Floating hotel draws workers to NW Canada boom town
Hundreds of construction workers in booming northern British Columbia will take up residence this week in unique digs on board a cruise ferry revamped into a floating luxury hotel. The aging ship will help relieve a housing shortage in one busy Canadian port town already bursting ahead of a promised energy boom that could last more than a decade. The Silja Festival - a Baltic ferry made over as the Delta Spirit Lodge - will spend at least a year docked outside Kitimat, British Columbia, where it will provide housing for about 600 workers in town for Rio Tinto Alcan's $3.3 billion smelter-upgrade project, which is expected to wrap up in 2015.
ABB Appoint New Head of HR
Jean-Christophe Deslarzes has been appointed by ABB to its Executive Committee as Head of Human Resources as of Nov. 15, 2013. He succeeds Gary Steel, 60, who will retire at a date that is still to be determined. Deslarzes, a 49-year-old Swiss national, has served for the past three years as Chief Human Resources and Organization Officer and member of the Executive Board at the global retail group Carrefour. From 1994 to 2010, he worked at Rio Tinto Alcan and its predecessors Alcan Inc. and Alusuisse, in a variety of human resources and management roles in Europe and Canada.
Ship Unloader Signals Start of Richards Bay Improvements
Arrival of a pneumatic ship unloader at Richards Bay, South Africa, bulk terminal marks start of equipment renewal project. Port operator Transnet Port Terminals (TPT) has earmarked the biggest slice of its R33-billion budget over the next seven years for new equipment acquisition projects at Richards Bay, the country’s largest bulk export facility. The arrival of one of the terminal’s largest assets, a custom-built pneumatic ship unloader produced by Swiss shipping manufacturer, Rio Tinto Alcan (RTA) Alesa Engineering Ltd. sends a powerful signal of Richards Bay modernisation project.
