WA Works Autumn 2019

SU

Supply Chain and Major Project News

Pr Maj BS Lif oje or CR t O cts IB ut ER ON LY

Autumn 2019

Jobs take off EXCLUSIVE: Airport upgrade revs up

Construction

Resources

Defence

Sun rises on luxury refit work

Diving into Gorgon compression

Anzac frigates fighting fit

News, Profiles, Major Projects List, Opinion and more Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 1

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Contents

Cover Story

24

Perth Airport set to launch upgrade

12

High hopes for gas hub

It’s your business to register.

Exclusive CEO interview

50

Metronet contracts

Autumn 2019

Editor’s Letter

4

Chancellor’s Memo

5

Economic outlook

8

A day in the life - Woodside’s Erica Gundersen

10

High hopes for gas hub

12

Reviving WA’s oldest LNG plant

15

Prelude LNG buoyed by stability

16

Gorgon gas work runs deep

19

South Flank gains momentum

20

Fortescue builds Ecuadorian presence

22

Tune in to telescope works

28

Submarine rescue anchors in AMC

32

BAE’s fighting fit for AMCAP

34

L3’s bridge to growth

38

Major Projects List

40

Storming the skies for new technology

42

New Metronet projects ready to roll

50

Construction jobs blow in

54

No time to waste for Kwinana suppliers

58

Commodity Corner - Iron ore on the rise

62

If you employ workers in the construction industry you may be required by law to register in the Construction Industry Long Service Leave Scheme.

Done and dusted

66

Find out by visiting www.myleave.wa.gov.au or by calling 08 9476 5400.

The Echidna

68 Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 3

Welcome Published quarterly by Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia (Inc) 180 Hay Street East Perth WA 6004 (08) 9365 7555 info@cciwa.com www.cciwa.com

Editor’s Letter

Women work on major projects too

W

elcome to the autumn edition of WA Works.

This month is particularly exciting because we set ourselves the challenge to feature as many women working on major projects as we could find, in recognition of International Women’s Day. From the country’s biggest naval vessel upgrade, the AMCAP program, to the heads of some of the largest global resources companies including Shell and Fortescue, not to mention the state’s biggest rail infrastructure project, Metronet, we found women across the board.

You will see them featured in these pages talking about what their projects mean for the supply chain and how they benefit the state, as well as insights into their particular roles — the same questions we’d ask for any edition.

In this edition, we wanted to send a subtle yet powerful message that, despite women making up just 12 to 18 per cent of the industries we cover, we could smash the statistics.

Of the 28 feature and opinion articles this issue, 61 per cent quote one or more women, well ahead of previous editions where 10-15 per

cent was the norm — a symptom of the fact that men are usually the spokespeople put up by the businesses we contact for comment.

It wasn’t difficult. We achieved this without deviating from our core content of major projects and supply chain news.

There were more high calibre professional women to choose from than we could possibly feature, including former governor and ECU Chancellor Kerry Sanderson where our CEO Chris Rodwell would normally appear, while chief economist Rick Newnham handed over to CCIWA’s manager of Apprenticeship Support Australia Lena Constantine.

Fortescue Group Deputy CEO Julie Shuttleworth also came on board as a guest contributor.

We’ve shown that simple change can make a difference to gender representation and we hope to feature more women in upcoming editions.

Winter might be coming but there is no cooling in the number and value of major projects across with state, with this edition identifying at least $3.4 billion in planned investment for seven new ventures. That’s on top of the $5.4 billion identified in our last edition.

Robyn Molloy

We hope you enjoy reading WA Works as much as we do producing it.

Share your thoughts at editor@cciwa.com

4 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

Visit cciwa.com/waworks

President Ray Sputore Chief Executive Officer Chris Rodwell Editor Stephen Bell (08) 9365 7445 editor@cciwa.com Production Editor Robyn Molloy (08) 9365 7628 Robyn.Molloy@cciwa.com Graphic Designer Katie Addison (08) 9365 7518 katie.addison@cciwa.com Advertising 1300 422 492 advertising@cciwa.com

Disclaimer: This information is current at March 2019. CCI has taken all reasonable care in preparing this information, however, it is provided as a guide only. You should seek specific advice from a CCI adviser before acting. CCI does not accept liability for any claim which may arise from any person acting or refraining from acting on this information.

The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily the views of CCI. Reproduction of any CCI material is not permitted without written authorisation from the Editor. © Copyright CCI. All rights reserved

Chancellor’s Memo

Kerry Sanderson

Research and industry bonds are leading the way Over the last decade progressive leaders have increasingly realised how much can be achieved through successful collaborations between government and industry, writes Kerry Sanderson

I

nsightful implementation of creative STEM subject research is critical to creating an economic advantage in our modern world.

This has been reinforced to me as I have taken up a new role as the Chancellor of Edith Cowan University (ECU). In this role I have been privileged to learn first-hand how WA universities are working closely with industry to achieve mutually beneficial outcomes.

These outcomes are diverse, but all are exciting and many offer potential for innovation in industry and commerce. I only have space to mention a few.

Powering the buildings of the future One example of our industry-focused research is the ECU team that has developed what is believed to be the world’s first clear, energy-harvesting solar glass.

The clear glass lets visible light through but generates power via solar cells by blocking the ultraviolet and infrared light from the sun.

The ECU researchers behind the breakthrough are working with a Perth-based glass and building products company on several trials to demonstrate potential applications.

In agriculture, the glass could be used to build self-sustaining greenhouses to grow food in any climate and in any season. The technology has huge potential benefits, primarily for the construction industry but also automotive manufacturers, public facilities, consumer electronics and more.

how its internationally renowned expertise in exercise science could be used to assist Australia’s Army in the areas of strength and conditioning training for injury prevention.

