Outsourced to China: The Sanfrancisco-Oakland Bay Bridge

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/business...;pagewanted=all

 

 

At a sprawling manufacturing complex here, hundreds of Chinese laborers are now completing work on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge.

 

Next month, the last four of more than two dozen giant steel modules — each with a roadbed segment about half the size of a football field — will be loaded onto a huge ship and transported 6,500 miles to Oakland. There, they will be assembled to fit into the eastern span of the new Bay Bridge.

 

The project is part of China’s continual move up the global economic value chain — from cheap toys to Apple iPads to commercial jetliners — as it aims to become the world’s civil engineer.

 

The assembly work in California, and the pouring of the concrete road surface, will be done by Americans. But construction of the bridge decks and the materials that went into them are a Made in China affair. California officials say the state saved hundreds of millions of dollars by turning to China.

 

“They’ve produced a pretty impressive bridge for us,” Tony Anziano, a program manager at the California Department of Transportation, said a few weeks ago. He was touring the 1.2-square-mile manufacturing site that the Chinese company created to do the bridge work. “Four years ago, there were just steel plates here and lots of orange groves.”

 

On the reputation of showcase projects like Beijing’s Olympic-size airport terminal and the mammoth hydroelectric Three Gorges Dam, Chinese companies have been hired to build copper mines in the Congo, high-speed rail lines in Brazil and huge apartment complexes in Saudi Arabia.

 

In New York City alone, Chinese companies have won contracts to help renovate the subway system, refurbish the Alexander Hamilton Bridge over the Harlem River and build a new Metro-North train platform near Yankee Stadium. As with the Bay Bridge, American union labor would carry out most of the work done on United States soil.

 

American steelworker unions have disparaged the Bay Bridge contract by accusing the state of California of sending good jobs overseas and settling for what they deride as poor-quality Chinese steel. Industry groups in the United States and other countries have raised questions about the safety and quality of Chinese workmanship on such projects. Indeed, China has had quality control problems ranging from tainted milk to poorly built schools.

 

But executives and officials who have awarded the various Chinese contracts say their audits have convinced them of the projects’ engineering integrity. And they note that with the full financial force of the Chinese government behind its infrastructure companies, the monumental scale of the work, and the prices bid, are hard for private industry elsewhere to beat.

 

The new Bay Bridge, expected to open to traffic in 2013, will replace a structure that has never been quite the same since the 1989 Bay Area earthquake. At $7.2 billion, it will be one of the most expensive structures ever built. But California officials estimate that they will save at least $400 million by having so much of the work done in China. (California issued bonds to finance the project, and will look to recoup the cost through tolls.)

 

California authorities say they had little choice but to rebuild major sections of the bridge, despite repairs made after the earthquake caused a section of the eastern span to collapse onto the lower deck. Seismic safety testing persuaded the state that much of the bridge needed to be overhauled and made more quake-resistant.

 

Eventually, the California Department of Transportation decided to revamp the western span of the bridge (which connects San Francisco to Yerba Buena Island) and replace the 2.2-mile eastern span (which links Yerba Buena to Oakland).

 

On the eastern span, officials decided to build a suspension bridge with a complex design. The span will have a single, 525-foot tower, anchored to bedrock and supported by a single, enormous steel-wire cable that threads through the suspension bridge.

 

“We wanted something strong and secure, but we also wanted something iconic,” said Bart Ney, a transportation department spokesman.

 

A joint venture between two American companies, American Bridge and Fluor Enterprises, won the prime contract for the project in early 2006. Their bid specified getting much of the fabricated steel from overseas, to save money.

 

California decided not to apply for federal funding for the project because the “Buy America” provisos would probably have required purchasing more expensive steel and fabrication from United States manufacturers.

 

China, the world’s biggest steel maker, was the front-runner, particularly because it has dominated bridge building for the last decade. Several years ago, Shanghai opened a 20-mile sea bridge; the country is now planning a much longer one near Hong Kong.

 

The selection of the state-owned Shanghai Zhenhua Heavy Industries Company was a surprise, though, because the company made port cranes and had no bridge building experience.

 

But California officials and executives at American Bridge said Zhenhua’s advantages included its huge steel fabrication facilities, its large low-cost work force and its solid finances. (The company even had its own port and ships.)

