The French engineering giant at the centre of a foreign worker row earlier this year has been awarded a £900 million contract for a new Welsh power plant, on which it has admitted it will likely dish out one third of its work to European subcontractors.
Alstom was this week formally appointed by RWE npower to design and construct a full turnkey, gas-fired combined-cycle power plant in Pembrokeshire. A spokeswoman for the company said the work would be divided up into about 14 or 15 packages, the first of which would be tendered immediately.
The civils contracts are the first to go out – which two jobs having already been assigned to UK firms – and the mechanical and engineering work is expected to be tendered at the end of the year.
The Alstom spokeswoman said: “Two thirds of the work we would anticipate at this stage being carried out by local British firms.”
Despite widespread wildcat strikes over its use of foreign labour in the UK earlier in the year, the company said it would not change its policy on procurement.
Alstom sparked controversy when it appointed two Spanish sub-contractors at its Staythorpe site – Montpressa and FMM. Union Unite claimed the firms had no intention of employing local labour to build the station’s turbine and boiler, effectively costing British workers 850 jobs over the course of the contract.
But the spokeswoman said: “We will ask for tenders in the European Union to select subcontractors, and we will use the usual criteria for selecting.
“Alstom is an international company and this is what we do each time.”
The new 2,000MW plant will be one of the biggest and most efficient of its kind in the UK, capable of supplying power to around three million homes.
It will be built on the site of the previous Pembroke oil-fired power station.
While enabling works have already begun on site, construction is expected to start next spring.
RWE npower said the plant was part of its plan to renew its power generation fleet with new, more efficient and more environmentally friendly power plants.
About 40 per cent of the UK energy fleet was built before 1975 and will need replacement in the short to medium term.
The Pembrokeshire project is the second that Alstom has signed with RWE npower in the UK. The Staythorpe station in Nottinghamshire is also being built for RWE.
The civils contracts are the first to go out – which two jobs having already been assigned to UK firms – and the mechanical and engineering work is expected to be tendered at the end of the year.
The Alstom spokeswoman said: “Two thirds of the work we would anticipate at this stage being carried out by local British firms.”
Despite widespread wildcat strikes over its use of foreign labour in the UK earlier in the year, the company said it would not change its policy on procurement.
Alstom sparked controversy when it appointed two Spanish sub-contractors at its Staythorpe site – Montpressa and FMM. Union Unite claimed the firms had no intention of employing local labour to build the station’s turbine and boiler, effectively costing British workers 850 jobs over the course of the contract.
But the spokeswoman said: “We will ask for tenders in the European Union to select subcontractors, and we will use the usual criteria for selecting.
“Alstom is an international company and this is what we do each time.”
The new 2,000MW plant will be one of the biggest and most efficient of its kind in the UK, capable of supplying power to around three million homes.
It will be built on the site of the previous Pembroke oil-fired power station.
While enabling works have already begun on site, construction is expected to start next spring.
RWE npower said the plant was part of its plan to renew its power generation fleet with new, more efficient and more environmentally friendly power plants.
About 40 per cent of the UK energy fleet was built before 1975 and will need replacement in the short to medium term.
The Pembrokeshire project is the second that Alstom has signed with RWE npower in the UK. The Staythorpe station in Nottinghamshire is also being built for RWE.
Source: Construction News
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