This year was better than 2009 for the companies that design, equip and build major projects for the worldwide oil and natural-gas industry, and all indications are that 2011 will bring further improvement, though the boom times of a few years ago have yet to return. Photo: Courtesy of KBR KBR is providing design and procurement for a deepwater offshore facility in the Caspian Sea. Related Links: Overview: Finding Work in Tough Times View Complete Global Sourcebook with Rankings General Building: Firms Say World Market Is Thawing, Albeit Slowly Transportation: Asia Bright Light in Otherwise Dim Sector Power: Growing Demand
Australia’s largest-ever privately financed transportation infrastructure project appears to be running on schedule. But two years into its construction, Brisbane’s $4.6-billion Airport Link highway is taking a financial toll on the project’s design-build team. The 6.7-kilometer toll road is being built to link central Brisbane to its northern suburbs and airport district. The project includes twin 5.7-km-long tunnels set some 20 meters apart. With more than $2.5 billion spent to date, the project is more than 60% complete, reports Raymond Wilson, chief executive of the road’s concessionaire, Brisconnections. “The pace of tunnel excavation is quickening. We have seen four tunnel
Construction's unemployment rate showed another year-over-year improvement in November, dipping to 18.8% from the November 2009 level of 19.4%, but also was worse than October's 17.3%. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' latest monthly employment report, released on Dec. 3, also shows that construction lost 5,000 jobs in November, on a seasonally adjusted basis, after gaining 3,000 in October. Looking at industry segments, BLS reported that the 6,800 jobs lost in specialty trade contractors last month more than offset gains in the buildings and heavy-civil construction sectors. November was the second-consecutive month in which the construction jobless rate was lower than
States' fiscal pictures are brightening, but many programs, including infrastructure, remain under pressure, according to officials from the National Governors Association and National Association of State Budget Officers. The latest NGA/NASBO Fiscal Survey of States, released on Dec. 1, shows that tax receipts and general-fund spending are projected to climb in fiscal 2011 from 2010 levels. But revenue and spending still will remain below pre-recession fiscal 2008 totals. Raymond C. Scheppach, NGA's executive director, told reporters, "Budget officers and governors are still very concerned about how do they actually get through the next three years--because they've done everything easy and
Total construction starts through the first 10 months of this year are down 3% from the same period in 2009, according to McGraw-Hill Construction. A 12% decline in the nonresidential building markets and a 2% decline in heavy and highway work offset a modest 8% increase in homebuilding. The heavy and highway markets received a big boost in October with the start of five wind-power projects located in five different states and totaling $1.57 billion. The non-residential building market faced a setback in October when office-building starts declined 47% from the previous month, while the manufacturing plant category declined 60%
A special report titled “Green Outlook 2011,” published by McGraw-Hill Construction, points to green buildings as one of construction’s fastest-growing sectors. Starts increased 50% from 2008 to 2010. This year, MHC estimates green buildings will account for a third of all new non-residential construction, totaling $54 billion in starts. “This growth would be notable under any circumstances, but [it] is particularly dramatic given the decline in overall construction during the same period,” says MHC. It predicts that, by 2015, non-residential green building markets will nearly triple, growing to between $120 billion and $145 billion. It predicts the retrofit and renovation
The value of merger and acquisition deals among global engineering and construction firms rose to $13.03 billion in the third quarter of 2010, says financial services firm PricewaterhouseCoopers, New York City. The figure was up from $11.43 billion in the previous quarter, even though the number of transactions tracked dropped to 35 from 43. But the firm claims the value of “megadeals”—those worth at least $1 billion—more than doubled in the quarter, to $7.2 billion from $3.55 billion . Kent Goetjen, the firm’s E&C sector leader, credits the megadeal increase partly to “reduced capital constraints and low activity in 2009.”
If the stimulus measure is keeping construction workers employed, the months just past represented a new high point--depending on how you add it all up. Related Links: Build America Bonds Volume Jumps as Expiration Looms The White House estimates that the 2009 stimulus act's spending on "public investment," which includes most of the measure's construction outlays, rose sharply in the three months ended Sept. 30, hitting a new quarterly high of $33 billion. In its latest quarterly American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA), update, released on Nov. 18, the White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) estimates that the statute's
Voter frustration with the economy was evident on Nov. 2 in statehouse and congressional changes, but it also played out in how ballot funding and other initiatives fared. Some big-ticket state and local finance measures were rejected by voters, while others passed less enthusiastically than in better times. Also enacted were new restrictions that could complicate public-works procurement. Alabama voters turned down a proposed constitutional amendment to earmark $1 billion over a decade for road construction projects, but Rhode Island, Fairfax County, Va., and Austin, Texas, each approved close to $100-million-a-year transportation funding measures, says the American Road & Transportation
The Canadian economy managed to weather the Great Recession in rather good form compared to the U.S. economy. In 2009, Canada’s real GDP dropped 2.5%, compared to a 2.6% decline in the U.S. GDP. However, total employment only fell by 1.6% in Canada compared to a 4.2% drop in the U.S. Related Links: A Stalled Recovery Ready To Rev Up As the recovery took hold in late 2009 and early 2010, Canada managed to add back almost two-thirds of the jobs lost during the recession. As a result, the Canadian housing market was able to remain fairly solid. After falling
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