Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Reaching for the Stars: Building the World's Largest Telescope in the Desert
0 Playsin 2 hours
This week on the Off Site Podcast, Jason and Carlos have three big topics to get stuck into, starting with:
1. The Construction of the world's largest telescope being built in Chile's Atacama desert.
2. Present the construction tech tools they think are ones to watch in the future.
3. Discussing Webuild and Bouygues being awarded work on the Suburban Rail Loop and the impact of international contractors operating in Australia.
Check out the tools Jason and Carlos mentioned here:
https://www.dustyrobotics.com/
Follow Carlos on Linkedin | Follow Jason on Linkedin | Check out Aphex
Recommended
Transcript
Podcast Cold Open Discussion
00:00:00
Speaker
I just realized there's no pre-read in there for me, but that's okay. I'll wing, I'll wing. No, the research, saving Grace Oliver was the re the research was really good. Uh, but there is no, uh, there's no pre-read on any of it. So I'll be free Stalin mate. I'm actually in his host today as well. You're in his host. ah so we can hear you All of my transgressions have been laid bare for the listeners. Okay. Now there's the honesty test of will this make the the cold open? I'll lose. I will put this in the cold open. Do you want me to edit this week? Mate, this won't come out until next year if you edit it mate.
Welcome and Introductions
00:00:38
Speaker
ah
00:00:48
Speaker
Welcome back to the Offsite Podcast and we're joined once again by Carlos Cavallo. I'm Jason Lancini. Mate, welcome back. Two weeks in a row with you back in the saddle. You say that like two weeks is an achievement now after doing like 75 odd episodes. it definitely ah It definitely beats the old scramble of actually who is going to join the conversation tonight?
News Segment: Russia Fines Google
00:01:15
Speaker
Um, do you know what we've not had in a number of weeks while you're away is an opening fun fact, uh, at the start of an episode. Ah, this isn't really a fact, but this is a, this is a non-construction piece of news, which um I'm not even going to preamble it. Google have been fined by Russia, uh, undecillion rubles, which is a trillion, 3 trillion trillion dollars.
00:01:45
Speaker
ah you This is going to show my age, but when you read that, you should do the ah um Dr. Evil voice. Dr. Evil? Yeah. One trillion dollars. so yeah ah So it's like, I don't know how many multiples of global GDP that is, but they basically said to Google, you can't operate until you pay your fine.
00:02:07
Speaker
Someone somewhere's having a laugh and they're like, ah, just keep writing zeros. Dr. Evil's at play. Um, um I think i imagine like when they do a cost versus value exercise there, they probably won't bother with Russia. Because once they pay, Russia will just ban them again. It's like, Oh, that worked.
00:02:29
Speaker
We should stop doing the oil thing, or we should just do the banning of global technology company jobs. This is way easier, guys. Sat around their pool with sharks and lasers on their heads. I think I saw a headline on that, which was like, Russia finds Google more money than is in the entire world. I think technically...
00:02:53
Speaker
I think there's just a really solid sense of humour from them. Like, is it is it a negotiation tactic? You know, when you anchor yourself high, and then suddenly, like, a hundred billion is nothing.
Extremely Large Telescope (ELT) in Chile
00:03:03
Speaker
All right, so today, you and me, we're going to tackle three interesting topics, actually. So the first one is we're going to look at the extremely large telescope, which is the technically correct name, ah which is a super interesting project that is underway in Chile being built by the European Space Agency and is ah slightly late.
00:03:25
Speaker
Next, we'll dive into a recent list of top ah technology, contact companies and kind of go, that's cool. Let's make our own list. And finally, the news in Australia last week or the week before when this no be last week when this comes out.
00:03:44
Speaker
ah is a major tunneling package awarded um on the suburban rail loop project ah for a couple of billion dollars ah to international contractors and so if we can talk about that project and the I guess the the trend of international contractors winning major projects around the world but to kick things off a really big telescope So the the background of this is um that there is a ah telescope. It's a really big telescope. It's technically and ah scientifically called the Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT.
00:04:26
Speaker
Uh, and it is a, um, major space telescope being built by the European, um, space agency. Uh, and it's being built in the, uh, Atacama desert in Chile on top of one of the most unique places in the world. And so I guess that's interesting to dive into about how you would build such a thing in such a location. But it's basically in the middle of a desert on a ah kind of like big rock 3000 meters up.