Creating a secure cyber environment We can’t talk about defence without mentioning cyber security. Cyber attacks have the potential to put national security at risk and lead to uncertainty in business conditions. ECU has the most advanced cyber security research and education function of any university in Australia.

Australia needs to both have, and be known to have, a secure cyber environment.

That is part of the remit of the Cyber Security Cooperative Research Centre, headquartered at ECU’s Joondalup Campus with a total investment of $139 million in a collaboration between Federal and State governments and industry.

Our other role is to instruct the next generation of cyber security professionals. We currently have an enormous shortage of skilled professionals in this area.

Access WA’s talented researchers It’s not just established academics who can work with industry. iPREP WA is a unique collaboration

between the WA universities, providing valuable industry experience for the State’s PhD candidates during their thesis examination period.

Industry partners can access talented, multidisciplinary teams for a period of six weeks to help them solve real world problems.

Industry-university engagement I believe there is still further scope and opportunity for industry and the universities to collaborate for mutually beneficial outcomes.

ECU is currently undertaking a major review of its research priorities that will give us even greater capacity to respond to the shifting demands of the workforce and a changing world.

I look forward to updating you in the future on how these new priorities will build on ECU’s existing expertise. Until then, our door is always open to work with industry.

Kerry Sanderson AC is the first female Chancellor of Edith Cowan University, which is the only Australian university named after a woman. She was WA’s first female governor (2014-18) and was CEO of Fremantle Ports from 1991-2008. For more information see www.ecu.edu.au.

New opportunities in defence I am also excited about opportunities in the defence sector which I learnt more about while working in the UK. Through an arrangement known colloquially as Team WA, the four WA public universities have been working together on defence research, which will soon be coordinated with Defence and industry through a State Government initiative called the Defence Science Centre.

For example, ECU is currently exploring

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 5

The Big Picture A giant Rio Tinto robot heads to port, fully loaded with iron ore. The blue lights indicate the train is running in autonomous mode with no driver on board.

The company’s $1.3 billion AutoHaul project is now fully deployed and the driverless trains have completed journeys of more than 1.6 million kilometres.

6 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 7

Skills Outlook Getting skills back on track to support economic growth Western Australia’s business community and policy makers are facing an interesting conundrum, writes Lena Constantine

A

s we see WA’s economic recovery gain momentum, we will need suitably skilled workers to fill the roles created by an expanding economy once more.

Yet, we continue to see stagnant employment and a decline in skills investment.

During the last boom — to meet the high demand for labour and skills — we attracted thousands of workers from overseas, the east coast and New Zealand. We also saw massive increases in the number of apprentices and trainees being signed up to build skills locally.

However, since 2012 there has been a range of policy shifts that have put downward pressure on employers investing in jobs and skills development of their workforces.

The policy settings around apprenticeships and traineeships have been through considerable changes.

These have included increased regulation; a reduction in the funding for existing worker

8 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

training; and a reduction in incentives and financial support for employers to put on apprentices and trainees, namely large-scale reductions in eligibility for the payroll tax exemption for apprentices and trainees.

Over the past seven years, we have seen the number of people commencing in apprenticeships and traineeships reduce by almost 50 per cent since peaking at close to 36,000 starts in 2012.

Policy impacts The Federal Government has substantially changed its migration policy settings, reducing the types of roles that can be sourced through the Temporary Skilled Migration program, making it much more expensive and difficult to attain skilled workers from outside Australia.

In 2017-18, skilled migrants made up just 0.25 per cent of the total Western Australian workforce, compared with 1.25 per cent in 2011-12. We’ve also seen masses of people

head to the east coast, rather than stay in WA. In fact, since March 2013, more people have left the state than come in, leaving us in a negative net position of workers.

These policy changes, coupled with flat economic conditions, have led to a massive skilled worker deficit occuring in WA. This skills deficit is backed up by the positive job vacancy growth.

Yet overall unemployment remains stubbornly high. We haven’t got the right skills for the jobs coming online.

Where to?

So, what now? We are faced with an economy that is trying to push the green shoots into fledging pastures but hampered by high unemployment (particularly in the youth cohort, which currently sits at a whopping 17.2 per cent, seasonally adjusted), lack of investment in skills development and limited options to attract skilled workers back to WA. A skilled workforce is a key pillar to enabling economic growth. CCIWA continues to advocate on behalf of business for the State Government to commit to no new or increased taxes or fees.

We continue to seek reductions of payroll tax as this hampers businesses’ ability to employ.

Lena Constantine

Infrastructure WA The establishment of Infrastructure WA will take the politics out of infrastructure planning in Western Australia, benefiting businesses and households.

CCIWA has urged all members of the WA Parliament to progress the State Government’s legislation, introduced to parliament in February, as a priority to provide transparency and certainty to industry around the State’s pipeline of works and their timing.

Businesses need to plan their investments, manage their workforce, and retain critical specialised skills within the state. The strategy developed

by Infrastructure WA will help them achieve that.

We are also working closely with governments to encourage greater focus on investing in the national training system and providing support to employers to invest in skills, through implementing broad-based incentives to encourage employers to invest in apprentices and trainees.

CCIWA is also advocating for the State Government to stop the negative rhetoric around skilled migration and promote skilled migration as a vital pathway to support businesses in industries where skills shortages exist.

Most importantly, migration settings need to be informed by business needs, not governments’.

