Cairo 1995

Cairo 1995 Joint Venture Companies Annual Meeting Our Turkish-American Joint Venture (JV) company, which was established in Ankara in 1990, was attending the JV companies meeting organized by its American partner every year. Annual meeting was held in Cairo (Egypt) during the week of 25 April 1995. The meeting was hosted by the American Egyptian JV company. The palace belonging to an old Ottoman Pasha was turned into a luxury hotel on the banks of the Nile river in Cairo. They reserved a place for us there. The meetings were to be held in a meeting room of the same hotel-palace reserved for a week. In 1995, laptop PC usage had not yet become widespread. Only American participants gave PowerPoint presentations with their newly released PCs. In Ankara, I prepared the introductory information of our JV company on the overhead transparent sheets. What are we, when we were founded, what do we do, what can we do? What are our references? General managers and sales officials of other JV companies established around the world were attending the annual meeting. There was participation from China, India, Indonesia, Turkey, the host Egypt JVs and the USA head office. Each company introduced itself in turn in the joint meeting. I also introduced ourselves within the half hour given to me. We were generally producing industrial-sized package steam boilers under American parent company license. We had design capacity for large thermal power plant boilers, but we did not have a reference yet. The Egyptian JV company was established by the American company in order to make the unpressurized structural steel parts of the conventional type fuel oil fired power plant with a capacity of 2x325 MWe in Egypt with local means. The share of 49% belonged to the Egyptian local public steam boiler company and major share 51% to the American partner in the partnership structure. The American partner won the thermal power plant tender and established this JV partnership with a public company in 1996 in order to carry out the local fabrication of the project and fulfill the maximum domestic manufacturing responsibility, which was the tender requirement. The general manager, accounting, purchasing, production managers were American, as Americans were 51% the largest shareholder. One day in the week, they took us to the local public partner's manufacturing facilities outside of Cairo. The factory had 1200 personnel. They were manufacturing steel construction for the thermal power plant in a very large area with roof but without side walls. Plant had no sidewalls because there was no need. There was no problem of heating, but it was necessary to cool the environment to protect from the harsh sun. There was a constant natural circulation of air in the covered, open-sided space. In addition to the production of heavy steel construction of thermal power plant non-pressure components, the fabrication plant continued to manufacture low capacity fire-tube steam boilers with their own local design. The factory was equipped with the necessary machinery for the production of fire tube steam boilers. There were many welders. There were bridge cranes with a capacity of 10-15 tons to carry heavy parts in the production halls. The meeting at the hotel lasted for a week, the staff of our Egyptian host JV company did not come to the meeting on Friday because the work days of the week were different in the Egyptian business environment. That day, I visited the nearby Archeology museum. Our hotel was on the banks of the river Nile, I walked along the river Nile in the afternoon and in the evening. There were many international luxury hotels on the opposite shore. The last night they gave us dinner on one of them. We left Cairo when the meeting was over. The thermal power plant was completed in 2001. The power plant has been operating ever since. Subsequently, later on the partnership in Egypt was terminated. The American staff here took up higher positions at the US head office. The local partner continued its fire tube steam boiler manufacturing business. Later, Egyptian public electricity authority decided to build a new combined cycle thermal power plant with a new build-operate-transfer model, this time with a capacity of 2x340 MWe, next to the first thermal power plant. An American company undertook the construction of the new power plant, another American investor owned and operated the facility. Have I seen the Egyptian pyramids? On the way to the factory, I saw the pyramids from a far distance, I did not have the opportunity to go to visit them. I just visited the Archeology museum near the hotel. I bought many colorful books on Ancient Egyptian civilization from there. There were small sculptures for gifts, pictures on ancient Egyptian scrolls, but I did not see a need. On my way to Cairo, my suitcase was unlocked during transport. I could not open my suitcase at the hotel. I had to attend meetings for a week in the same dress. Fortunately, the information, catalog and transparent leaflets that I would use in the meeting were in the big carry-on briefcase next to me. On the last day, the seller at the luggage shop in the hotel shopping center unlocked it, but there was no possibility to close it. On the way back, I just closed the suitcase, I couldn't lock it, I just taped it. At the customs, nobody wanted to open my luggage. Ankara at Karanfil street they repaired the lock of the luggage store, but I never used that suitcase again. Ankara 9 May 2021