 

“I don’t think the U.S. fabrication industry could put a project like this together,” Brian A. Petersen, project director for the American Bridge/Fluor Enterprises joint venture, said in a telephone interview. “Most U.S. companies don’t have these types of warehouses, equipment or the cash flow. The Chinese load the ships, and it’s their ships that deliver to our piers.”

 

Despite the American union complaints, former California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, strongly backed the project and even visited Zhenhua’s plant last September, praising “the workers that are building our Bay Bridge.”

 

Zhenhua put 3,000 employees to work on the project: steel-cutters, welders, polishers and engineers. The company built the main bridge tower, which was shipped in mid-2009, and a total of 28 bridge decks — the massive triangular steel structures that will serve as the roadway platform.

 

Pan Zhongwang, a 55-year-old steel polisher, is a typical Zhenhua worker. He arrives at 7 a.m. and leaves at 11 p.m., often working seven days a week. He lives in a company dorm and earns about $12 a day.

 

“It used to be $9 a day, now it’s $12,” he said Wednesday morning, while polishing one of the decks for the new Bay Bridge. “Everything is getting more expensive. They should raise our pay.”

 

To ensure the bridge meets safety standards, 250 employees and consultants working for the state of California and American Bridge/Fluor also took up residence in Shanghai.

 

Asked about reports that some American labor groups had blocked bridge shipments from arriving in Oakland, Mr. Anziano dismissed those as confused.

 

“That was not about China,” he said. “It was a disagreement between unions about which had jurisdiction and who had the right to unload a shipment. That was resolved.”

 

 

Xu Yan contributed research.

 

My money is that the big one will destroy the new bridge. I just hope I'm not on it.

 

Chinese metal is a joke, and should be barred from all US construction projects. The MTRs are a joke, and destructive testing shows the material is often far from the claimed composition.

 

There is a reason the Chinese won't even use their own materials...

damn. We haven't learned have we? That investment in a new bridge could have gone a long way in creating work here in the US.

 

The first thing I thought of while reading that article was this:

 

My money is that the big one will destroy the new bridge. I just hope I'm not on it.

 

Chinese metal is a joke, and should be barred from all US construction projects. The MTRs are a joke, and destructive testing shows the material is often far from the claimed composition.

 

There is a reason the Chinese won't even use their own materials...

 

THIS! Much of the iron castings coming over are labeled as Ductile when in fact it would barely hold to a gray iron 30B classification in the US/ASTM. It's brutal for those of us in the industry fighting the chinese imports. But recently their prices have been rising, and market consensus is their exports will drastically drop in the coming months/years.

 

At any rate it blows we exported what is likely a few billion dollars on that one.

With 250 consultants and such in Shanghai overseeing it, I'm sure it will be just fine.

damn. We haven't learned have we? That investment in a new bridge could have gone a long way in creating work here in the US.

 

The first thing I thought of while reading that article was this:

 

 

Made me think of this WARNING: OFFENSE RACIAL STEREOTYPES IN VIDEO BELOW, DO NOT WATCH IF YOU LACK A SENSE OF HUMOR, OR ARE EASILY OFFENDED

 

I grew up watching blazing saddles. Love that movie.

The new sheriffs a DOOOOONG

With 250 consultants and such in Shanghai overseeing it, I'm sure it will be just fine.

 

Wait till the big dam they built breaks and kills a couple million Chinese down the river. If their apartment complexes turning over on their side is any indication of their engineering proficiency, God help them all. My father in law works for a Chinese owned company here in the states. He tells me that they skimp on EVERYTHING. The engineering spec's come from the US and are brought into China. China starts to build said product and realizes that they can save one cent per machine by changing the spec on the pull start cord. What happens then, I almost kill myself when trying to start my new chainsaw for the second time and the cord snaps.

 

Worst part is, they hide it all and wait for the backlash. I see this ending badly. 400mm saved by going over to China. Could have saved more if they didn't have to have 250 full time consultants to over see everything just to ensure some semblance of quality. 400mm saved on a 7.2 billion dollar project doesn't seem like enough to cut America out of the mix to me or not create the 3000 jobs over here that it created over there. Another fantastic decision made by the infallible California government. Couple that with the statement in that interview of the Chinese worker (who is likely dead now due to his name being released) who said he is overworked and underpaid. That joint is going to implode on itself sooner rather than later.