The migration system must be responsive to industry needs and adjusted in a timely matter.

skills when times are tough • migration systems should remain flexible to meet influxes in demand when they occur • we should be looking closely at ways to re-skill unemployed people to meet the needs of industry to reduce the length of times those willing to work remain outside the workforce.

Ensuring we have robust education, skills and employment systems that are responsive

to the needs of industry will not only ensure that WA business can maximise productivity in peak economic periods without being hampered by skills shortages; it also means our people and community remain competitive and relevant in a global labour market.

Lena Constantine is the Manager of the CCIWA-run Apprenticeship Support Australia.

Robust model The ultimate goal for WA should be to have a long-term plan to build a robust employment, education and skills platform that focuses on building quality skills in the workforce that is relevant to industry, outside of economic cycles.

By that I mean: • in downtimes policy levers need to be pulled to ensure employers are supported and encouraged to continue to invest in

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 9

On the ground

Paving the way for future of LNG A day in the life of … Erica Gundersen, Coordinator, Senior Vice President Burrup Hub, Woodside

I

work across our projects and operations teams, helping align activities and communications and making sure we are on track to achieve Woodside’s vision for the Burrup Hub. The concept involves linking our existing Pluto LNG and North West Shelf (NWS) facilities into an integrated production centre that will process gas from our Pluto, NWS, Scarborough and Browse fields.

It will also provide the infrastructure and commercial flexibility to process other resource holders’ gas and ensure these facilities will be supplying domestic and export markets for many years.

As I work directly for the senior vice president of the NWS and Burrup Hub, no two days are the same. One day I might be coordinating a workshop, the next learning about indigenous culture and rock art.

It’s a really busy and exciting time to be involved because we are working toward making final investment decisions on our Burrup Hub developments — Scarborough and Pluto Train 2, and Browse to NWS — in 2020.

I’ve only been in the role for just over three months. I work with a diverse group who are incredibly passionate about collaborating across the business and delivering value back to the communities we operate in. Every day I learn something new about our business, our people and myself.

With Woodside’s support, I completed a full-time MBA at UWA last year. The learnings from the MBA have been invaluable in developing my business acumen, making me think more globally, as well as helping me work through the complexity of our industry. The rest of it I am learning on the job from colleagues, asking lots of questions and keeping communication channels open.

Our vision for the Burrup Hub is for us work as one team, operating seven LNG trains. To do

10 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

this we will need to move from a traditional gas development mindset to a new way of working that creates value from the synergies in our assets, setting the scene for new opportunities and partnerships.

Going forward, my role will be to seek out these synergies and help our teams develop implementation plans to realise them. As we move closer to realising the Burrup Hub, the organisation will take on this new way of working and my role will no longer be required.

I recently ran a workshop to bring our senior leaders together to develop our aligned vision and strategy for the Burrup Hub in the year 2030. This was a challenging task as we have a diverse group of leaders, each with strong views. Uncertainties around policy settings and the large number of stakeholders in the various projects added to the challenge.

career I’ve met so many interesting and talented people who are passionately committed to the future of our company and the communities where we operate.

It’s inspiring, and there is always someone willing to take time to explain something or lend a hand. It makes coming to work each day fun and I’ve made some of my closest friends working here.

“Every day I learn something new about our business, our people and myself” The experience I gained from my MBA helped me frame this complexity and break it down into a structured conversation, enabling us to agree on the investments and technology that must be implemented in 2019 to realise the optimum outcome in a decade’s time.

My next challenge is to keep up the cadence on these ambitious milestones to ensure they are delivered.

What I enjoy most about working for Woodside are the people and culture. We have a thing called the “Woodside Compass” which is about always doing what’s right and living our values every day. It guides everything we do.

As for the people, over the course of my

I joined Woodside as part of the graduate program in 2006 after completing a mechanical engineering degree. While I was at university I met a drilling engineer graduate at a Woodside information session and I was attracted by the large scale of the company’s projects, the prospects for working offshore and the opportunity of commuting in a helicopter.

My degree covered a broad range of topics that were all vital in understanding the engineering in oil and gas projects. This really set me up for success in my early career and helped me with cross postings to other engineering disciplines, ultimately leading to the multi-faceted role I’m in today.

On the ground

Pilbara’s big lithium move One of the state’s biggest lithium producers is looking to sell nearly half of its new mine to shore up two capacity expansions

By Stephen Bell and Robyn Molloy

P

ilbara Minerals is looking for an international partner to help fund expansions at its Pilgangoora lithium mine and to further its downstream ambitions for the battery mineral.

The “partnering process” will consider Stage 3 mine offtake, participation in a lithium hydroxide chemicals plant and the sale of up to 49 per cent of Pilgangoora, which could eventually be more than tripled to 7.5 million tonnes per annum capacity.

The Perth-based company, which recently declared it had reached commercial production from the mine’s 2Mtpa first stage, expects an outcome from the sales process by the middle of this year.

Its decision follows similar moves by other WA mine owners to sell down their interests to global lithium partners.

Last November, US-based Albermarle, which is already building a processing facility at Kemerton near Bunbury, agreed to pay about $1.6 billion for half of Mineral Resources’ Wodgina mine in the Pilbara.

MinRes and Albemarle plan to build a lithium hydroxide facility at Wodgina, once the mine’s three-stage concentrator is fully operational.

And in 2017 Kidman Resources sold down half of its undeveloped Mt Holland project to Chilean lithium giant SQM, with the partners now planning a lithium hydroxide plant at Kwinana.

Pilbara Chief Executive Ken Brinsden said several recent transactions had highlighted the “substantial value that can be unlocked through introducing strategic partners to product offtake and project level interests”.

