Business View Oceania | December 2019

115 116 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA DECEMBER 2019 BUSINESS VIEW OCEANIA DECEMBER 2019 Australia, and we are their local subsidiary in North America." The Bothar Group has offices in the Middle East, Asia, Europe, Africa, and North America; operating globally with about 1,000 employees of 32 nationalities. IPC has a yard, workshop, and one office in Calgary with a regular staff of 25 employees that increases with temporary hires when the company moves onto a project. Hennig explains, “You don’t find a lot of skilled laborers and contractors for what we do, so we’ve been training a lot of people over the last three years and we keep bringing them back to our projects. As we grow, we try to take on more of those temporary hires into full-time positions. We also work with local subcontractors (crane operators, welders, etc.), but the people working with the tunneling equipment are directly employed with us.” IPC has engaged projects across Canada and internationally which involve all aspects of EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction), depending on client needs and the scope of the project. The DPI (Direct Pipe Installation) one- pass system is a patented process developed out of Herrenknecht in Germany. There are only a few contractors in the world who use that application of tunneling technology, mainly for pipeline construction. Direct Pipe is very applicable to the Canadian oil and gas market, but IPC does other types of tunneling for municipal work on infrastructure programs such as wastewater, fresh water, and utility tunnels in major cities. INNOVAT I VE P I PEL INE CROSS INGS , INC . pictured right Peter Hennig, President & CEO The wide variety of geological conditions throughout Canada, whether tunneling in the Canadian Shield or a river valley, present challenges that require modifications to how IPC uses their equipment and the speed at which they can tunnel. The team uses the local geological data from bore holes to determine the appropriate cutter head type and best formation of the cutter discs, depending on the soil conditions found along the tunnel path. Tunnelling through sand or clay requires a different head than solid granite or hard rock conditions. Every project is unique and requires diligent preparation for success. Also challenging in Canada is the climate. As Hennig notes, “ Working in minus temperatures is challenging to keep any kind of equipment running. Most of our projects, especially those