What happened to " Buy America" clauses in Federally funded projects?

 

When I sold my business 7 years ago, that clause was in every contract I bid on. We're rapidly shooting ourselves in the foot, ass and head.

 

This country is getting more and more fucked up.

What happened to " Buy America" clauses in Federally funded projects?

 

When I sold my business 7 years ago, that clause was in every contract I bid on. We're rapidly shooting ourselves in the foot, ass and head.

 

This country is getting more and more fucked up.

 

Buy America / American can be a major pain in the ass at times, but from what i recall the waiver to get around it had to be a savings in the neighborhood of 20% of the total cost of the project. $400m on $7.xB sure doesn't fit that criteria!

 

Plus that $400m saved, would have very likely come back into the CA economy via wage taxes and local sales/sales tax many times over. Even if the steel/iron was brought in from the east coast somewhere.

i can't even find anything that is made in usa anymore. it's sad but it's reality.

 

unions have ruined manufacturing in usa. these bridges will hold up fine during the life of it. the issue is every bridge basically are past its life.

What happened to " Buy America" clauses in Federally funded projects?

 

When I sold my business 7 years ago, that clause was in every contract I bid on. We're rapidly shooting ourselves in the foot, ass and head.

 

This country is getting more and more fucked up.

 

 

I was having this exact discussion with one of my tenants today. I have commercial warehouses in some of the best industrial parks in Miami, parks that never had vacancies and were packed with manufacturing. That's all gone now and never coming back. Someone please explain to me why we need "free trade" with countries like China? If we're going to have "free trade" and give away all our manufacturing jobs, then at the very least we should have it with countries that agree to the same wage and benefit levels that we do.

 

And regarding the fcuking green jobs that all these assclown politicians keep talking about, fcuk them and their green jobs. Let's put people back to work building the things we use every day like bridges! WTF!

 

As far as Chinese steel goes, don't get me started. We had a brand new 280' Cargo ship last year that the owner had just paid $14mm for, when we took it from him and put it back up for sale the ship only brought $3.4mm after a surveyor tested the steel and found it to be inferior cheap chinese shit that was already showing signs of heavy corrosion rather than a quality corten or better grade steel!

My Wife is Taiwanese, her Father was born in China and fled Mao's revolution along with the rest of Chiang Kai Shek's group back in the day, and if I told either of them about them about this project here is exactly what they would say:

 

"Don't drive on that".

 

My Wife is Taiwanese, her Father was born in China and fled Mao's revolution along with the rest of Chiang Kai Shek's group back in the day, and if I told either of them about them about this project here is exactly what they would say:

 

"Don't drive on that".

 

 

In all honesty - I am going to be more frightened driving on that, than I am driving on the current bay bridge.

I was having this exact discussion with one of my tenants today. I have commercial warehouses in some of the best industrial parks in Miami, parks that never had vacancies and were packed with manufacturing. That's all gone now and never coming back. Someone please explain to me why we need "free trade" with countries like China? If we're going to have "free trade" and give away all our manufacturing jobs, then at the very least we should have it with countries that agree to the same wage and benefit levels that we do.

 

And regarding the fcuking green jobs that all these assclown politicians keep talking about, fcuk them and their green jobs. Let's put people back to work building the things we use every day like bridges! WTF!

 

As far as Chinese steel goes, don't get me started. We had a brand new 280' Cargo ship last year that the owner had just paid $14mm for, when we took it from him and put it back up for sale the ship only brought $3.4mm after a surveyor tested the steel and found it to be inferior cheap chinese shit that was already showing signs of heavy corrosion rather than a quality corten or better grade steel!

 

I have a good friend in the scrap metal business. For the last 10 or so years he's been barging scrap to China. He was making a better profit, shipping costs included, sending it there. I just wonder what they melted together and fabricated "steel" sheets out of. The stuff has to be shit.

My Wife is Taiwanese, her Father was born in China and fled Mao's revolution along with the rest of Chiang Kai Shek's group back in the day, and if I told either of them about them about this project here is exactly what they would say:

 

"Don't drive on that".

 

 

 

Who else remembered this?!