The partnering process was designed to support Pilbara Minerals in potentially funding both the Stage 2 and 3 expansions, as well as supporting further growth in the company’s downstream initiatives, he said.

“It could also introduce additional technical expertise as Pilbara Minerals considers a second chemical conversion facility in response to increasing global demand for battery grade lithium hydroxide and carbonate,” Brinsden said.

Pilbara recently completed a study into the potential for a 30-60,000tpa lithium hydroxide conversion facility that identified several Australian and international site locations that were economically viable.

The company’s existing joint venture with South Korea’s Posco — which plans to use

Pilgangoora concentrates to supply a mooted 40,000 tonnes per year LCE (lithium carbonate equivalent) downstream plant in Gwangyang — would be excluded from the sale process.

Meanwhile, Brinsden gave further insight into the company’s expansion plans at the Lithium and Battery Metals conference in Perth last month.

“Pilbara expects an outcome from the sales process by the middle of this year”

“Posco’s technology is unique in the sense that it produces a very high-quality hydroxide,” Brinsden said. “In fact, we’d argue it’s industry leading and sets a new benchmark for quality in the hydroxide product.”

The company expected to execute the Posco joint venture in the next couple of months, followed by 15 months of construction and production starting early 2021, he said.

Brinsden said South Korea had become a “big mover” in the Asian battery industry.

“They have the car manufacturers crawling all over them trying to work out how they can secure bigger and bigger battery contracts,” he said.

“That’s why we feel it is important to be positioned there and open up a new hard rock supply chain to Korea to suit the hydroxide subset and we are well positioned to achieve that aim.”

“We are going to continue to expand the mine,” he said. “It’s a huge swarm and I am sure if and when we keep drilling we will continue to grow the resource.”

Pilbara opened the first stage of Pilgangoora — an early mover in the lithium boom and now one of the state’s biggest producers outside of Talison’s Greenbushes mine — last November.

Brinsden said the company — which went from exploration to a production in less than four years between 2014-18 — was well positioned on the back of expanding its supply chain from a customer base in China to South Korea.

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 11

Resources

High hopes for

gas hub Woodside’s plan to build an LNG processing hub on the Burrup Peninsula will create thousands of jobs, boosting the Karratha economy, writes Rueben Hale

I

f all goes to plan, Woodside’s bold move to commercialise Australia’s two biggest undeveloped offshore gas fields — Scarborough and Browse — will kick off early next year.

The company’s expected final investment decision (FID) on the $15.7 billion Scarborough project could signal a five-year construction blitz, with the $29 billion Browse venture due to be approved less the 12 months later.

Together they will underpin a new Burrup LNG “hub”, designed to process gas from the two mega projects, along with third-party gas from other nearby fields.

Niall Myles, Woodside senior vice president for the North West Shelf and Burrup, says the hub will provide ongoing employment and local content opportunities for decades.

Myles is also confident the concept will enable Karratha to turn the corner.

From its post-mining boom downturn, the city once again would be the centre of a new wave of resources activity with a total of 4500 jobs to be created directly and indirectly over the five years.

The Burrup Hub involves the proposed development of 20 to 25 trillion cubic feet of dry gas resources from Scarborough, Browse and Pluto, relying on existing LNG facilities — Pluto and the Karratha Gas Plant.

When completed, the hub could process more

12 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

gas than the entire volume extracted from the North West Shelf since start-up in 1984.

The company estimates that about 2500 jobs will be created by the Scarborough project over two years for activities including subsea and pipeline installation, drilling and completions work, feeder protection unit (FPU) installation and nearshore civil works. Additionally, construction of a second Pluto LNG train will inject up to $2 billion into the WA economy and create up to 2000 jobs during the next five years.

“Those opportunities will start with materials required for civil construction and will progress into structural, mechanical, electrical, instrument, coatings and insulation, and will culminate with further civil materials,” Myles says.

“Historically, around 80 per cent of the workforce employed during the construction phase of projects of this scale and nature is hired locally.

“Indirectly, these projects will also create significant ongoing demand on local logistic, transport, hospitality and other supply chain areas for years to come.”

The Burrup Hub will also benefit the local industrial strip with plans to use Perth’s engineering expertise where capable and competitive. One of the first big winners was WorleyParsons Group company Intecsea — awarded a contract for export trunkline engineering which will be done in Perth. >

Resources

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 13

Resources > By exception, the specialised nature of the integrated hull and topsides engineering required for the floating production unit (FPU), which has been awarded to McDermott Australia, means it will be delivered through McDermott’s engineering centre of excellence in The Hague, Netherlands.

And Scarborough cannot be delivered solely

by WA manufacturing capability as it exists today.

Construction of the FPU will be completed in a specialised overseas yard. However, it is expected there will be opportunities for local business, based on capability and competitiveness.

for its Australian location.

“While Woodside continually explores opportunities for our projects to be delivered locally, some elements of the delivery of large projects are sometimes outside the scope of WA manufacturing capability as it exists today,” Myles says.

He says Woodside maintains a track record as an operator of spending a significant portion of its project budget in the local economy.

“For example, Woodside spent $3.1 billion as an operator on local content and services, supporting Australian jobs and businesses,

“Construction of a second Pluto LNG train will inject up to $2 billion into the WA economy and create up to 2000 jobs” Pluto Train 2 front-end engineering and design (FEED) is being carried out primarily at Bechtel’s office in Houston. This is supported by additional work performed from the contractor’s Perth office during FEED to ensure that the plant design remains appropriate

“Specialist components, such as the offshore floating facilities and LNG trains, are being constructed overseas, but we expect there will be many other options for local businesses, based on capability and competitiveness, and we will seek to maximise these.

