5
CONSTRUCTION WORLD
SEPTEMBER
2014
MARKETPLACE
of resources and future market develop-
ment, and given Korea’s growth projections,
KIEP noted that South Korea cannot afford
to ignore Africa.
Another example of South Korea’s
plan to strengthen Africa’s development is
the recent announcement that the South
Korean government will, through its Korea
Cooperation International Agency (KOICA),
build a USD4,5-million ultra-modern voca-
tional training institute in Kampala, Uganda.
This facility is aimed at increasing hands-on
training in various industrial sectors of the
economy. Kang Younhwa, the KOICA resident
representative in Uganda was optimistic
that the vocational training institute would
bridge the gap of youth unemployment and
help nurture and develop skills that are
fundamental in the process of transforming
the country from peasantry to modernity.
This focus on the African continent
is further evidenced by a recent article in
African Energy Intelligence where Italy’s ENI
is said to have issued a letter of intent to
three pre-qualified consortiums comprising
EXTENDING SERVICES IN AFRICA
Global environmental group,
SLR Consulting, has acquired
CCA Environmental, a South
African specialist consultancy
firm with blue chip clients
across the oil and gas, minerals,
infrastructure, energy and
waste sectors.
CCA, based in Cape Town, has
established an enviable reputation
across South Africa, Namibia, and
Mauritius since it was founded by Jonathan
Crowther and Fuad Fredericks in 2004.
In the oil and gas sector, CCA’s expertise
includes project managing Environmental
Management Plans (EMPs), developing
Environmental Impact Assessments (EIAs),
as well as permitting for new offshore oil
and gas fields. Key clients include Shell,
Exxon, Total and Anadarko.
CCA also provides environmental
consultancy services on linear infrastruc-
ture projects for government agency
clients, including South Africa’s National
Roads Agency and Western Cape Govern-
ment. Waste-related work includes a recent
EIA for a new regional landfill site to service
the Cape Town Metropolitan Area for the
next 30 years.
The move establishes SLR as the market
leader in Southern Africa for EIA-related
work with a 37-strong team of highly expe-
rienced technical professionals. Like SLR,
CCA has a high level of client retention, with
the majority of its work generated from
clients of more than five years’ standing.
SLR’s CEO Neil Penhall said:“SLR and CCA are a
great match and this move will provide another
platform from which to extend the wide range
of technical services offered to clients in
sub-Saharan Africa and throughout the world.
CCA’s expertise in upstream activities, including
exploration, pipeline and field development will
be of particular interest to oil and gas clients
seeking to develop opportunities in Southern
Africa’s exploration hot spots.”
Jonathan Crowther, founder director of
CCA, said: “SLR’s approach to promoting best
practice and assisting clients in securing permit
consents and a social licence to operate,
mirrors our position that development
needs to be socially, environmentally and
economically sustainable. We are delighted
to be part of the SLR team.”
This is SLR’s fifth acquisition in Southern
Africa. It will provide further leverage
to promote the company’s multi-dis-
ciplinary offering to new and existing
clients in regulatory compliance, Social
Licence to Operate (SLTO) engineering,
HSE services and EIAs across the expanding
sub-Saharan market.
SLR is an international environmental consultancy, based near Oxford in the UK, with over
1 000 employees working from 70 offices in Europe, North America, Australasia, and Africa.
It is considered one of the top five niche global specialist environmental consultancies.
It provides global advice and support on a wide range of strategic and site-specific issues
to a diverse and growing base of business, regulatory and governmental clients.
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of three Western firms, in partnership with
three South Korean Companies, namely
KBR/Daewoo, Saipem/Hyundai Heavy Indus-
tries and Technip/Samsung Heavy Indus-
tries. The aim of this consortium is to carry
out studies on building floating liquefied
natural gas (FLNG) vessels to stock and
liquefy some of the gas from its block 4 in
Mozambique. It was reported that the three
Western firms chose to enter into partner-
ships with the South Korean companies
because the South Korean companies have
become ‘forces to reckon with in building
and assembling highly complicated equip-
ment for the world’s oil industry.’ Among the
three consortiums only Technip has experi-
ence in designing and building FLNGs.
In the light of the above, South Korea
is clearly seeking to broaden its diplomatic
initiatives and strengthen its ties with the
continent while actively promoting its
economic and technological strengths and
skill-set. The foundation of South Korea’s
diplomatic and commercial engagement
with Africa is to gain access to its natural
resources in exchange for technology and
manufactured products. With these steps
taken by the South Korean Government,
private South Korean companies have been
encouraged to build long term and mutu-
ally beneficial business models with their
African counterparts.
In sum, the above demonstrates that
South Korea has significant expertise and
know-how relating to infrastructure projects
and it is actively exploring opportunities and
pursuing its interests on the continent. South
Africa will stand to benefit greatly from the
skills that South Korean businesses have
to offer. We therefore have to ask ourselves
what we are doing to attract South Korean
businesses to South Africa, if we are doing
anything at all. Perhaps South Africa could
take a leaf from the Tanzanian and Ugandan
books and seek to establish ties with South
Korea and to establish South Africa as an
attractive investment opportunity for their
businesses to partake in our construction
and engineering projects. We can not afford
to ignore South Korea.
