Another cause of increased construction costs is related to the planning and management of construction activities. In an attempt to improve declining construction productivity, contractors, academics, and consultants have promoted planning and managing the work to a much higher level of detail (Increased scrutiny). In addition, due to deteriorating project results and the trend to shift more risk to owners, the owners have increased oversight and increasingly requested this additional detail. This has resulted in a dramatic increase in the amount of detailed information created, processed, and managed for today’s projects. Figure 33– Distribution of direct project capital costs by facility – variations by decade Figure 3 illustrates the indicative changes in the distribution of direct capital costs by project facility code by decade. It is worth noting that the breakdown of direct costs by project will also depend on whether the project is a green or brown field project. The change in focus on the regulatory requirements for storing of process residue material has increased in the last decade. This has led to a significant impact on the proportion of direct costs associated with residue pumping and storage. A key area where costs are seen to be incurred is in the non process infrastructure required to operate the mine and concentrator when constructed. This includes a desalination plant on the coast with long overland pipelines to projects at elevation. The need for access roads to the mine and operating sites are crucial for post construction operational logistics. A considerable number of projects and operating plants need to have product slurry pipelines to transport the final thickened concentrate down to the coast where the concentrate slurry is filtered and made ready for shipment. 7. FUTURE PROJECT DYNAMICS Projects in the future will continue to become more remote, process larger volumes of lower grade ores and require large amounts of non-process infrastructure such as desalinated water, remote power generation/transmission and slurry pipelines to the coast (depending on its location). A major driver will be the overall capital intensity of these remote projects as owners seek to finance them. The capital intensity topic will be at the forefront of the study phases and as well as the work transitions to execution. There will be a continued focus on leaner designs but still respecting the various local site requirements for designs in seismic locations and environmentally sensitive areas. The industry will continue to seek more fit for purpose equipment specifications as well as looking at
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MTM0Mzk2