Vienna 1996

Consortium Meeting in Wien, 1996 My readers know me very well, my memories/ articles are based on my old meeting notes and diaries. Being able to explain the events which took place 25-30 years ago clearly pushes the limits of human memory. The consortium meeting I will tell here is a daily written version of such a chain of events prepared by your 65+ year old author, who had two doses of SinoVac vaccine, who had to stay indoors for 3-weeks during the Covid-19 local lockdown process, in his study room. This meeting was an organization attended by the representatives of very large market leaders, where they were represented at the top level. At the beginning of 1996, we received an invitation from a leading Austrian energy company that has completed a lot references in Turkey. It was for a new project joint consortium meeting to be held in Vienna. The largest American and Japanese ST-GT manufacturers were also invited to the meeting. We would be expected to be the waste heat boiler supplier and field assembly partner of a large combined cycle thermal power plant. Everyone had a clear share of scope in the project. Previously, we had meeting confidentiality agreements signed and submitted. At the time of writing this article, the signatories of this agreement are no longer in the market, most of them have left their thermal power plant business. The duration of the confidentiality agreement was 25 years. This time is over. Ethically, though, I will not name the participants, but experienced readers of the market will be able to guess them right away. As the sole representative of my company, I arrived at the Vienna airport one day before the meeting by a THY plane connecting in Istanbul. I settled in my reasonably priced business hotel. The next day, I went to the headquarters of our Austrian project leader. There were everyone invited all gathered in a very large hall. Company representatives from America and Japan came to the consortium meeting as well. Confidentiality agreements were signed again first. All participating company representatives signed on the same page. Each kept one copy for themselves. All communications took place in English. Each representative member kept his own meeting notes. At that time, PCs and notebooks were not yet common, I kept the meeting notes in handwriting. Then I printed it in the office upon return. Then, latest project tender documents were distributed to all participants. We had already purchased and studied the tender documents of buyer who was Turkey's public energy electricity generation company long ago. Our share was clear. We, as an US-Turkish joint venture manufacturer of steam boilers, were responsible for the project's waste heat boiler design, supply, production and on-site assembly works. Our scope was drudgery and labor-intensive field work, nobody got involved in our scope, the man-hour workmanship to be spent in the realization period of the project was predicted in advance, it was put into cost calculations, we were only asked for man-hour price, we could not demand less or more man-hours. Our man-hour price was priced at 5 US dollars at that time. Our local partner, a large contracting company, would do the field assembly and construction works of the project. Austrian American and Japanese companies would share the overall design, Gas Turbine and Steam Turbine supply scopes. A very large American commercial bank with an office in Turkey to finance the project was also represented at the meeting. We had long discussions without leaving the meeting room for two days. The Austrian firm undertook the overall design of the project as the leader. They had undeniably grabbed a significant 10% of the price for the engineering work required for project design and project management. American and Japanese companies have agreed to supply necessary equipment. They would deliver the market's best equipment according to their current manufacturing sequence, and then send a supervisor for field assembly. The daily price of the supervisors was 1000 US dollars, excluding transportation and accommodation expenses. The prices given by each consortium party were received by the Leading Austrian firm, the proposal would be prepared and delivered to the recipient public institution in Turkey in the requested number before a certain tender closing date. As the company official, I signed all the tender documents. I used the signature stamp I brought with me for the second signature. This was an acceptable practice by all. At the end of the second day, talks were finished. To relieve the tension of the meeting, our host Austrian company took us to an open-air restaurant outside Vienna by minibuses. They offered Viennese hunted animal/ deer meats, salad, appetizers and white wine diluted with tonic soda. Since white wine was diluted by half with tonic soda, it was very easy to drink. It seemed mild to the Americans, but the Japanese quickly enjoyed this drink, which was easy to drink. "Don't drink too much" warning came from their bosses. As always, I followed the way I do in business meetings, I did not take more than half a glass. The next day everyone returned to their own country. The proposal file was created by the leading Austrian company, it was duplicated in the requested number of copies, and the company catalogs provided by us were added. Proposal documents were delivered before tender closing date. A three-month evaluation period was expected. Then the official answer came, the tender was canceled. Capacity was unnecessarily large. There was not enough fuel. Later, another tender of similar but smaller capacity was released by large iron and steel plants on the West Black Sea coast. This time, American Japanese companies did not come to meeting. The Austrian leading company undertook their ST-GT equipment supply scope. Since we had a consortium meeting before, we got ready this time faster. Everything was clear. We undertook the waste heat steam boiler and field installation works within the same scope. Finally, we got the tender, we completed it in 2 years. If you ask today, "what did you do in Vienna?" After 25 years, I don't have much to say, I remember the airport, the meeting room and the country restaurant. Details are in my daily notes, but they don't mean anything today. Ankara May 3, 2021