00:04:54
Speaker
Yeah, that's a lot of the mountain. Yeah, it's not 3000. You mean 3000 is a lot of sea level. Yeah, same thing. I don't think the rock is 3000 because I think that is technically it's already matter of range. And then it's a peak. um yeah Yeah. Yeah, I'm just quickly googling that Everest. It is massive. Like, um watch the old B1M video for it just to see some nice visuals, and it is huge. But the first thing that that did make me laugh was construction started in 2014. As of last year, they passed the halfway point and it's due to open in 2028. So those by rough calculation says I don't think it's opening in 2028 if it was halfway last year. But yeah, it's um yeah, as you said, it's in the middle of a desert. I think they said it's it's hundreds of miles from like a reasonable sized town.
00:05:48
Speaker
It's on a mountain within a mountain range where they've used dynamite to make ah like a flat surface. And the reason why they're doing that is because there was like a bunch of factors like um light pollution, nowhere to be seen.
00:06:05
Speaker
um yeah even things like water vapor in the air so it's like I guess thinner air so it's more powerful rather than like culling its ability within our own atmosphere and so logistically it makes sense but the practicalities of building that job are nuts so the first thing that came to mind was just the day-to-day like engineers forget stuff you can't just call in like some extra aggregate or some concrete. like I don't know how that works. do you Do you overstock everything and then be really inefficient? Is it that precise and measured at both ends that you try and mitigate that risk altogether? But then even little things like fuel for cranes, do you have huge fuel tanks on site? like How do you put food and water into cabins and presumably accommodation for people? So yeah that logistical part of it.
00:06:54
Speaker
yeah The planning required for kind of remote projects is really interesting. It's fun and it's like complicated because you ah having worked on a semi-remote project for five years myself, which was like it was it wasn't anywhere near in the middle of the desert in Chile.
00:07:15
Speaker
on top of a mountain on top of a mountain but um it was on an island off the coast of Australia. It wasn't that far away like 15 minute boat ride or something but the simplest thing you can have organized a hundred different things and you can be missing one bolt and you can't proceed.
00:07:34
Speaker
And so the the stakes are just so much higher for planning and for organization and for something as complicated as a designer, as an object like this that has to be super precise and super accurate. And you can imagine if you cracked one of these, it's got this massive big mirror.
00:07:52
Speaker
on it, you damage anything there, you're stuffed, you know, that puts you back however long six months a year. I don't know who knows. Yeah, the like detailed design of knowing every single bolt, nut, washer, whatever. ah The construction methodology for how many people where they're going to stay, how they're going to get in there.
00:08:15
Speaker
Although on the scale of emergency services, for example, like, yeah do you have, do you have things on site? Because like, yeah there's no chance you're having any, any sort of response time. Yeah, I think what were on the project that I worked on, there was, uh, there were first responders permanently on the project. Um, there was a helicopter or two helicopters owned by the project. And so that the basic ah emergency response plan is like, that's your first response. And then you straighten a helicopter to a hospital.
00:08:44
Speaker
um from there. ah Again, that was 15 minutes from a city and the mainland this is much further away. And so yeah, you're right. That is another consideration.
ELT vs. Other Telescopes
00:08:56
Speaker
Yeah. So there's kind of, there were there were a few areas. So that's obviously like the logistical constraints of operating this site, building this site. So you love a bit of concrete, ah dust, temperature, winds, like, are you having to really control the environment? Cause surely those three things would be awful on the top of the mountain trying to pull concrete. Yeah, but it's cold there, isn't it? From memory?
00:09:19
Speaker
I'd imagine it's really cold. Yeah. yeah Cold is less bad. you The worst combo is hot, windy ah and dry yeah because while the concrete is curing, you just get like water just sucked out of it. I also have a very bad horror story about that.
00:09:37
Speaker
But yeah, you just, I just keep coming back to logistics of you definitely have to build a batch plant. You need to get all the equipment for a batch plant. You need to get all the ah consumables, the aggregate ah judging by the photos that have no problem with sand. There's plenty of sand. um But would you have, but would you build like a temporary structure, like a tent over it so it's shielded from the elements? ah you You would have to cure the, you'd have to cure the concrete. Are you talking about the concrete itself?
