Surveying The Road To Project Success

Finlay Mclay’s Journey In Quantity Surveying And Global Contracts

Rider Hunt International’s (RHi) origins can be traced to the late 19th century. Originally part of Rider Hunt and Partners, a firm of quantity surveyors with its roots in London, RHi was established to provide quantity surveying and project controls services to the oil refining and petrochemical industries.

During the 1970s, the upstream oil and gas industry’s focus on developing the North Sea resulted in a step-change in the scale and technical complexity of projects. These projects required the highest levels of project management and control. It was during this time that RHi was commissioned by several international oil companies to provide quantity surveying, contracts, engineering, and project controls services – and it was during this era that the company’s core skills and capabilities, such as the industry-standard RHiComs™ unit rate contracts management system, were forged.

In 1990, Quantity Surveyor, Finlay McLay, began working with these systems in RHi London on North Sea developments, including BP Miller and Amoco CATS projects, along with work at fabrication sites at Teeside in Northern England and Clydeside, Scotland.

After working in the U.K. for three years, McLay spent the next decade assisting RHi’s clients in warmer climates. McLay first moved to Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to work on a series of offshore oil and gas projects for clients including Shell, Occidental, and Nippon Oil. Rounding out his offshore experience, he then accompanied RHi’s expanding operations to Venezuela, working on two multibillion dollar heavy oil projects for IOCs including Total, Statoil and Chevron. These projects involved the construction of heavy crude upgraders and associated upstream facilities and pipelines.

In 2008, RHi was acquired by AMEC plc, with a remit to operate independently of its parent in servicing its clients around the globe. At the time of acquisition, McLay was working on deepwater GOM projects in RHi’s Houston, TX office. With 20 years of strong international experience in Project Services, he was selected as the Regional Director of the Americas for Rider Hunt International. In his time as Regional Director, McLay has established both himself and RHi in Canada, and continues to oversee operations across Canada and in the U.S.

According to McLay, his career was not the only thing to evolve over the last two decades, “Currently, our project portfolio includes projects in most oil and gas sectors, including deepwater offshore projects in Newfoundland, Canada, and the U.S. GOM as well as in international locations such as Australia and West Africa, onshore developments, including several LNG projects.”

Today, RHi continues its proud tradition of Quantity Surveying, while specializing in all aspects of estimating, project controls, contracts procurement and administration to the oil and gas sector, as well as the energy and process industries. RHi also maintains its competitive advantage in systems: On one hand, RHiComs™ has become the industry standard system for managing Unit-Rate Contracts for the construction of facilities and facility integration. On the other hand, PEMS is a powerful project budgeting and cost-control tool, which has been used to manage cost on a range of projects, from minor to mega in size.

Looking forward, McLay expands on RHi’s current portfolio saying, “We are currently working on 20+ mega projects globally and have cost and quantity data available for every type of structure from all major global fabrication locations. Our business plan globally is for continued growth, expansion into new geographical areas, as well as continued development of our service offerings and products to support both existing and new clients with project development and execution. Specifically in the Americas, we are looking at the deepwater offshore sectors in Canada and the U.S. as well as the new LNG project development proposals, and this is exactly where we can leverage our prior experience in those sectors to grow our business in the Americas.”