On 2nd March 1987, a major 6.5 magnitude earthquake scale struck New Zealand’s idyllic Bay of Plenty, throwing up sand boils across the region and debris avalanches down many of its normally picturesque hilltops.
The temblor, and the numerous aftershocks in the subsequent months, also cracked the 85-metre high Matahina dam located close to the quake’s epicentre. Neil McGregor, then a young civil engineer barely two days into his new job with the state-owned Electricity Corporation of New Zealand (Electricorp) was sent by his bosses to investigate and diagnose the damage to the dam.
Upon close inspection, Neil realized that the dam had, over time, suffered internal erosion damage. He concluded that it was within days of collapsing, and realized, to his horror, that there was a small town of about 2,000 people living within a whisker of the dam.
Instinctively, Neil hunted down the mayor of the community and gave him the news. He recounted: “I informed him we needed to relief the structural pressure on the dam to prevent it from bursting. It measured the height of a 30-storey building, so just imagine the impact of any collapse.”
Repair works started immediately. “We had to open up the sides of the dam, so the areas below it were flooded and the town was inundated in water. Naturally the community wasn’t happy, but it had to be done. This was my first experience straddling engineering requirements and the needs of the community ,” explained Neil.
Helping to avert this human disaster left an indelible mark Neil’s life. The experience sparked a three-decade career in energy that would take Neil across the continent while rising to the sector’s top echelons.
Neil McGregor receiving the 2015 Singapore Energy Award (individual category) from Singapore Minister for Trade and Industry S Iswaran
Last November, Neil was conferred the Singapore Energy Award for his outstanding contributions developing the Republic’s liquefied natural gas (LNG) ecosystem. As the inaugural CEO of Singapore Liquefied Natural Gas (SLNG), he was responsible for building Singapore’s first LNG terminal, the country’s all-important gateway to the shipping of natural gas across the world.
Located on the southern-most tip of Jurong Island, the SLNG terminal is, by all accounts, impressive. Completed in May 2013 at a cost of S$1.7 billion, it is Asia’s first facility capable of importing and re-exporting LNG from multiple suppliers.
Today, more than 90 percent of Singapore’s electricity is generated using imported natural gas, a statistic which underscores its importance to Singapore’s energy security.
On hindsight, setting up SLNG was, in Neil’s words, “a mammoth project”. With a pioneer team of only five members in 2009, the odds were firmly stacked against him right from Day One.
Explained Neil: “I was given 39 months to complete the 40-hectare terminal. We needed 36 months to build the terminal, so we were only left with three months to conceptualise and put everything else in place!”
Neil and his team worked tirelessly around the clock to design the terminal. With the actual engineering being done simultaneously in the Philippines, United States and Korea, the team delivered the terminal on time and on budget. Perhaps most importantly, they did so with a world-class safety record of 15 million man-hours worked on site without Loss Time Injury[1].
“Seeing the terminal finally open, and sharing that moment with the colleagues who believed in your vision for the terminal, that was truly a rewarding moment,” Neil reflected.
“Initially, our team of people in SLNG were from different parts of the world so it wasn’t easy for us to understand one another’s perspectives but Neil was able to gel us together. After believing in a common goal, we worked well together to build SLNG into what it is today,” recounted Karyn Tan, who was Neil’s personal assistant in SLNG.
Although Neil is no longer with SLNG today, he remains stoutly passionate about Singapore’s future in energy.
“Now, Singapore supplies about 5 percent of LNG to the Northern Asia market so there is a lot of opportunity for growth especially when we have the capacity to develop,” said Neil.
In his current role as a Senior Managing Director at Temasek’s of Enterprise Development Group (EDG), Neil continues to share his wealth of experience with local companies seeking to become the big businesses of tomorrow.
“At the end of the day, it isn’t just about shaping your own career. It’s about enlisting people in your vision. That’s what leadership should be – you need to engage your staff to share a common dream. That’s what matters most,” says Neil.
[1] Lost time injury is an injury sustained by an employee that will lead to the loss of productive work time