00:10:04
Speaker
Yeah. Like, uh, if you're doing a concrete board, do you want to be stopping the wind and the dust or is that not really like, uh, screw up a mix? If it was like cyclonic wind or like super aggressive wind, you would have some plan. Usually some shielding of wind is it's, and it never does that good a job. So it's probably the the curing process and how they were going to cover it. You can do all sorts of membranes and stuff on the top. Okay.
00:10:30
Speaker
But it surely it can't be too windy there because the wind is going to affect the accuracy of the telescope. Maybe pass. good Do you want to, do you want to, uh, if we dive into the actual like nerdy side of telescopes for a second, you might remember the, the, the big telescope news and you know, and in, in telescope hubble.com, not Hubble to James Webb. Oh yeah. Sorry. Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:53
Speaker
So I guess for context, this is, so there's like the Hubble, then there's the James Webb, and then there's this one, the extremely large telescope. One of the key things is the size of this big mirror that's collecting all the light and everything. And so for context, Hubble was 2.4 meters. James Webb is 6.5 meters. This one is 40 meters almost. So it's significantly bigger.
00:11:17
Speaker
ah They like to put the telescopes into space because it gets through the Earth's atmosphere and you don't have to like look through the atmosphere. And so this one here has ah this ability to do like what they call adaptive optics to um to get through the atmospheric interference. And so I was kind of doing some research as to if they if the James Webb was like a recent ah thing, what is the purpose of this thing compared to so James Webb?
00:11:47
Speaker
given it has to deal with the atmospheric interference. ah But this, the James Webb is infrared type camera. This has the ability to do direct imaging. So like literally taking a picture of yeah the planet.
00:12:04
Speaker
um And so it will be yeah the highest resolution images, actual images of like planets and and distance galaxies. yeah So even though it's in the in the middle of the desert, it's definitely easier than doing maintenance on a rocket or ah a telescope orbiting.
00:12:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's ah substantially easier if you compare the two. Yeah, that was definitely part of the research where there was something to do with how this utilizes lasers. Another um Austin Powers, Dr. Evil moment, but I didn't have the mental capacity to dig into the science of...
00:12:40
Speaker
The difference between the two and how they operate. The thing with James Webb, if I remember correctly, is that it's like it has, because it doesn't have to go through the atmosphere, it can observe a wavelength that gets blocked effectively by the atmosphere, like infra some infrared wavelength.
00:13:00
Speaker
which is the benefit. So they basically have different jobs is the summary. Yeah. Um, uh, of the two of them. So yeah, at some point there'll be some photos. Yeah, absolutely. Um, yeah. The other thing I was thinking about as well was, um, just to wrap up when it's actually live and you basically live in the bush. So you might know the answer maintenance. I live in Brisbane. I've written live in Australia's third largest city. Uh,
00:13:26
Speaker
ah but they The actual telescope is on a platform which obviously rotates and it's on this like seismic pad that deals with earthquakes. So there's going to be loads of exposed mechanical elements. Isn't that an absolute nightmare with things like dust over time and like how do you... so It's like the most British comment ever. Do you not like on the beach either because of the sand?
00:13:53
Speaker
But like, if you're spending a billion pound on a telescope, it's going to be pretty messed up. You'd expect after five to 10 years or am I just being naive to things that they already have? Yeah. yeah get the cleers All in all, it's much easier to do the maintenance on it here on the top of the mountain than floating around the ah planet. Yeah. Yeah. Fair enough. Cool.
00:14:18
Speaker
ah Righto,
Top Construction Tech Companies
00:14:21
Speaker
moving on. So in recent news, ah Build in Digital um website has released recently their top 25 tech partners as kind of like a listicle of the top con tech construction software products to kind of watch. And that got us thinking. It's been a while since we've talked back and forth about the things that we're watching or the things that we are finding interesting in terms of ah construction technology. We thought, all right.
00:14:52
Speaker
Let's make our own list. Our list won't get to 25, but we basically challenged each other to to bring out like top three construction technology companies that have, and we kind of put some bounds on it so you can't just go and pick like Autodesk and be like they're the one to watch. I think they're going to do some cool stuff.
00:15:11
Speaker
ah
00:15:13
Speaker
So, uh, the, the, the rules were effectively that they need to have less than 50 employees on LinkedIn. Uh, and so, uh, bring to the table and kind of run through what you as a former of construction quantity surveyor, yeah, would be liking or using it for, do you want to kick it off? I'm not allowed to say document crunch, am I? Cause we've, we've, we've already named them on two episodes. ah they They're going to be over 50 employees by now. They're definitely going to be over 50 employees.
