Koeberg Nuclear Power Station - South Africa

[UncaBuffalo]

Got my ROF. Now 3 weeks to poke around rest of southern Africa before my return flight...

[UncaBuffalo]

Kruger National Park goes on my top-10 Best-Ever list...incredible abundance of wildlife. I'm not one for groups & guides, so safaris had never held any appeal to me. Kruger ended up being the ticket, since they let you drive yourself. Elephant...hippo...croc...rhino...leopard...warthog...hyena...giraffe...baboon...buffalo...impala...wildebeest...kudu...

[UncaBuffalo]

1. Plenty of drawbacks to Koeberg, but...I will go back.

2. Next couple of outages are SGRPs....at the leisurely Koeberg pace...9 months per unit? ...12?    So...a ton of money to be made.

[UncaBuffalo]

Guess their fall outage got rescheduled to staff in late November? Currently planned for 120 days?   $$$

[UncaBuffalo]

These guys certainly take a laidback attitude towards staffing an outage...two weeks to in-process...and then a 3-day weekend when finally 'qualified'...

...or, maybe it goes beyond 'laidback'...has stretched to a full week...apparently there is some confusion in the plant as to why people would fly 10,000 miles to work. It is TO WORK, not to sit in hotel room waiting on some "committee" to approve our credentials. (The credential approval happens during the resume approval stage, if the plant happens to be reading this.)

GRRRR....  :-(

Ok...we got an explanation on 'credential review'...just their term for a final check that your plant RP training is complete & you are qualified to do a survey at Koeberg. Includes a short oral board in front of management & training.

That doesn't necessarily explain why we had a week off. But they finally called us back to work yesterday. So things moving in a positive direction.  🙂

Everyone had problems getting In-Processed this outage...most not as egregious as my group's debacle, but... 

Management has promised to focus on providing efficient training and logical scheduling on future outages. They will be trying to have you in the plant & working within 3 days. We'll see, but nice that they recognize the problem.

[UncaBuffalo]

Kruger National Park goes on my top-10 Best-Ever list...incredible abundance of wildlife. I'm not one for groups & guides, so safaris had never held any appeal to me. Kruger ended up being the ticket, since they let you drive yourself. Elephant...hippo...croc...rhino...leopard...warthog...hyena...giraffe...baboon...buffalo...impala...wildebeest...kudu...

Kruger would be worth the trip even if you weren't getting paid.

If you are working there anyway, add Table Mountain & Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens to your list of things that should be done.

[Marlin]

Kruger would be worth the trip even if you weren't getting paid.

If you are working there anyway, add Table Mountain & Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens to your list of things that should be done.

You posted tons of pictures when in Cambodia next time you go to South Africa, pictures would be nice.

[UncaBuffalo]

You posted tons of pictures when in Cambodia next time you go to South Africa, pictures would be nice.

Oh...are we able to upload pictures again? That section of the website was being upgraded for quite some time & I hadn't realized we were allowed back in.

[UncaBuffalo]

Oh...are we able to upload pictures again? That section of the website was being upgraded for quite some time & I hadn't realized we were allowed back in.

I just tried it and got:    "Error      You don't have permission to perform this operation." 

[Marlin]

I just tried it and got:    "Error      You don't have permission to perform this operation." 

My bad I thought it was open I'll ask Mike

[UncaBuffalo]

Excerpt from email from recruiter:

"I received the confirmation that outage 126 will start on the 8th of December 2022 and will last around 4 months."

[UncaBuffalo]

1. Plenty of drawbacks to Koeberg, but...I will go back.

2. Next couple of outages are SGRPs....at the leisurely Koeberg pace...9 months per unit? ...12?    So...a ton of money to be made.

To clarify: When I say "I will go back"...I mean sometime...but not necessarily THIS outage....   

[UncaBuffalo]

Excerpt from email from recruiter:

"I received the confirmation that outage 126 will start on the 8th of December 2022 and will last around 4 months."

...but...now it has been re-scheduled to late January?

[UncaBuffalo]

Oh...by the way...take time to request your lifetime dose records BEFORE you go to Koeberg. It will save you lots of hassle.

https://www.reirs.com/requests.html

I had gotten so used to all my records being on PADS that I didn't bother taking anything with me... Oops! 

[UncaBuffalo]

Rumor is they raised the pay rate?

[jmoore0988]

I just got an email from Bernard to do the 126 outage starting 8 December. I've been reading this thread and was wondering if it was actually worth it? I saw there were some issues about pay. Overall, I'm just curious about the experience for anyone that's gone.

For anyone looking for updated info (not sure if it's changed since last outage)

37$/hr
55$ /hr for overtime after 45 hours
2000 rand a day per diem
6x12s
120+/- days

Thanks!
   -Joe

[UncaBuffalo]

I just got an email from Bernard to do the 126 outage starting 8 December. I've been reading this thread and was wondering if it was actually worth it? I saw there were some issues about pay. Overall, I'm just curious about the experience for anyone that's gone.

For anyone looking for updated info (not sure if it's changed since last outage)

37$/hr
55$ /hr for overtime after 45 hours
2000 rand a day per diem
6x12s
120+/- days

Thanks!
   -Joe

Best case scenario? It will take them a year. You will make $190,000+.

[UncaBuffalo]

The SGRP continues...techs have been on site since Dec. 1.

[UncaBuffalo]

....SGRP continues...now scheduled to end in November?