In talking about the thousands of construction jobs that the proposed liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry would bring to the Rio Grande Valley, some may question the benefits of what they call “temporary jobs.”
By their nature, construction jobs are not long-lasting, but that does not diminish their importance or economic impact.
In my experience as provost of Texas State Technical College, I can tell you that while construction jobs may last for months or a few years, the men and women in the building trade are career professionals.
Many of our graduates have lucrative, longtime construction careers in engineering, pipefitting, welding, occupational safety, and instrumentation and electrical technologies, to name a few.
Many building trade professionals live in the Valley and work here as much as possible when the jobs are available. These are well-paying jobs that enable these men and women to buy homes, raise families and send their children to college.
Even when they travel for work, they still spend their paychecks and pay property taxes in the Valley.
Bringing the LNG industry to the Rio Grande Valley will benefit our local building trade professionals and our region’s overall economy in a number of ways. I’ll use the proposed Rio Grande LNG as an example.
First, this LNG export project on the Brownsville Ship Channel is expected to create approximately 6,000 jobs over roughly seven years during the construction phase and more than 200 jobs when in full operation. Over the decades that this facility will be in operation, it would be expected to generate additional temporary jobs for scheduled maintenance.
Second, Rio Grande LNG recognizes the importance of hiring and contracting locally as much as possible. Rio Grande LNG has maintained ongoing relationships with TSTC and other local training and educational organizations to make that happen.
Third, the RGV is already benefiting from local building trade training. Thanks to established skills training programs, Rio Grande LNG’s engineering, procurement and construction contractor, CB&I, has already employed over 2,000 RGV citizens on similar projects along the Gulf Coast since 2010.
Bringing Rio Grande LNG to the Valley could allow these hardworking men and women, as well as countless other local skilled workers, to work close to home near their families rather than working far away for months at a time.
This leads to my fourth point. In addition to hiring and buying locally as much as possible during construction, Rio Grande LNG has set a goal to fill as much as 80 percent of the full-time operations jobs locally.
For those interested in working on the Rio Grande LNG project, it’s not too early to begin preparing for these opportunities. Visit the Rio Grande LNG website at www.riograndelng.com to learn about vendor and job opportunities, as well as the vendor registration and job requirements.
At Texas State Technical College, we work to build career opportunities for our students, and the proposed Rio Grande LNG project would be a great source for jobs for our graduates.
Editor’s Note: The main image accompanying the above guest column is provided by Yanmar Construction.
I fully agree with Texas State Technical College Provost Stella Garcia that even temporary jobs can be good, family and community supporting jobs, especially for professionals in the building trades.
HOWEVER I wonder what she’d think about the LNG jobs promised here if she dug a bit deeper into the facts. The jobs don’t seem as real as promised and the LNG business may not turn out to be as big as promised.
Seems like workers trained by CB&I and/or who have worked for CB&I on such projects in the pasts will have the job advantage over our local workforce.
Ben Atkins, NextDecade Chief Financial Officer, has said Rio Grande LNG will use construction contractor CB&I to build the Valley facility. When awarding contracts, CB&I will give “preference to local companies.”
But according to Perry Vaughn, executive director of Associated General Contractors/Rio Grande Valley chapter, “Very few general contractors in the Valley can bond at the level these projects will require, at least $50-60 million.”
According to Atkins, where it’s not possible for CB&I to find suitable local contractors, other non-local contractors may be chosen. But the non-local contractors “must show their plan to use local subcontractors.”
So how many real jobs will actually trickle down to local folks in the end? No real numbers are given.
And NextDecade seems to be talking out of both sides of its mouth, saying here that there will be a preference for local companies. But also saying the opposite elsewhere:
Quote: “With construction slated to begin in less than a year, NextDecade has had ‘intensive discussions with CB&I about their training programs for construction labor,’ said van Vliet [Rene van Vliet, chief operating officer of NextDecade]. ‘CB&I has been successful in recruiting and training a significant group of labor from South Texas, in particular the Rio Grande Valley, where our project will be built. Many of these workers are currently occupied on comparable CB&I projects on the Gulf of Mexico, and, as such, will be suitably prepared for our project when it moves forward. In addition, the anticipated timing of our project is advantageous as many other projects will be winding down as ours ramps up, helping to ease the strain on workforce resources.'”
And quote: “One of CB&I’s distinguishing characteristics versus other EPC contractors [Engineering, Procurement, and Construction] is that CB&I utilizes its own construction workforce, helping to reduce cost and raise quality,” he said. “CB&I does not subcontract all of its construction work and simply act as a managing contractor.”
So there’s a very real question about how much of the work CB&I will actually be contracting out to start with. In addition to how many contracted jobs will actually filter down to our local workforce.
And there’s no mention of the very real question of how many local jobs we’ll loose for good if Rio Grande LNG, Annova LNG, and Texas LNG are allowed to build and operate at our local Port of Brownsville. For example, jobs related to tourism, shrimping, and our local retirement communities. And how many more miscarriages, still births, premature births, and birth defects we’ll have.
And the future of the LNG business here. It looks like there could well be too much of an oversupply on our Gulf coast. And the Panama Canal can only take one LNG tanker ship a day to the Asian market. And it looks like Qatar plans to produce an abundance of LNG about the time Rio Grande, Annoa, and Texas LNG play to start their operations at our local Port of Brownsville.