“Our FEED contracts have been awarded to Australian entities which have to subcontract some of the specialist work to contractors overseas. The same would apply to any successful WA bidder in instances when specialist engineering support does not exist here.”

during 2017, with more than 84 per cent of this spent in WA,” he says.

Myles anticipates local supply chain opportunities will increase after respective investment decisions are taken on Scarborough, Pluto Train 2 and Browse.

SCOTT REEF STATE WATERS NWS PROJECT GOODWYN A PLATFORM

PLUTO PLATFORM

PROPOSED BROWSE FLOATING PRODUCTION STORAGE AND OFFLOADING VESSELS ~900km to tie-in

PROPOSED SCARBOROUGH FLOATING PRODUCTION UNIT

NWS PROJECT NORTH RANKIN COMPLEX

~190km to Pluto LNG

~430km to Pluto LNG

~133km NRC to KGP

COMMONWEALTH

WATERS

WA STATE WAT

ERS

NWS PROJECT KARRATHA GAS PLANT

PLUTO LNG PROPOSED TRAIN 2

PLUTO LNG TRUCK LOADING FACILITY (UNDER CONSTRUCTION)

PROPOSED PLUTO-NWS INTERCONNECTOR ~5km

DAMPIER TO BUNBURY NATURAL GAS PIPELINE

PROPOSED EXISTING

14 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

Resources

Reviving WA’s oldest LNG plant The Woodside-operated Karratha Gas Plant needs a major refit to be ready for Browse gas in the mid-2020s

By Stephen Bell

A

n $11 billion LNG refurbishment boom on the North West Shelf is looming as Woodside seeks to finalise gas tolling agreements with the Browse gas joint venture.

Woodside hasn’t forecast the cost of refurbishing and maintaining the Karratha Gas Plant (KGP) — sections of which are 30 years old — to make it suitable for processing gas from third parties such as Browse.

However, analysts at Wood Mackenzie say the upgrades will likely cost as much as US$8 billion ($11b), a figure not publicly disputed by Woodside.

Last November, the Woodside-operated North West Shelf JV (NWS) signed non-binding agreements with the Browse JV and Chevron, the leaseholder of the Clio-Acme fields, for the processing of their respective offshore gas resources through the KGP. The preliminary deals were a key step toward the realisation of the Burrup Hub concept, which would extend the operating life of the KGP for decades beyond 2025.

The company wants to convert the deals into binding commercial agreements in the first half of this year, ahead of a final investment decision (FID) next year for a $29 billion Browse development.

Woodside Chief Operations Officer Meg O’Neill said the company planned to build a pipeline linking its Pluto plant and KGP to create an integrated seven-train LNG production centre on the Burrup Peninsula.

“Our plans will ensure a vibrant future for the (Karratha) community that has, over the past 35 years, grown alongside us, with a population that has doubled since the early 1980s as enviable amenities and facilities have been added,” she told the recent Australasian Oil and Gas conference.

“We want to transition to a predominantly residential workforce in Karratha by the mid to late 2020s — we already have a majority residential workforce, but we want to go further,” she said.

Woodside will need to flesh out its refurbishment plans before Browse FID to ensure one or more of KGP’s five trains are ready to accept Browse and potentially Clio-Acme gas by start-up in the mid-2020s. All five trains are currently being maintained in alignment with the existing reserve life of the NWS fields, which are due to begin tailing off from about 2021.

“Successfully securing third-party gas to keep KGP full … will require further investment and maintenance of KGP infrastructure for decades to come,” a Woodside spokeswoman told WA Works.

She said the Browse JV would pay a “large portion” of the capital expenditure needed to refurbish the KGP under a user pays model.

Meanwhile, the commencement and duration of the KGP refurbishment would depend on the timing of contracts to process the third-party gas.

“They (the trains) will not necessarily be done in sequence starting with T1 — the schedule is to be decided based on operational requirements,” she said.

The local energy giant insisted that all its Burrup Hub growth projects — the $15b Scarborough-to-Pluto project is also due for FID next year — would provide “full, fair and reasonable opportunity for Australian industry”.

For the Browse train refurbishments, key trades such as electrical, mechanical and engineering would be required, with the specific roles ultimately to be determined by individual work scopes.

“Timing of contracts related to this work are not yet certain,” the spokeswoman said.

“Opportunities for this refurbishment program and Woodside’s other large-scale projects will be advertised through the Industry Capability Network (ICN) Gateway as they arise,” she said.

Woodside has also established a ‘locals first’ jobs portal where residents in the Pilbara region can register their skills and availability for priority consideration.

The Browse resource is located in the Brecknock, Calliance and Torosa reservoirs about 425 kilometres north of Broome, off the Kimberley coast.

Woodside proposes to develop the resource using two Floating Production Storage and Offloading (FPSO) facilities, which will transport gas to the KGP, through a proposed 85 km spur line and a 900km trunkline, using the existing North Rankin Complex.

The other key Burrup Hub element is the proposed expansion of Woodside’s Pluto facility by adding a second train. Gas from the Scarborough field would then be transported 430km to Pluto using a new subsea pipeline.

Woodside has selected Bechtel as its preferred Pluto contractor, initially to undertake Front End Engineering Design and with an option to construct the project subject to FID. Subcontractor opportunities for the Pluto LNG Train 2 project can be viewed now on ICN Gateway at gateway.icn.org.au.