00:15:43
Speaker
I think a lot of the folks that we've had on the ah Join us for conversations. I think procure Pro will be over 50 57 just I was gonna be yeah You go first, because that was actually my third one, so you need to find another one. So, when I think back to my days as a QS and setting out on site, it's challenging. There's one organization called FieldPrinter, and they have something called the Dusty Robotics Machine. I've seen that, yeah.
00:16:23
Speaker
Yeah, um cool. and Basically, it looks like one of those robot vacuum cleaners that people have in their house. But it drives around site doing your um setting out. um It does it 10 times faster than humans. And I don't know if this is good or bad, but one one sixteenth of an inch accuracy. That sounds accurate.
00:16:46
Speaker
um So yeah, pretty cool. Obviously efficient. um I can't imagine this outside of like a building project with a slab because it doesn't exactly look like it would deal with ah rough terrain. But um yeah yeah, definitely that looks pretty useful.
00:17:02
Speaker
Yeah, I heard these guys were, uh, I think I heard the founder talking on bricks and bytes podcast or another podcast recently. but Um, and I think they were talking about how they're like initial or core market is like framing. So like in the U S I'd say, I think like dry wall. So kind of like not very wall fit out where yeah you got to flick all these lines for all these walls and they will just drive around a slab in a building. like skysrapers Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:30
Speaker
Yeah. No, that is that is cool. Are they outside of US? Oh, yeah, that's right. Do your own research. Potentially. ah um The interesting part of this, though, was I was at a tier one contractor conference the other day and there was a section on ah setting out from one of the survey team and they were basically having a moan that site engineers are losing the art of being able to set out.
00:17:59
Speaker
largely
Innovation in Construction: FieldPrinter
00:18:00
Speaker
because they're not site engineers for very long because everyone pushes a lot quicker now than they used to 10 years ago of going up the tiers to earn more money and be promoted on jobs when they're resource light, which is easier to happen. So they were having a moan on this ah necessary skill, um sort of dying out and being more with the survey team. I guess you can have that argument with any technology.
00:18:24
Speaker
I think at some point in history, someone was whinging or complaining like I get it. Yeah. But at some point in history, someone was complaining about people losing the ability to do husbandry or something for horses. Yeah, the abacus.
00:18:39
Speaker
Yeah, the art of abacus maintenance is dying. with These young mathematicians haven't learned anything about abacus maintenance. um yeah ah Well, what's interesting is that like there's kind of converging technologies because I think separately there's the the the trend that is pushing forward with like an XYZ reality where the idea is everyone's going to be wearing glasses and know exactly where to, you know, put the wall or put the thing on site because there'll be an augmented reality type experience.
00:19:08
Speaker
which would kind of ah make the this printer thing redundant. But, you know, how long is that going to take and what type, you know you you know, are they in different niches, the kind of commercial builds or residential builds that might not have them ah the margin for special glasses for forever everyone? Could probably afford the robot that runs around and sets out walls.
00:19:29
Speaker
Yeah, no, it'll be interesting to see, I should have done my research, whether it's over here in the UK or was. I don't think it is. um I'd imagine on high rises in particular, the less people out on these floors, the better. So yeah, do I have a robot doing that and not survey team? Yeah, seems like a good place to be. So yeah, what's your first?
AI in Construction: Trunk Tools
00:19:47
Speaker
My number one is, have you heard of trunk tools?
00:19:51
Speaker
trunk trumps tools no trumps trumps tools are being named into their cabinet position at the moment this is um this is uh this is uh this is trunk tools that might be a viral meme in there mate
00:20:11
Speaker
Trunk Tools is a an AI platform for construction, but it's effectively like construction search. So let me share my screen to you now. If you imagine you're on a construction project and you are trying to find, is there um Is there a design for a certain type of wall or something? What Trunk Tools does, if I quickly go to the page, is essentially integrates with a whole bunch of your core objects that you have on a project. So your drawings, your RFIs, your specifications, your contracts.
00:20:50
Speaker
Yeah, your works information, your schedule, and then it's gonna run effectively a search over it, um but and like an AI powered search, and then come back and give you like a chat interface. So the examples are you know people asking the question of, I'm installing some duck work, is there any specification regarding how I do X or Y? And it will come back with the links to the specification and ah RFIs that relate to it.
