Experience Matters

On behalf of the Ontario Provincial Government, evaluated delays to the restart of a power plant unit at a nuclear power electricity generation station located in northwest Ontario. The operator of the nuclear unit suffered a force majeure outage and, as a result, was entitled to balancing payments from the Ontario Government while the unit was being repaired and restarted. The provincial government was concerned that the delays that the unit operator experienced were excessively long. Evaluated whether the operator managed the unit’s outage schedule in the most efficient manner.

Assisted an EPC contractor with a $10 million claim against an owner for increased costs associated with increased scope of work, project delays and disruption, and loss of labor productivity arising from subsequent acceleration on the design, delivery and construction of an additional line for the production of polyester chips for use in plastic soda bottle manufacturing.

On behalf of an owner of an LNG plant, assessed an EPC contractor’s positions with respect to the eligibility of management personnel entitled to be included in delay costs.

On behalf of an African country, provided a rebuttal report and testimony in international arbitration regarding a claimant’s alleged value of its lost business opportunity after performing, at its own expense and risk, engineering and project development services for a port and rail project that it was not awarded. Evaluated the class of the claimant’s estimates of the project costs before and after it performed its de-risking of the project to lower project costs and determined that the estimates were inaccurate based on the information that was available to prepare the estimates. Thus, found that the claimant’s alleged project savings and its claim amount were speculative.

On behalf of an owner, analyzed an $85 million change order and delay claim regarding an offshore Compliant Piled Tower constructed in Texas and topsides facilities fabricated in South Korea for installation offshore Angola.

Furnished CPM scheduling service for a building contractor on the Ft. Gillem Medical Laboratories in Atlanta.

Prepared detailed as-planned and as-built schedule analyses for a contractor on an earth-filled dam project in New Mexico. Participated in negotiations between the contractor and the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation that resulted in a $55 million settlement for the contractor.

On behalf of an owner, assessed delays to overall mechanical completion, delays to initial acceptance, defective works counterclaims, cost reduction claim, elements of technical design, cost and schedule overruns, and Ready For Start-Up (RFSU)/Commissioning delays. Prepared expert reports, expert reply reports, and joint expert reports for tribunal submission. Provided litigation support, including preparation of cross-examination questions, and testified in arbitration hearings.

Provided analysis in defense of a $7.1 million claim brought by a mechanical erection subcontractor for increased scope, delay, extended overheads, and lost productivity on a $189 million simple cycle cogeneration plant.

On behalf of an insurance company, analyzed a $500 million claim for business interruption losses due to delays to the startup and commissioning of an upgrader refinery that was built to process synthetic crude oil from an oil sands production facility. The delays were allegedly caused by a fire at the oil sands production mine site, which delayed the transport of bitumen to the refinery through a 200-plus-mile pipeline. Prepared detailed CPM schedule analyses and an expert witness report. Designated as a CPM expert witness in support of the ICC arbitration in Alberta.