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 15

Buoyed by

stability Shell’s top Australian executive is taking a slow and steady approach to starting exports from the new Prelude floating LNG project, writes Stephen Bell

A

year ago Zoe Yujnovich walked into one of the local petroleum industry’s biggest and most influential roles, becoming Chair of Shell Australia.

It also meant the Perth-raised, former Rio Tinto executive took on one of the biggest engineering challenges going around: overseeing the commissioning and start-up of Australia’s first floating LNG plant off the Kimberley coast.

In the ensuing 12 months, Yujnovich and a team of about 300 people have worked through the multiple processes needed to make the world’s biggest offshore floating facility ready for operations.

The first shipment of condensate (a type of light oil) sailed from Prelude last month. However the market was waiting for the first LNG cargo, the next step in ramping up to commercial production.

At a recent West Business function, Yujnovich reassured an audience of about 400 that no short-cuts would be taken in the lead-up.

16 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

She also expected “stable operations” for the remainder of this year for Prelude, which began commissioning in June 2018 when the first LNG was brought on board to test out systems.

“The process that we measure success on Prelude really comes from a time horizon that spans decades,” she said.

“I think it is important to keep reminding ourselves not to take any short cuts, in the short-term.

“That doesn’t mean that people aren’t fascinated by the near-term milestones and we’ve been through quite a few.

“We opened the gas from wells on Christmas Day last year and now we are staging that gas shifting through the plant.

“So the next milestone for us will be the first LNG cargo, but I will say my measure of success is when we can consistently and safely deliver the 100th cargo of LNG, which is likely to be off into the years.”

Prelude was moored in its permanent position, 475km north west of Broome, in October 2017, following its journey from a Korean shipyard.

Yujnovich, an engineering graduate from UWA who last worked on Shell’s oil sands operations in Canada, said the Anglo-Dutch energy major was fortunate to have the “balance sheet capacity to be patient” in ramping up such a large gas plant.

“I think it is really important when you look at projects such as Prelude that you do have companies that can look at things through a time horizon which doesn’t simply have to knee-jerk to the next cash cycle or the next payment cycle,” she said.

“A lot of people on Prelude are really wanting to deliver on the next milestones, so in some respects our role is to try and remind people to take stock, take pause and find ways to ensure the risks they’re taking don’t jeopardise anything, and that we stay in control.”

No surprises, please Prelude’s transition to first LNG came amid an uncertain time in Australian politics, with a Federal election to be held in the near future.

When questioned about what she would ask of the next administration in Canberra, Yujnovich said: “For me in business, it’s about stability and no surprises.”

“With all the things that we’ve made investment decisions on, we really don’t like to see retrospective changes,” she said.

Alongside big LNG projects Prelude and Gorgon on the west coast, Shell is a major gas producer in Queensland via the QGC venture, which operates an LNG export plant on Curtis Island.

“Most of the facilities that we’ve invested in have decades of lifespan,” she said.

“Across many of the investments that we’ve had in the past five years, I think we’ve spent something like $50 billion in Australia.

“Making sure that we have the right criteria of the policies, so that things don’t change retrospectively — if we do that I am confident it will really compromise the sovereign risk of our country and the capital that currently needs to flow here.

“The backfill projects that are so critical for the next wave of construction and operation won’t come.

“And if that’s the case then we all know we’ll

end up in a position of less jobs, employment and wage growth, which are fundamental things we are working through at the moment.”

Big oil and gas producers such as Shell, Woodside and Chevron are currently grappling with the Federal Government’s proposed toughening of the Petroleum Resources Rent Tax rules due to take effect on July 1.

One fiscal change that Yujnovich is in favour of is a carbon tax. She said it should be introduced “as quickly as we can”.

“I do believe our modern and industrial life has had a role to play in increasing the temperatures,” she said.

Her stance on carbon sits neatly alongside Shell’s increasing investment in renewables of late, including the acquisition in February of German battery maker Sonnen.

The move could see Shell assembling domestic battery storage systems in Australia, after Sonnen opened a factory at South Australia’s former Holden manufacturing facility late last year. >

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 17

Resources

> “Full ownership of Sonnen will allow us to offer more choice to customers seeking reliable, affordable and cleaner energy,” said Mark Gainsborough, executive vice president of Shell New Energies.

the end of the third quarter 2023.

And topsides would be awarded at FID, Shell says.

It will take about four to five years for the Crux platform to be fully designed, constructed

“The investments that we’ve had in the past five years, I think we’ve spent something like $50 billion in Australia" Crux on the horizon Long before opening the wells at Prelude, Shell was planning its next Kimberley gas development, the Crux field, which the energy major aims to use as backfill for Prelude from the mid-2020s.

In February, Wood and KBR secured the “multimillion dollar” contract to deliver front-end engineering design (FEED) for Crux to build a not normally manned (NNM) platform and gas export pipeline.

The pipeline will transport gas 165km to the Prelude floating facility, which will remotely operate the Crux platform once it begins operations.

Shell, which wants to make a final investment decision (FID) on Crux in the second quarter of next year, has also listed packages on the CCI-run ICN Gateway site gateway.icn.org.au.

It aims to award a jackets and piles package next January, several months prior to FID, to ensure completion of jacket installation, inclusive of all piling, before the start of the 2023 cyclone season.

A pipelines package will be awarded in mid-2020, post FID with the anticipated offshore installation to commence at

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off-site and towed to location.

While it is being built, five subsea production wells are expected to be drilled and suspended until installation of the platform facilities.

The wells will then be completed, hooked-up to the platform and brought online.

The gas and condensate (light oil) field, in Commonwealth waters 620 kilometres

north-north-east of Broome, was discovered nearly two decades ago by Nexus Energy and Shell assumed control in 2012.

