Bechtel Houston Texas 1998

Bechtel Houston Texas 1998 In year 1997, we conducted a due diligence study at Kazakhstan Tenghiz Chevron (TCO) facilities in 1997, together with experts from our US parent company, and then in time we sold four B&W package type steam boilers with a capacity of 80 tons per hour each. We signed the contract in London headquarters of Bechtel. Bechtel was the US partner of BEJV joint venture working on behalf of TCO. We got the tender for 10 million US Dollars. At the beginning of 1998, we received an invitation from Bechtel Houston headquarters. They were waiting for the representatives of the companies that had sold goods, equipment, machinery and services to them in the previous year, to the supplier sales exhibition to be opened in their Houston Texas headquarters. Our American B&W partner was participating, since we as JV won the tender, they also invited the JV joint venture company. We bought air tickets for the Lufthansa flight from Ankara, via Frankfurt, Dallas to Houston. Our travel expenses would be paid by the other party. B&W was already sending all of its staff in business class. My ticket was taken also business. I took a long distance flight from Frankfurt to Dallas, I suppose it took 15 hours non-stop flight. We waited two hours on the plane at Dallas airport. Finally I arrived at Houston airport. I rented a car, my suitcase was already full of company catalogs that I would distribute. I arrived at the hotel. There was a 10-hour difference between Ankara and Houston. I slept all night to overcome jet lag. The next morning after breakfast I wanted to go out and walk, it was terribly hot outside. I threw myself back into the hotel interior. On the afternoon of June 8, 1998, two salespeople from B&W Ohio headquarters came, we met and we further talked over dinner. One day later, we got in our cars in the morning and went to the Bechtel center. The inside of the car was cold and the outside was very hot, so the fog was outside. Cold ventilation had to be operated continuously. In the Bechtel headquarters building, I had difficulty again due to the very hot weather from the parking lot to the main building. The indoor building temperature was set at + 15C, it was very cold compared to the outside. They gave us a table in the lower entrance exhibition hall. Sales staff from B&W Ohio immediately set up mobile promotional boards and prepared company catalogs. Other than us, companies from all over the world came to introduce themselves. After 10 o'clock, technical staff from the relevant units in the whole building came to the exhibition hall, we explained ourselves to many relevant buyer technical personnel throughout the day, there were many Turkish personnel working at the Bechtel center. They couldn't believe a Turkish company was selling them four B&W-designed packaged steam boilers. For them this was not possible to happen. Turkish firms are used to do hard manual work at construction sites. They would produce the most simple, easy-to-design steel construction fabrications. In 1998, we were manufacturing the high efficiency steam boilers of the American B&W steam boiler company, which has the world's largest and most advanced technology, at our Ankara factory at very competitive world prices and we were able to sell them to the American Bechtel company by meeting their tough purchasing standards. We manufactured four steam boilers, which we received the tender for, within a year, moved them to Kazakhstan Tenghiz oil facilities, installed them on-site under the supervision of our supervisors, tested them and made the final acceptance. While in Houston, I called the Turkish engineers working at McDermott, the offshore platforms contractor and owner of the B&W group at the time. I found a METU Mechanical engineering graduate friend who worked in Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan projects, we went out for dinner together and talked. Time has passed, we are still communicating by email. On my way back, I stopped by my late brother Haldun in Virginia. I made a transfer for Norfolk. I stayed for 2-3 days and returned home with Lufthansa business class via New York transfer. Long time has passed since then. That factory producing steam boilers was sold, the machines were purchased by interested parties, a shopping mall was built in its old place. In the ongoing Covid-19 period, this shopping mall is now empty, nobody goes because it is far from the roadside housing settlements. Kazakhstan Tenghiz TCO project was later named FGP (future growth project). An American-like city including a school and a market was established in Aktau. Twenty years later, the FGP has come to an end. Special ships were even built to transport the fabricated parts from South Korea. Billion dollar pieces were transported from the Straits to the Caspian Sea. While we were building and selling steam boilers in 1998, now we have to look at the ships that pass through the Turkish Straits with Korean items. Ankara February 5, 2021