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Professional Biography

Gavin Cornelius is a Principal Consultant at YA Group with 37 years of experience in customer-focused project and consulting environments across medium and heavy industry. Over the past 15 years, Gavin has focused on a wide variety of insurance loss assignments around the world, including post-loss damage surveys, engineering input for cost assessments, review of proposed reinstatement budgets, purchase orders, tenders, and reinstatement programmes, production of notional reinstatement works programmes for comparison against the Insured’s own, detailed review of insured documentation, and close liaison with advisors and support for Insurers and Loss Adjusters in meetings with the Insured.
Gavin has extensive experience in the design of special purpose machinery, process support structures, and process utility systems — both fluid and gas — for the ferrous and non-ferrous metals industry. His project work has spanned all stages of delivery, including design, manufacturing, factory testing, installation, and commissioning across a wide range of international projects.
Gavin has a demonstrated ability to lead, manage, and develop multi-discipline engineering teams through the entire project life cycle, with a strong track record of successfully delivering complex and technically challenging international assignments.

Credentials & Certifications

  • IEng
  • MIED
  • MIET

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.
  • 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.
  • 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

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

Affiliations

  • The Institution of Engineering Designers
  • Institution of Engineering & Technology
  • The Engineering Council