 

 

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-chat/2419800/posts

 

 

 

I have a good friend in the scrap metal business. For the last 10 or so years he's been barging scrap to China. He was making a better profit, shipping costs included, sending it there. I just wonder what they melted together and fabricated "steel" sheets out of. The stuff has to be shit.

 

 

For many years now China has been buying as much scrap as they can and driving up US steel/iron prices because of it.

 

Sadly, they are making a powerful play at being the world leader in a couple years. Read into what they pulled off with their highspeed train system to see whats coming.

damn. We haven't learned have we? That investment in a new bridge could have gone a long way in creating work here in the US.

 

The first thing I thought of while reading that article was this:

 

 

 

Because it's not about loyalty to country.........it's all about the $$$$$$$$$$$$

Wow, that bridge of garbage is pretty crazy.

 

The main difference in quality, as one of the comments said, probably lies in ethics. China has world class engineers and technology, but their are still tons of unethical people who do shitty work to make/save a buck. While this bridge is made of garbage and that apartment building fell over, they also have things like the world's largest bridges, vast high-speed rail networks, and lots of other stuff.

 

At least they don't fcuk around with the people who get caught, especially with state funds. Garbage bridge dude is probably rotting away in prison right now.

At least they don't fcuk around with the people who get caught, especially with state funds. Garbage bridge dude is probably rotting away in prison right now.

 

 

I bet he is rotting in a skull orchard. They probably would execute him rather than put him in jail....

i can't even find anything that is made in usa anymore. it's sad but it's reality.

 

unions have ruined manufacturing in usa. these bridges will hold up fine during the life of it. the issue is every bridge basically are past its life.

 

America is one of the largest manufacturers on the planet. Up until recently, were the THE largest manufacturer on the planet, responsible for about 20% of all manufacturing. China just recently edged us out for the number one spot in terms of overall manufactured goods, but they still have to use 100 million workers to accomplish what we are able to manufacture with about 10 million. So America in a sense still retains the number one spot. And we will remain one of the top manufacturers in the world.

 

The reason you don't find things "made in America" is because most consumer products are cheap and low-margin stuff that is far more profitable to make overseas. It also would likely lead to higher prices for everything if we made it here. American manufacturing excels in high-margin, technically sophisticated things like industrial machinery and equipment, high-tech electronics, medical devices, aircraft, engines, etc...not the kind of stuff you'll find on the shelf of your local Targer store, but still very crucial to the functioning of the economy. The Chinese, by comparison, cannot even manufacture a jet engine (there are fewer countries in the world capable of manufacturing a jet engine then there are capable of making a nuclear bomb).

 

Regarding "Made in America," this term can be a bit misleading because the stuff could be manufactured here in the USA with parts that were manufactured in another country, from materials derived from other countries, etc...(BTW, a lot of the stuff "made" in China is still designed here in the USA).

I have a good friend in the scrap metal business. For the last 10 or so years he's been barging scrap to China. He was making a better profit, shipping costs included, sending it there. I just wonder what they melted together and fabricated "steel" sheets out of. The stuff has to be shit.

 

They melt all different grades of steel together and sell it as structural, I've seen big structural steel beams sagging about an inch because they're not graded correctly.

America is one of the largest manufacturers on the planet. Up until recently, were the THE largest manufacturer on the planet, responsible for about 20% of all manufacturing. China just recently edged us out for the number one spot in terms of overall manufactured goods, but they still have to use 100 million workers to accomplish what we are able to manufacture with about 10 million. So America in a sense still retains the number one spot. And we will remain one of the top manufacturers in the world.

 

The reason you don't find things "made in America" is because most consumer products are cheap and low-margin stuff that is far more profitable to make overseas. It also would likely lead to higher prices for everything if we made it here. American manufacturing excels in high-margin, technically sophisticated things like industrial machinery and equipment, high-tech electronics, medical devices, aircraft, engines, etc...not the kind of stuff you'll find on the shelf of your local Targer store, but still very crucial to the functioning of the economy. The Chinese, by comparison, cannot even manufacture a jet engine (there are fewer countries in the world capable of manufacturing a jet engine then there are capable of making a nuclear bomb).