00:21:18
Speaker
So this is sat on top of, there's like a version of this for a lot of different industries getting built at the moment. There's some concepts in AI around ah rag so RAG search. So essentially what happens is that they're kind of storing all this data that they're pulling from things like a Procore or Autodesk cloud or other tools.
00:21:39
Speaker
It gets kind of stored in this vectorized database where um ah these vectors kind of in space kind of associate things with other things. um It's kind of like a ah very high level and terribly- Is there a super intelligent search? Yeah, it's searching not based on keywords, but like concepts that are being ah baked into what they call like tokens or vectors.
00:22:06
Speaker
yeah Um, okay and so it's able to search across this space. Um, things that are near other things, uh, effectively are related in this like space.
00:22:18
Speaker
yeah And so then it's able to come back with the thing. So, you you know, you ask the question about duck work or something, um it will search across the space, get back its results, and then pass that thing into a language model, which will then read them and then come up with ah an answer to your question and then any links to documents and things that you might need.
00:22:39
Speaker
It's effectively like what, if anyone's used Perplexity, the kind of answer engine, it's effectively what it's doing across the internet. But this is pulling the data from you know your tools that you're using on the on the project. Yeah, cool. So I'm an avid Perplexity user, and I find it super useful day to day. And I imagine this would be a big unlock for the amount of time you've spent looking for Where's the drawing that says X? Yeah. Where in the contract does it say this? What was the specific specification that dealt with glazing or whatever?
00:23:10
Speaker
And if you ask someone, they want you to find it yourself, even though you're like, am I really going to burn three hours when you know where it is? Yeah, yeah as a perplexity user, I feel like this is a lot of overlap as a product. I think it's cool. What's your number two?
Local Supply Chains: Scrap Platform
00:23:27
Speaker
So next up, I've got an application called Scrap. And it it's effectively a platform that connects material plant and things like crane hire to contractors. So you can go straight up to the website. ah You've got effectively a marketplace of vendors, whether you just need like a skip or whichever like yard size skip you need, whether you need to buy basic sort of aggregate and concrete.
00:23:54
Speaker
it connects the contractor with the vendor. And the thing that makes it kind of unique and useful um is the fact that it just utilizes local supply chain. So instead of going to the big vendors, you're going local every time um and it's sourcing it um immediately. So yeah, it looks pretty cool.
00:24:14
Speaker
My experience of this is limited, but most people would go to the buyer on the job and they'd hit some calls and call around to various yards or organizations. Is this S-K-R-A-P scrap with the cool spelling? Yeah, that's it. Okay, yeah, yeah. So like the one like really like they've got like the waste management and then like bulky goods like the two. Yeah, some of the big staff welfare units. So yeah, you could jump on the app, you can order what you need, it sources it locally, it turns up relatively simple without having to go to calling around each vendor. So yeah, they raised some cash a few years ago, one or two million quid. Yeah, I think there's 20 or 30 people within the business.
00:24:55
Speaker
Yeah, looks good. I don't know that part of the industry well enough to know how advanced the big guys are in terms of being able to order, or is it still quite old school? But my experience when I was on construction projects, it was a pretty old school process that the buyers were literally calling to find availability. Yeah, cool. I think that is the yeah the idea of the marketplace is interesting. Do you don't know what their take rate is, do you?
00:25:20
Speaker
What's a take rate? They normally charge. So most marketplaces operate on a take rate. So they charge like a fee on the... on the I would say, no. I've got no information other than like the the from rates for skip hire and things like that. So I don't know what it costs the actual organizations, but yeah. not good one And that's a UK company. Yeah, UK company, it looks exclusively UK at the moment.
00:25:48
Speaker
obviously focused on cities and things like that so yeah I've not seen anything international yet it looks like they're doubling down on yeah dominating this this market now so um yeah I'll be keeping an eye on it cool right my next one and I think we might have to stop at 2h cuz I think I'm gonna run out of time but it's fine my third one's not very good
00:26:10
Speaker
You're gonna make me do it now. Anyway, we're doing today.
Geographic Data Integration: Civillo
00:26:15
Speaker
i wouldn't I'd be lying if i said if I said I didn't cross my mind. Um, ah so my second one is one of our, uh, in our Australian team, one of our top requested integrations. Uh, and we've had Steve from Seville on the podcast before. So if he is listening with keen for them. So I could have done document. Oh, no, wait. I'm lost on the head count. Anyway, carry on.
