Gavin Cornelius

Biography

Gavin Cornelius is a multi-skilled Engineer with 30 years’ experience in the customer focused consulting and project environments of medium and heavy industry. Over the last ten years has worked on a wide variety of insurance loss assignments around the world. This work has included carrying out post-loss damage surveys; provision of engineering input for cost assessments; reviewing the Insured’s proposed reinstatement budgets, purchase orders, tenders and reinstatement programmes; production of notional reinstatement works programmes as comparison to the Insured’s own programmes; detailed review of documentation provided by the Insured and close liaison with their advisors; and supporting Insurers and Loss Adjusters at meetings with the Insured.
Prior to this was involved in the design and supply of special purpose machinery for the ferrous and non-ferrous metals industry. Responsible for all of the project stages including design, manufacturing, installation, commissioning and performance testing on a wide range of international projects. Proven track record of successfully delivering complex and technically challenging international assignments and projects with meticulous attention to detail and within tight deadlines.
Countries Worked in: Abu Dhabi, Angola, Austria, Bahrain, Canada, Peoples Republic of China, Czech Republic, Egypt, Estonia, Finland, Germany, India, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Sweden, UK, USA.

Representative Consulting Assignments

• United Stainless Steel Company (USCO), Salman Industrial City, Al Hidd, Bahrain | Heavy Industry | Scoping of damage to the process equipment and utility systems in a 90 Kt/y combination annealing and pickling line following a significant fire. Review and approval of the Danieli (original supplier) re-instatement proposal, specifications, value at risk (cover) calculation and associated costs as presented by the Insured.
• United Utilities, Widnes, UK | Infrastructure | Scoping of damage to a foul water pump motor control centre within a waste water pumping station following a fire in one of the motor control sections. Review of specifications including betterment assessment, estimates and associated costs as presented by the Insured.
• Trivium Packaging GmbH, Erftstadt, Germany | Manufacturing | Investigation into flood damage within a packaging manufacturing company, packaging products consisting of cans used for human and petfood, peanuts, aerosols and easy open can ends are produced from sheet steel feedstock. There are 37 production lines spread over two buildings within the facility, the lines include coil shearing, lacquering, press and 3 piece lines. Flood water reached depth of ~1.1m within the buildings housing the production lines. Assessment of damage to mechanical / electrical production equipment and support utilities, review of repair and replacement quotations, betterment assessment, assistance in sourcing supplies of electrical and control components for on-site repair activities.
• Saudi Iron and Steel Company (Hadeed), Al Jubail, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia | Heavy Industry | Single stand reversing cold mill, investigation into fire damage to the Uncoiler and recoiler units, discussions with suppliers, review of inspection reports and maintenance records.
• TIMET, Birmingham, UK | Heavy Industry | Scoping of damage to five vacuum arc furnaces and associated sodium-potassium alloy (NaK) cooling systems used for the remelting of titanium ingots following three explosions and fires over a period of four months. Review of specifications, estimates and associated costs including betterment assessment for additional works carried out by the insured. Analysis of insureds actual timeline for reinstatement and development of a theoretical engineering timeline for reinstatement.
• Huntsman Group, Pori, Finland | Petrochemical, Chemicals & Gas | Scoping of damage to the process equipment in a Titanium Dioxide (TiO2) production facility after a significant fire, preparation of reserve cost estimates for the process equipment and utility systems, conduction of equipment inspections, review of client and third party inspection reports. Review of specifications, estimates and associated costs as presented by the Insured.
• Statera Energy Limited, Middlesbrough, UK | Power & Energy | Provision of desk based advice on a delayed start up claim due to possible Covid 19 impact, the project consisted of two flexible generation sites, each with a start to full load time of <10 minutes and generation capacity of 50 Mwe using a total of 8 MAN20V35/44G TS gas fired reciprocating engines.