 

Regarding "Made in America," this term can be a bit misleading because the stuff could be manufactured here in the USA with parts that were manufactured in another country, from materials derived from other countries, etc...(BTW, a lot of the stuff "made" in China is still designed here in the USA).

 

 

Excellent post. This is true even in electronics. A ton of High end speakers and electronics/Amplifiers are still made in the USA, Canada or Europe. Most people think none of these products are made in the US anymore. From Krell, to JRG or Wilson Audio, McIntosh etc...the list goes on and on.

I was having this exact discussion with one of my tenants today. I have commercial warehouses in some of the best industrial parks in Miami, parks that never had vacancies and were packed with manufacturing. That's all gone now and never coming back. Someone please explain to me why we need "free trade" with countries like China? If we're going to have "free trade" and give away all our manufacturing jobs, then at the very least we should have it with countries that agree to the same wage and benefit levels that we do.

 

China should stop manipulating their currency the way they do which makes their goods artificially cheaper or we levy a tariff on a lot of their stuff I think, but free trade occurs with nations because no single nation can do everything. It is a lot cheaper and more beneficial to have other nations do the things they excel in. Enacting protectionist policies leads to other countries responding with similar policies which usually destroys far more jobs than it saves. It also protects domestic Big Business. American automobiles used to be of very low quality, for example, until foreign competitors started showing them up. Enacting protectionism for the U.S. steel industry protected steel industry jobs, but killed a lot of jobs throughout the rest of the economy (however if say Chinese steel is a lot cheaper, this should be because the Chinese can legitimately get it cheaper, not because they skimp on the quality of it). Many countries also wouldn't be able to survive without free trade because they are too small and it allows them access to global markets that allow them to create industries they otherwise wouldn't be able to create.

 

On "giving away our jobs,' well that's a tricky one too, because it implies that there is a fixed number of jobs in the global economy that countries have to compete over. Remember a market economy creates jobs. There's not a limited supply. In addition, things like productivity erase jobs in many an industry. For example, agriculture. We grow more food than ever before, but use very few people to do it. Current manufacturing in America has about the same number of people as it did back in the 1950s, but we manufacture far more. All of this is due to productivity increases. The creation of one new machine can itself wipe out a whole industry of jobs. But it usually creates a lot more in the process. Legitimate free trade is usually a good thing that leads to prosperitiy for everyone. America itself is fifty state economies all engaging in free trade with one another. Originally the states were enacting trade barriers with each other, so it was made where the federal government would regulate interstate commerce and today we are the #1 economy. The Chinese however produce a lot of crap stuff that shouldn't be used and manipulate their currency which is bad. They aren't some tiny growing nation anymore.

 

One American industry that has been hurt by Chinese imports is the machine tools industry, which is important for domestic manufacturing. Now countries like German produce more machine tools than America, so if customers prefer German machine tools to American, that's just the market, as the Germans aren't manipulating their currency. But the Chinese artificially make their machine tools cheaper just by nature of their currency manipulation.

 

And regarding the fcuking green jobs that all these assclown politicians keep talking about, fcuk them and their green jobs. Let's put people back to work building the things we use every day like bridges! WTF!

 

 

As far as Chinese steel goes, don't get me started. We had a brand new 280' Cargo ship last year that the owner had just paid $14mm for, when we took it from him and put it back up for sale the ship only brought $3.4mm after a surveyor tested the steel and found it to be inferior cheap chinese shit that was already showing signs of heavy corrosion rather than a quality corten or better grade steel!

 

We need to make it where the Chinese steel has to be held to the same level of quality as American steel. That alone will help the American steel industry more and make the Chinese clean up their act real quick.

Yeah, the "It's Vegas baby!" with a convenient "It's only money!" can get one in lots of trouble. Like I said I did it my way, it's not for everyone but I was like 23 and in college so it was fine - one example me and a friend chatted up some people who started buying bottles and asking us to get women to their table (we did) then I took one of the girls upstairs to a closed off area overlooking whatever that club Wynn has with a waterfall and tried to hook up right there before realizing I was FREEZING.. like shivering and jaws clanking, as she is laying with her legs spread on top of a table... I said no this won't do and got out of there and put her in the cab because as I was getting colder and more sober I realized I could do better. I was a bad person at a time.

No life experience but plenty of theory, Wheels can make a perfect politician!