00:26:40
Speaker
ah And so I guess the problem statement is that construction is inherently um geographic. Things are getting built on the ground in a certain point somewhere. QA is needing to be done at a certain point somewhere. Snag lists or lists need to be, you know, there's issues at specific points of the job somewhere. And so geographic data is super useful for construction projects in all four in all sorts of forms.
00:27:07
Speaker
The ability to coordinate and plan on the project, being able to see design and ah you know current ah states of the site, drone imagery, et cetera, super useful. Currently, there is a limited set of tools to pull together all of that information in one spot. So there are certain tools that give you ah good visibility of like drone flyovers and maybe some other ah layer types, but not all of it in a way um that you could kind of have all of the information geographically that you need about the project in one spot. yeah The main tool that we see used across major project is Esri's ArcJS. But ye the observation for most projects is that it's one, extremely expensive,
00:27:53
Speaker
um because construction is one of the verticals that that product serves. And the other ones that they serve like government and defense have a lot more money than construction contractors. And so the pricing is pricing is much more geared towards where they make their money. The other thing is that the complexity of setting it up, given how broad and um powerful the product is, usually means that there is multiple headcount managing the ArcGIS environment.
00:28:21
Speaker
And so that keeps adding to the costs. It also means that the end user, like an engineer or a project manager on the project, is not really able to go and get to the information that they need in every scenario. And as a result, they're having to ask the you know the people running the GIS system to go and help create a viewer or something that they can access.
00:28:44
Speaker
Civillo we've seen used on lots of projects across Australia where it's a simple version of this product where you can upload all sorts of different map driven geographical data and engineers can even set it up ah spoken as an engineer wow and if you get they can get the information they need. and And the like it's it's currently in, a I think it's Australia only. I don't know if they've got projects outside. The guys that have started, I've got a surveying background. um But like if I was, even if I was in the UK, the base product, which basically gives you all of the stuff that most people are using. Yeah. A lot of people are using whole of ArcGIS for. It's 900 Aussie dollars a month, which is like 450 quid a month for a project.
00:29:33
Speaker
but It also also makes sense because as with visual things like that, there are lots of people that just need to jump on now and then. So when you go to the per seat model, it's quite difficult because it's not like for everyone, it isn't a daily thing that you need to do. So yeah, it kind of makes sense to go per project. And it it doesn't it's it doesn't always sit in like a big workflow, a core workflow. So they've got this like permits product that you can see here, which is which is a workflow that people need and it's charged a little bit more.
00:30:01
Speaker
But with the core thing is just giving people access to geographical data. Yeah, the the per seat thing is a little bit harder to price buy. And so pricing by project like that's that that price. It's like a ah ah pizza, you know, it's a pizza party project.
00:30:21
Speaker
That's a pizza party. Good comparison. No, and also say small projects aren't really going to be using a tool like that anyway. So you're not really pricing out your sort of target market. I think they are our observation is that what we've seen is yeah, small projects, when we say small, we're talking like ah small infrastructure projects. Yeah. so yeah No, no, no, like, but not like, not like a 5 million pound small building projects. Like this, this budget's going to be reasonable for almost 50 million pound, uh, civil jobs and up. Yeah. Uh, and yeah, it's, uh, it's exceptionally well priced. So, uh, worth, I reckon check it out. Okay. That's our top four. That's the list. Uh, and take that building digital. Um, okay.
Australia's Major Tunneling Project
00:31:08
Speaker
Last one on the list is a deep cut for Australian listeners is the recent news that the next section of the Suburban Rail Loop tunnel package was awarded in Melbourne to a consortium of wholly international contractors. So a joint venture called Terra Verde which is WeBuild, GSE&C from South Korea and Boig from, well, it's Boig Australia, but owned by the French contractor. ah They've secured a tunnel package worth about 1.7, 1.8 billion Australian dollars. And it's the second tunnel package out of the two for the suburban rail loop east section.
00:31:58
Speaker
For those that don't know the package, Suburban Rail Loop has like three main sections. It's one of Australia's largest infrastructure projects. I think I read like 27 or 30 billion or something is the total forecast budget.
00:32:13
Speaker
ah It's in three main sections, Suburban Rail Loop East, then North, and then West. And currently, only East is really underway. The others are still in planning or financial business case review phase. So kind of like ah you know where HS2 is in some regards. The East section ah has awarded Works Package A, which has been well underway for a while. I think it's allowing a ROC team that are delivering that, which is early works and utilities and some road modifications.