Meanwhile, Shell also published its offshore project proposal (OPP) on the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) website.

It says the key execution stages of the project are: • development drilling, including tie-back and dry tree completion • installation of the platform jacket and topsides • installation and hook up of export pipeline and subsea integration system to the platform facilities • commissioning • operations and maintenance • decommissioning Shell is the operator of Crux with SGH Energy, a unit of Seven Group Holdings, and Osaka Gas as joint venture partners.

A prelude to yoga At 488 metres long and 74m wide, Prelude is the biggest offshore floating facility ever built.

But even a vessel as large as Prelude can seem tiny amid the vast expanses of the Indian Ocean 475km north-north east of Broome, says Shell Australia Chair Zoe Yujnovich.

“I’ll give you a bit of normal day to get out to Prelude,” Yujnovich told a West Business function.

“It’s about a 3.30am start to get yourself on the first flight from Perth to Broome.

“From Broome you head across to the helicopter terminal, and you spend some time — about two-and-a-half hours actually — on a helicopter.

“That time is about blue ocean as far as the eye can see, and then you come across a facility.

“Of course, when you are comparing it to the broader ocean, when you first arrive on Prelude it does look relatively small … in comparison to the blue beyond it.

“But when you get on the facility it is absolutely remarkable — four football fields long.

“If you can imagine Optus Stadium, four of those in a row, that’s the length of Prelude.

“The highlight for me on visiting Prelude, aside from chatting to the guys who are spending their time helping us through the commissioning, is we run yoga classes on the helideck.

“You get the chance to get up on the helideck … and it’s just a 360-degree panoramic view.”

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Gorgon gas work runs deep Chevron says local contractors will play a significant role in its plan to install Australian-first subsea gas technology off the Pilbara coast

By Stephen Bell

A

new multi-billion dollar gas project for WA is looming after Chevron launched engineering studies for its Jansz-Io Compression project at the Gorgon LNG export venture.

Chevron and its Gorgon joint venture participants approved Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED) last month for Jansz-Io Compression (JIC), which is needed to maintain long-term supply the 15.6 million tonnes per annum LNG and domestic gas plants on Barrow Island.

“This project is important — it will prolong the lives of our Jansz-Io reservoirs and fields,” said Chevron Australia major capital projects general manager Jeff Schmoll.

He told the Australasian Oil and Gas conference the decision to install compression on the seabed, rather than the ocean surface, would trigger a “technologically complex process”.

“This will be an Australian-first in new technology, using subsea compression — taking compressors which normally might be on a floating facility and putting them subsea,” Schmoll said.

The Jansz-Io field — which supplies gas to Gorgon’s LNG plant — is located around 200 kilometres off the Pilbara coast at about 1350 metres below the surface.

Norway’s Aker Solutions won the FEED contract for JIC and said the compression would help maintain plateau gas production rates as reservoir pressure decreased over time.

While such compressors had typically been installed over sea level, placing them on the seabed near the wellheads would improve recovery rates and reduce capital and operating costs, the contractor said.

“Australia will be the first place outside of Norway to use the subsea compression technology,” Aker Chief Executive Luis Araujo said.

“Aker Solutions has been present in WA for more than 20 years and we look forward

“Australia will be the first place outside of Norway to use the subsea compression technology” Part of Gorgon’s original development plan, JCI was also expected to create “significant” local opportunities in engineering and design.

“All the onshore components will be involved with local opportunities as well as potential scopes for engineering, project management, fabrication, onshore construction, subsea installation and support,” Schmoll said.

The opportunities would build on the local input achieved on the foundation Gorgon project, which started LNG shipments in 2016.

During construction, Gorgon invested more than $40 billion on Australian goods and services and awarded more than 700 contracts to Australian companies, Schmoll said.

to working collaboratively with the local industry on this development.”

Aker said the compression system would boost recovery of gas more cost-effectively and with a smaller footprint than a conventional semi-submersible compressor.

The company delivered the world’s first subsea compression system for Equinor’s Asgard field offshore Norway in 2015.

The start of FEED on JIC comes nearly a year after Chevron approved Gorgon Stage Two (GS2), another multi-billion dollar extension project, which will install further wells and subsea infrastructure at the Gorgon and Jansz-Io fields.

Opportunities to work on GS2 are listed on

the ICN Gateway website gateway.icn.org.au.

Meanwhile, Schmoll also told the AOG conference that, for the first time, the North West Shelf LNG infrastructure near Karratha was being transformed into a competitive and profitable tolling facility.

He said the NWS joint venture partners, including one-sixth partner Chevron, had aligned on non-binding commercial terms capable of attracting multiple third-party users to the Karratha Gas Plant.

“I’d like to acknowledge the efforts of Woodside, who is represented by (Chief Operations Officer) Meg O’Neill today in achieving that.

“We fully support the North West Shelf being a long-term attractive investment, with predictable cashflow, and the ability to attract multiple users to keep the plant full.”

While underpinned by Woodside’s planned development of the giant Browse venture, the Karratha Gas Plant has also been flagged as a processing route for Chevron’s stranded Clio-Acme gas field.

Schmoll also reminded the audience that Chevron’s $49 billion Wheatstone venture was Australia’s “first LNG hub concept”.

“It is investor ready, open to third parties — folks can get on the ground floor on commercial terms,” he said.

“Equity partners have access to common user port infrastructure, shared downstream facilities, construction villages and ports.”

Schmoll said the site also had environmental approval for up to 25 million tonnes per annum LNG, nearly three times the current production capacity of 8.9Mtpa from two trains.

“So there is a lot of room for expansion there,” he said.

