unrealistic deadlines turn plants into maintenance nightmares. They are not even worth a second thought, political or commercial pressure .