00:32:44
Speaker
Then works package B, which is power supply stuff, which I don't actually know who has been awarded that package. And then ah recently works package C, which I believe is, I should have checked, I believe is officially awarded, but if not, I'm going to say that I know that it is a CPB package. and as the owner that are delivering that package. I think that's public knowledge. If not, we'll beep it out later. ah And then works package D, which is the one that was awarded here is, ah is the Terroverde joint venture. Carlos, you interested in moving to Melbourne?
00:33:28
Speaker
It's quite the commute to London.
00:33:31
Speaker
yeah um The conversation that's happening ah ah behind closed doors and is this idea that ah you know we've just awarded a contract to a bunch of international contractors ah that may or may not, you know people saying, how much experience do they have in delivering these types of projects in Australia?
00:33:52
Speaker
When it all comes down to it, they are all very experienced in delivering these types of projects. We build ah delivering ah major infrastructure projects in continents all over the world. GSE and CA, one of South Korea's largest infrastructure contractors, and Boyk do this every day of the week, basically. And we talked the other week about the pros and cons of ah international contractors bidding and and winning work in in markets like the UK and Australia. Just to give my perspective before kind of handing back to you is that
00:34:28
Speaker
I think the ah the need for competition, especially when these projects result in two, three-way joint ventures. If you only have a handful of players in the market, you very quickly lose a competitive environment to bid the projects. And so I think it's wholly a positive thing.
00:34:47
Speaker
ah Even though it would be good to see Australian contractors win these jobs, I think it's a whole other positive thing to have folks like WeBuild, GSE and C, Boyg, Gamuda, coming and and trying to win and compete for these these projects. I think more competition is always <unk>s always good. Yeah, 100%. It just shows how, without knowing the intricacies of like the tenders and the contracts being let,
00:35:13
Speaker
I'd love to know more on how like they must be competitive tenders. and For companies that are based thousands and thousands of miles away, to still be competitive in these tenders means they must be either way ahead in terms of capability and like the innovative side of a bid submission, or they must be taking a hit on like their profitability in it because they must not have all the people they need to deliver these projects. So the cost that comes with like hiring or moving people over and everything on top of the project, it must mean they've got a pretty strong angle to win these jobs over Australian companies that you would have thought would be way cheap on the prelim front being based in these locations.
00:35:55
Speaker
I think to win the job, they need to commit to having a presence in the country and having a financial commitment to the country. I don't think anyone's, I don't think many people are awarding these size of contracts to people flying in and out for the meetings. Each one of those contractors definitely have a team on the ground here in Australia. And some of them have a very large presence like we built has a very large presence now in the country.
00:36:18
Speaker
But certainly they don't have the full team ah that you know that a local contractor that's got a lot of projects currently. When someone's entering and trying to win projects, they're going to have to hire people into the roles.
00:36:32
Speaker
um And that will always bring some teething pains or teething difficulties and some like culture pains as that kind of grows. I think if you're the client, aka the government, you do kind of want to support a little bit in order to foster the environment of competition.
00:36:57
Speaker
um yeah Because if you come down too hard on it and you don't support it, you're going to be tendering the job to two companies all the time. And they're going to tell you what the price is. Yeah. They'll take you to the cleaners every time. Yeah. And you need to, yeah, not just the competitiveness of the tender. It kind of boosts everything. Like even down to the economy, governments want international companies coming to Australia and yeah bringing people with them. so yeah some people will be Yeah, some people will say that they like bid down the job and therefore um there's not as much like profit in the project or whatever. But I think more competition means the infrastructure costs less, which means that more things can get built. So like instead of having one very expensive suburban rail loop, maybe that means one almost very expensive suburban rail loop and one little road job or something that can also get funded. Yeah, for sure.
00:37:50
Speaker
No, very interesting. I know we're definitely, definitely, definitely out of time. Thanks everyone for listening. Carlos, would you like to read us out, mate? Probably our shortest topic ever, but ah yeah, we've ah we definitely haven't talked. But no, thank you very much everyone for tuning into today's show. um If you did enjoy today's episode, please do you think about liking the video or following us on your chosen podcast platform. um We really do appreciate your support and catch you all next week. Thanks, Jase. Bye-bye.