Activities of the past weekend and our first few days at work.

Dear All,

This past weekend, Keith  and I explored Paris from different angles.  On Friday night,  Keith went out with some of the fellow delegate members and Laurant (One of the host company’s project managers).  I decided to give it a skip and climbed into bed early.  On Saturday morning Keith decided to head for Paris CBD to do some shopping  while I went with some of the other guys to a shopping centre (La Vellee)  in the South of Paris, about 1hr30min by train (about 15min by train from Euro Disney) .  We found some real bargains here, especially clothes (good quality at a min of 50% less than in Paris).

 On my arrival back at the Hotel, after visiting a bicycle shop on the west of France, we decide to proceed with a night cap.  Some of our colleagues made contact with us at 11:30pm that night and managed to convince us to join them in Paris CBD for a “jol”.  We arrived and had a few toots with them at an Irish pub.   Unbelievably, the bar lady asked us if we were from Africa de  Sud!   She could hear our accents and told us that she has been in Paris for the past 3 months and is  originally from Johannesburg.  We eventually decided to head home at 2:30am.    Upon our arrival at the train station,  we were informed that the last train stopped at 1:30am.  Due to the flood of people that were in Paris  for  the annual White night evening (a  cultural evening in Paris, held annually), we could not get a taxi.  We had no choice, but to wait for the next train that would only arrive at 6:30am.  We arrived at the Hotel at about 7am and went straight to bed. 

Keith and I then departed for the Paris motor show  (as mentioned by Keith earlier)  –    what an experience!   Keith likes them  red and fast one,  but I'm still a fan of the trust old Hilux!  

On Monday morning,  our 1^st day of work at our new host company , Spiecapag, a company specializing in on shore pipelines, we arrived punctually at 9:15am.  It took us about 1hr30min by train from the hotel to get to work.  We were welcomed by Monsieur Michel-Bernard Owana (Chief planner).  He proceeded to introduce us to all the relevant managers in the office.  This office is responsible for all bidding, finance control, procurement, design, HSE and quality control/co-ordination of all the projects across the globe.  Keith is working closely with Monsieur Nichola on the risk side of their business.  He has been tasked to evaluate their current risk systems/protocol and the new proposed system suggested by Vinci.  I am working with the chief planner and have been exposed to their latest project, a 500 million Euro (4,5 Billion SA rands) on shore pipeline project in Pappa New Guinnea.  Total construction period = 35 months. They tender team worked for 9 months on this bid.  The client is Mobil and there are no JV partners.  The office is also busy with some final negotiations on a pipeline in Australia (value = 900 Million Aussie dollars).   This bid is with a local Australian company (Lucas), on a 50/50 basis. If successful,  Speicapag will be the leading contractor.   

The first few days has been really interesting and I am confident that we will bring back some tangible experience that can positively affect our business units back at home.

This weekend Keith is off to Londen and myself and Pavan will be heading for Cannes on the South of France.