The Civil Engineering Contractor February 2019 | Page 15

WORLD NEWS
Canada’s British Columbia has awarded the contract for a
USD11-billion natural gas project to an American–Japanese
team. A joint venture between American engineer Fluor and
its Japanese counterpart JGC Corporation won the contract
for the design, procurement, fabrication, and assembly of
a liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Kitimat in British
Columbia. The contract will be undertaken for LNG Canada, a
consortium made up of Shell, Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi
Corporation, and Kogas.
The project will initially consist of two liquefaction units,
known as trains, producing 14-million tonnes of LNG a year.
LNG Canada has the option to expand this to four trains in the
future. Some 4 500 workers will be employed at the peak of
construction, with Fluor and JGC pledging to hire locals on the
project. Work on the project will begin in this year, with the first
LNG expected to be produced during the middle of the 2020s.
To help make the project happen, the government offered a
break on the carbon tax as well as an exemption on provincial
sales tax related to construction costs. According to information
provided by the province, LNG Canada would be the least
greenhouse gas-intensive large LNG facility in the world. Under
the NDP and Green’s Confidence and Supply Agreement, the
parties committed to reducing greenhouse gases by 40% by
2030 and 80% by 2050. nn
Concerns about carbon emissions did not deter this project from proceeding.
Robots in human form can work with greater ease on
construction sites.
www.civilsonline.co.za
Japan’s research institute has produced an android
that can perform tasks on construction sites, including
installing drywall panels by picking them from a stack
and screwing them into position. It takes human form,
so it can do things in a workplace designed for humans.
This addresses a problem with industrial robots, which
is that industrial processes usually have to be designed
for them, rather than the other way around.
The robot is the HRP-5P, the latest prototype
from Humanoid Research Group (HRG) of the
National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and
Technology (AIST). It can detect objects, plan routes
around obstacles, and analyse its environment by, for
example, measuring the size of things. It also has the
standard advantage of industrial robots in that it has an
extra joint in its wrist.
According to the Techcrunch website that broke
the story, the HRG views the android as a platform
for further collaboration between industry and
academia and sees its long-term role as replacing or
supplementing human labour on construction sites,
factories, shipyards, and other real-world environments.
The move to non-human labour is a priority of
the Japanese government and industry. The Japan
Federation of Construction Contractors estimates that
there will be 1.3 million fewer construction workers
by 2025 compared with 2014. nn
CEC February 2019 | 13