News letter Dam edition

Ingeokring Newsletter
Engineering geologist abroad
Xander van Beusekom, Senior Engineering Geologist, Advanced Geomechanics
From a ship, sailing south along the Northwest Shelf in Australia
in some ‘mild rough weather’, it is my turn to show
what it is like to be an engineering geologist abroad. But let
me start with the beginning.
Drilling vessel Markab.
Before I ended up here in Australia I worked at Fugro for
several years, during which I travelled around the world to
lead offshore site investigations. Several of these travels
brought me to Australia and I must say that it increased my
urge to have a better look at ‘Terra Australis’ (land down
under) formerly known as ‘New Holland’. Since business in
both the offshore and mining industry is booming in Western
Australia it wasn’t difficult to get a job and I ended up at
a consultancy firm called Advanced Geomechanics. It is a
relatively small company (which was a nice change coming
from a multinational like Fugro) that is specialised in offshore
foundations in carbonate soils.
The first project I took on was one for which I did the preparations
for the actual site investigation a year ago and it was
my task now to work with these results. The best part was
that the report was a typical engineering geological report,
in this case on a pipeline shore crossing through calcarenites.
A real challenge again for several reasons. First of
all, I hadn’t really worked with rock since my M.Sc. thesis.
Secondly, the material consisted of highly irregular cemented
material, which made it almost impossible to assign
useful parameters to the different formations.
The other interesting aspect of the work is being a client
representative on board during offshore site investigations.
And as could be expected, most of the offshore work is still
being executed by Fugro which makes it almost feel like
home… except I am on the other side of the table now. Having
been a site manager for so long is a big plus when working
as a client representative. You know how the work is
done, it is easy to notice when things are not going according
to plan and you know if the optimum has been achieved
with the available resources at the time. And it is always
good to see some familiar faces. So far, I have been lucky
enough to work for BP in West Papua, for Inpex in the Timor
Sea and currently for Woodside on the Northwest Shelf.
The offshore geotechnical world is already relatively small,
but in Perth it is extremely small. This means that during the
day you can have a meeting where the arguments fly back
and forth over the table, and in the evening you are having a
beer with that same person simply because the person is a
former colleague or a good friend. Or you can be at a party
having a drink with your direct competitor, while the two
major contractors for offshore work are doing exactly the
same thing. All in all a very pleasant atmosphere to work in.
It is just a matter of separating business and pleasure.
Drilling vessel Mariner.
But of course work is not the only reason I have chosen
Perth. I wanted to see something of the country as well. The
first thing to realise is that Perth is the most remote city of
the world. The closest city is Adelaide, which is a trip of approximately
2 500 km. Even though the amount of people
living there is well over a million, it still feels like a village. I
have already been able to drive down from Darwin to Perth
several years ago, but there were 2 things still high upon my
wish list: The Kimberley and Uluru in the Red Centre. By the
time I got back from my job in West Papua in January, it was
Dam edition | Double Issue 2007/2008 | 40