Brian Zinchuk is editor and owner of Pipeline Online
SIMSA executive director Eric Anderson a the large nuclear announcement. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
SASKATOON – How are we going to build a nuclear industry? Somewhere along the way, a supply chain has to be assembled. And the Saskatchewan government has tasked the Saskatchewan Industrial Mining Suppliers Association, or SIMSA, to put it together.
SIMSA executive director Eric Anderson was one of those asked to take the podium during the large nuclear announcement at the University of Saskatchewan College of Engineering on Sept. 29. Here’s his speech, followed by some questions and answers:
We represent the mining, oil and gas industrial defense now data center and nuclear supply chain for the province, and all our members have a permanent physical office here. We have 397 member companies. We employ over 36,000 people, so technically we’re the third largest city in the province, and our annual sales are over $18 billion. And today’s announcement is the tremendous news for the Saskatchewan and for our supply chain, and more so for the for the small companies, our members, some aren’t so small though, who will help make nuclear power a reality in the province, will be the ones doing much of the heavy lift on this work.
Tom Kishchuk, centre. Photo by Brian Zinchuk
And we’re prepared, since SIMSA has been working with its members for the past several years to prepare for nuclear builds, whether they be large or small, with support from the provincial and federal governments, our members have spent years preparing for nuclear opportunities and have the capacity and capability to support major builds. We have developed and are now developing nuclear courses, both for suppliers and utilities, courses that we are now being asked by other countries to deliver there. Our expertise is now being sought after globally, and I should note that Tom Kishchuk is here. He did some of the heavy lift initially in building that work. Grant Cherkas, who’s not here today, he’s actually at Bruce Power today, helping them get some stuff done.
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And we build big in Saskatchewan. That’s another thing. As examples, we’re well into delivering the Jansen Potash Mega Project. This is the largest project ever built by the largest mining company on Earth, BHP, and we started work very recently on the just announced $52 billion Bell data centre. And we can do this because we’re prepared, organized, and capable, and we work together.
One thing that we take for granted here is that we work together. You don’t see that in a lot in other jurisdictions. As an example, as Sheldon (Wuttunee) mentioned, our work with him, Sheldon’s group and SIMSA host several events together, speak at each other’s events, readily share information, often share the stage in events like this. It’s partnerships that benefits everybody.
And today in the room we have another great partner, Tim Gitzel here from Cameco, as well as Grant and a slew of others. You know, he popped in his offices here in town. They have spent over $5 billion on local suppliers in the north. We represent local suppliers. That’s a great thing. There’s also Carl Marcotte here from CANDU, another company we work with, and I got to. There she is from Westinghouse. Great to see you again. So we’re ready.
The Saskatchewan supply chain is ready to play a significant role in the building of large nuclear infrastructure where needed to support Saskatchewan’s growing economy and long-term energy security. SIMSA is ready to build both small and large reactors, plus its supporting infrastructure when called upon, on time and on budget. Thank you.
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Questions:
Pipeline Online: I guess it’s clear to me that we’re looking at concurrent builds for SMRs and for large reactors, and that we could also have possible new mines, maybe in potash or uranium or anything else along those lines. Are we going to really have the workforce right now? Because if you want the journeymen to be ready four years from now, they have to be apprenticed today.
Premier Scott Moe: Well, I won’t say that isn’t a challenge, and Eric and Sheldon, you might speak to this. I won’t say that isn’t a challenge, but I would also say we currently have in excess of 60 concurrent builds happening in this province as we speak, totaling over 100 billion dollars. We build big stuff here, and we do it time and time and time again. And we’re going to, and it is our intent to continue to do that into the future. So, Eric and Sheldon, you might speak because it isn’t without challenges. However, this is what we do.
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Eric Anderson: Well, thank you, Premier, and good to see you again, Brian. Brian and I kicked off an oil show this morning at 9 o’clock in Regina, and then we drove here. So good to see you again today. I think one of the things that we need to realize is there’s a lot of projects going on in the province, but they’re all just subtly different. Coal refurbishment is more of a machining project, right? You’re doing more machine shop stuff, revising that. The data centre build, well, it’s more of an industrial warehouse project. There’s a lot of concrete to put forth, a bunch of steel structures, and then they bring some stuff in.
Now there could be three natural gas power plants to go with that, or something like that, but that’s a lot. The nuclear build is a little bit further down the road, so the timing is working out quite well for us.
We got one, then the other, then the other, but I had a thought. Somebody asked, “What’s changed early? And there’s been a seismic shift that happened a couple of weeks ago at the economic summit. There was two things. The first thing that happened was that 52 billion dollar spend was announced for Saskatchewan. That so the realm of possible has changed, but even more mind-boggling to a lot of people in the room was how our premier walked out with Prime Minister Carney smiling, dragging along Prime Minister Harper and Prime Minister Cretien, and the three of them stood there together and agreed this is a good idea. Things have changed and it’s a seismic shift, so I think we need to look at what is what is possible. That line has moved up, and now we’re looking at a different era in things to do.
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