Power Plant

Value of claim >£50m | Litigation in England | Detailed chronology prepared

Background 

A steel-framed power plant was under construction in the UK, with the boiler designed to be suspended on a structural steel framework. During construction, a steel beam forming part of the boiler support structure failed.  Work stopped, an exclusion zone was put in place, and the project was significantly delayed whilst those involved investigated the failure.  Initial investigations by project engineers raised concern that other beams may be at similar risk of failure and that there was therefore a risk of progressive collapse.  On-site investigations were needed to ascertain what the situation was, but it was too dangerous for people to investigate.  It took some time before a team of demolition specialists experienced in investigating dangerous structures could examine the steelwork. 

The result was significant delay to the project, the “power on” date was missed, and by the time generation was possible, the rate obtainable for the electricity generated meant the project was not viable.  

A Ridge structural engineering expert was instructed on behalf of the project owner to opine on, amongst other matters: 

• When the cracks were likely to have occurred; 

• Whether the repairs were carried out with due diligence; 

• Reasonableness of the time taken for remedial design and construction works; 

• Documentation involved; and 

• Similarity of the repair works to other works. 

The expert read many thousands of pieces of correspondence and reports to form a detailed chronology of evets, which lead to them being able to opine on whether, without the benefit of hindsight, any of the steps taken by the project teams at the time were unreasonable and whether the time taken for each stage of the investigations was reasonable. This was an unusual situation, and it would not have been possible to predict at the time of the failure that events would take the course they did, and hence it would not have been reasonable at the time to go straight to the resolution that was eventually necessary. 

The expert prepared reports and attended experts’ meetings, producing a joint statement. The expert’s detailed understanding of events was crucial in leading to a settlement.