Here are the references about NextDecade, CB&I, and contractors:
> “LNG Plants – Changing Valley Dynamics,” Eileen Mattei, 12-01-2016, Valley Business Report, https://www.valleybusinessreport.com/featured/lng-plants-changing-valley-dynamics/
> “US shale gas-advantaged projects strain toward finish line,” 11-07-2016, Oil & Gas Journal, http://www.ogj.com/articles/print/volume-114/issue-11/special-report-worldwide-construction-update/us-shale-gas-advantaged-projects-strain-toward-finish-line.html
> “Too many eggs in the Gulf Coast export ‘basket’,” Michael D. Tsuiani and Gordon Shearer, 06-07-2017, Houston Chronicle, https://riograndeguardian.com/rio-grande-lng-project-becoming-more-and-more-concrete/#respond
> “Qatar just threw a wrench into Trump’s plan for US ‘energy dominance’,” Tom DiChristopher, 07-04-2017, CNBC, http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/04/qatar-to-boost-lng-exports-throwing-a-wrench-in-trumps-energy-plans.html
I fully agree with Texas State Technical College Provost Stella Garcia that even temporary jobs can be good, family and community supporting jobs, especially for professionals in the building trades (Rio Grande Guardian, 07-05-2017, see reference below)
HOWEVER I wonder what she’d think about the LNG jobs promised here if she dug a bit deeper into the facts. The jobs don’t seem as real as promised and the LNG business may not turn out to be as big as promised.
Seems like workers trained by CB&I and/or who have worked for CB&I on such projects in the pasts will have the job advantage over our local workforce.
Ben Atkins, NextDecade Chief Financial Officer, has said Rio Grande LNG will use construction contractor CB&I to build the Valley facility. When awarding contracts, CB&I will give “preference to local companies.”
But according to Perry Vaughn, executive director of Associated General Contractors/Rio Grande Valley chapter, “Very few general contractors in the Valley can bond at the level these projects will require, at least $50-60 million.”
According to Atkins, where it’s not possible for CB&I to find suitable local contractors, other non-local contractors may be chosen. But the non-local contractors “must show their plan to use local subcontractors.”
So how many real jobs will actually trickle down to local folks in the end? No real numbers are given.
And NextDecade seems to be talking out of both sides of its mouth, saying here that there will be a preference for local companies. But also saying the opposite elsewhere:
Quote: “With construction slated to begin in less than a year, NextDecade has had ‘intensive discussions with CB&I about their training programs for construction labor,’ said van Vliet [Rene van Vliet, chief operating officer of NextDecade]. ‘CB&I has been successful in recruiting and training a significant group of labor from South Texas, in particular the Rio Grande Valley, where our project will be built. Many of these workers are currently occupied on comparable CB&I projects on the Gulf of Mexico, and, as such, will be suitably prepared for our project when it moves forward. In addition, the anticipated timing of our project is advantageous as many other projects will be winding down as ours ramps up, helping to ease the strain on workforce resources.'”
And quote: “One of CB&I’s distinguishing characteristics versus other EPC contractors [Engineering, Procurement, and Construction] is that CB&I utilizes its own construction workforce, helping to reduce cost and raise quality,” he said. “CB&I does not subcontract all of its construction work and simply act as a managing contractor.”
So there’s a very real question about how much of the work CB&I will actually be contracting out to start with. In addition to how many contracted jobs will actually filter down to our local workforce.
And there’s no mention of the very real question of how many local jobs we’ll loose for good if Rio Grande LNG, Annova LNG, and Texas LNG are allowed to build and operate at our local Port of Brownsville. For example, jobs related to tourism, shrimping, and our local retirement communities. And how many more miscarriages, still births, premature births, and birth defects we’ll have.
And the future of the LNG business here. It looks like there could well be too much of an oversupply on our Gulf coast. And the Panama Canal can only take one LNG tanker ship a day to the Asian market. And it looks like Qatar plans to produce an abundance of LNG about the time Rio Grande, Annoa, and Texas LNG play to start their operations at our local Port of Brownsville.
Here are the references about NextDecade, CB&I, LNG, contractors, and jobs:
> “Garcia: LNG construction jobs offer careers for Valley residents,” Stella Garcia, 07-05-2017, Rio Grande Guardian, https://riograndeguardian.com/garcia-lng-construction-jobs-offer-careers-for-valley-residents/
Stella Garcia, Provost for Texas State Technical College in Harlingen, states that LNG will bring good jobs to our Rio Grande Valley.
> “LNG Plants – Changing Valley Dynamics,” Eileen Mattei, 12-01-2016, Valley Business Report, https://www.valleybusinessreport.com/featured/lng-plants-changing-valley-dynamics/
> “US shale gas-advantaged projects strain toward finish line,” 11-07-2016, Oil & Gas Journal, http://www.ogj.com/articles/print/volume-114/issue-11/special-report-worldwide-construction-update/us-shale-gas-advantaged-projects-strain-toward-finish-line.html
> “Too many eggs in the Gulf Coast export ‘basket’,” Michael D. Tsuiani and Gordon Shearer, 06-07-2017, Houston Chronicle, https://riograndeguardian.com/rio-grande-lng-project-becoming-more-and-more-concrete/#respond
> “Qatar just threw a wrench into Trump’s plan for US ‘energy dominance’,” Tom DiChristopher, 07-04-2017, CNBC, http://www.cnbc.com/2017/07/04/qatar-to-boost-lng-exports-throwing-a-wrench-in-trumps-energy-plans.html