Peter Meurs believes local companies seeking work on big resource and infrastructure projects need to ensure they meet the needs of project developers, rather than relying on work coming to them simply because they are Australian.
“I think Australian industry has to provide a solution to its customers that meets their needs,” he said.
“A lot of times, I think that solution will involve doing some complex work in Australia. That’s what we should focus on, and doing some of the less complex work in other parts of the world where it is cheaper.
“If you are not thinking that way, you are just not going to be world competitive.”
His comments come at a time when some of the big projects in WA have responded to rising costs and skills shortages by sourcing more of their inputs from overseas.
Mr Meurs believes local firms need to adapt, citing his own company as an example.
WorleyParsons has establishing engineering centres in China and Thailand and a joint venture in India, giving it the ability to move work between different locations.
It has also established joint ventures with international engineering companies Foster Wheeler and Kellogg, Brown & Root.
This has resulted in some engineering work being undertaken overseas.
For instance, most of the engineering work for the North West Shelf venture’s $2.5 billion phase 5 expansion has been at FosterWheeler’s UK office.
However, Mr Meurs said a substantial amount of work was still being done in Perth.
More generally, he believes the joint ventures have helped WorleyParsons to expand.
“There has never been an engineering organisation of the size of WorleyParsons in Australia before.
“You can ask why is that: did some customer say they want an Australian engineering company?
“I don’t think so.
“I think what happened is that WorleyParsons started to provide a world-class service and built itself up to where it could provide world competitive capability and it has grown as a result of that.”
Mr Meurs said that Perth had a lot of attractions, and it was up to local industry to seize the opportunities.
“The bottom line is that it’s up to us. We’ve got fantastic people, we’ve got a wonderful place to work, and we’ve got world-class capability in minerals and metals and hydrocarbons.”
He said the ability of WorleyParsons’ Perth office to win contracts in the Middle East was a positive sign.
It recently won a five-year contract to service onshore and offshore facilities at the Al Khafji oil field, which borders Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