• Sociedade Petrolífera Angolana S.A. (SOMOIL), Soyo, Angola | Petrochemical, Chemicals & Gas | Estrela-B Well Protection Platform, located in Block 2 off the West Coast of Angola, supplying both oil and lift gas to the Bagre A & B production platform. Conduction of a damage survey covering the process / utility equipment and structural integrity survey of the above water line platform structure following a significant explosion and fire. NDT conducted offshore in conjunction with the collection of samples from structural members for full metallurgical investigation in the UK.
• Port of Tilbury London Limited (POTLL), UK | Infrastructure | Provision of advice regarding ATEX requirements for the reinstatement of Silo No.4 following a significant fire and explosion. Review of reinstatement proposal documentation from 3 contractors for the construction of the replacement silo complex with a storage capacity of 33,000 tonnes of grain. Betterment assessment for the mechanical and electrical equipment and cost review of both the temporary works and works necessary to allow the undamaged silos to operate whilst demolition of silo 4 took place.
• Al Jaber Engineering, Hamad Port Facility, Qatar | Infrastructure | Scoping of damage to the conveying equipment and associated mechanical and electrical systems in a 51 silo rice storage facility following a major fire which took place during construction. Assessment of the damage to the process equipment and reinstatement costs provided following on-site inspections and discussions with the main contractor.
• Co Generation Limited, UK | Power & Energy | Scope of damage and cost review, including betterment assessment following 6 gas fired reciprocating engine failures caused by water ingress via an incorrectly designed exhaust system. Assessed 2 off 20V4000GS and 4 off 16V4000GS series MTU / Rolls Royce containerised generation units with a total generation capacity of 13 Mwe.
• DyStar Nanjing Colours Company Ltd, Nanjing, China | Petrochemical, Chemicals & Gas | Scoping of damage to the process equipment and associated utility systems within the Indigo Dye production facility following a significant explosion and fire. Review and approval of specifications, estimates and associated costs as presented by the Insured.
• IKEA Industry Slovakia s.r.o., Malacky, Slovakia | Manufacturing | Particle board manufacturing facility with an annual capacity of 350,000 m3 supplying the furniture business stream of the IKEA Group, production technology provided by Dieffenbacher GmbH Maschinen. Conduction of damage assessment for affected mechanical / electrical equipment and utility systems along with consideration of reinstatement options following an explosion and fire in the oriented strand board blender located in front of the forming lines.
• 3M Deutschland GmbH, Wuppertal, Germany | Manufacturing | Investigation of flood damage to the facility which develops and manufactures microporous polymer membranes for medical and industrial use. Scope of damage inspections for the process utility systems throughout the basements of 13 affected buildings across the facility.
• PepsiCo / Walkers, Leicester, UK | Manufacturing | Preparation of a Preliminary Damage Analysis Report detailing the mechanical and electrical damage following a fire and subsequent explosion in the fryer area of the No.3 Production Line. Review of specifications, estimates and associated costs as presented by the Insured, review and validation of the final cost estimates. Preparation of a final report on the property damage claim as intimated by PepsiCo.
• South African Petroleum Refineries (SAPREF), Prospecton, South Africa | Petroleum & Refineries | Widespread flooding of a BP / Shell joint venture, largest crude oil refinery in South Africa providing 35% of the countries refining capacity. Scope of damage assessment for the static equipment, steam piping, hydraulic power units and calculation of a reserve estimate.

Professional Experience

• 2022 - Current | Principal Consultant | YA Group
• 2020 - 2022 | Principal Consultant, Major Loss Group | Envista Forensics
• 2019 - 2020 | Principal Engineer | Farnborough Engineering Consultants Ltd
• 2010 - 2019 | Senior Engineer to Engineering Manager (Industry Division) and Principal Engineer (Insurance Division) | McLellan and Partners Limited
• 2004 - 2010 | Project Engineer to Mechanical Engineering Manager | Siemens VAI Metals Technologies Limited
• 1996 - 2004 | Design Engineer to Section Leader | Voest Alpine Industries GmbH (VAI)
• 1989 - 1996 | Engineering Design Trainee to Assistant Engineer | Davy International (formerly Davy McKee)