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Resources

Building momentum Construction of the state’s biggest new iron ore mine is buzzing with thousands of workers now on site at BHP’s South Flank project

By Stephen Bell

planned to employ more trainees and apprentices, partner with local schools and improve the quality of education and vocational training.

T

he man charged with making sure that BHP’s single biggest Pilbara mine ever built arrives on time is feeling confident as construction gathers steam.

Since approving the $4 billion (US$3.6b) South Flank project last June, BHP has “hit the ground running extremely hard,” said Tim Day, BHP’s general manager of South Flank operational readiness.

“More than 2800 people are already up there working on the project,” he told the Global Iron Ore and Steel Forecast conference in Perth.

“I’m more than confident that we’ve put in place all of the elements to deliver South Flank safely, on time and on budget,” he said.

“I’m particularly proud of being part of a capital efficient project which offers attractive returns, a project that will account for approximately 25 per cent of future (BHP) Western Australian iron ore production.”

Day is no stranger to bringing large BHP mines on line, having led the start-up and operations of its Jimblebar mine near Newman, where he was general manager for more than five years.

But South Flank represents an even bigger challenge, requiring 2500 people to build it and another 600 to operate it once production

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Local passion

starts in 2021. South Flank will replace the current Yandi mine, and is expected to ramp up next decade as Yandi peters out.

The company’s effort to recruit the operational workforce for such a huge endeavour is off to a bright start with about one-quarter already hired, Day said. And, in line with the company’s aspiration to achieve gender balance, 40 per cent of those recruits are female.

Moreover, about 10 per cent of the employment to date were indigenous employees.

“Since going live with our recruitment campaign in June we’ve had more than 16,000 applicants for our first sets of roles,” he said. The company also

Day said the company was passionate about using local content and expected to award about 85 per cent of spending to Australian companies, of which 90 per cent was likely to be completed in WA. “As of the end of December, BHP has awarded more than $2.1 billion of work on South Flank, 82 per cent of which is Australianbased, including 40 per cent in the Pilbara, and 38 per cent in the rest of WA,” he said.

More recently, BHP awarded three separate contracts which, combined, would create nearly 800 construction jobs.

Clough will build South Flank’s ore handling plant, Civmec won a fabrication and assembly job, while Monadelphous has a $108m contract for structural, mechanical, piping and electrical and instrumentation works.

Perth-based Clough expects to create 300 roles for the ore handling job, which follows Clough’s existing $134m EPC contract to deliver the mine’s non-process infrastructure, awarded last May. The new contract will be self-performed

by Clough’s WA-based team, with the scope

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FIFO mod-cons

including structural, mechanical, piping, electrical and instrumentation for the Ore Handling Plant (OHP) structures, including the interconnecting conveyors and transfer stations.

Meanwhile, Monadelphous will work to expand the existing stockyard within the rail loop.

The contract, expected to generate about 400 jobs, should be completed by May 2021.

And Civmec will modularise key components for South Flank in a job worth $48m. The Henderson-based contractor will provide 23 fully equipped ‘smart modules’, including the supply and installation of the required mechanical and electrical equipment.

The scope comprises conveyor shuttle modules, sample station, pump skids, train loadout and feeder modules, which will be fabricated and assembled at Civmec’s waterfront facility, before being transported to site for installation. Completion is anticipated by mid-2020, with the job providing an estimated 80 jobs in Perth.

Other major contractors already working on South Flank include Decmil, CBP Contractors and NRW. BHP expects to award all remaining contracts on the project by mid-year.

The remaining work opportunities on South Flank are listed on the CCI-run ICN Gateway at gateway.icn.org.au.

Technology buzz Day said technology was another way to build a high-performing team to deliver the operation. And, with the many highly automated operations across the Pilbara, BHP saw an opportunity to more fully integrate the supply chain, right from the resource through to market.

The company wanted to build on its success in automating areas of its drill and blast, and load and haul activities. “All of our drills are automated already, and all of our trucks will be ready as they turn up,” he said.

“We see South Flank as a major opportunity to fully advance our efforts to become fully integrated and a highly automated business.

Our full complement of Komatsu autonomousready trucks has been ordered.”

The company was also establishing wireless communications technology and applying a fleet management system to support the efficient dispatch of manned haul trucks, for the initial part of the project.

In the remainder of this year, the Clough and Monadelphous teams for the mechanical, process and electrical instrumentation works would mobilise to site, along with ThyssenKrupp, which would begin installing the stockyard machines, Day said.

The FIFO lifestyle may be hard yakka on WA’s remote Pilbara mine sites but BHP workers on South Flank will be able to enjoy a few mod-cons after clocking off.

What is probably the Pilbara’s tallest mine site café, installed as part of a $105 million upgrade and expansion of the Mulla Mulla village, is just one of the amenities that workers can look forward to before and after their shifts.

Decmil, which won a $75 million job as part of the Mulla Mulla upgrade in November 2017, recently delivered the eastern expansion of the village, which comprises 1429 rooms, said Tim Day, BHP’s general manager of South Flank operational readiness.

“It’s a bit of a new standard for the Pilbara and has been designed specifically as a drawcard for all of our construction and ongoing operational workforce,” he said.

“It features a triple story café, I think that might be a first in the Pilbara, a two-storey dry mess, pool, squash courts, virtual golf and a cross-fit gym.

“And all of these facilities are already operational at that particular camp.”

Day also expects the central expansion of Mulla Mulla — the village is supporting both South Flank and the neighbouring Mining Area C mine — to be completed this year.

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 21

Turning towns around and improving lives One thing that isn’t always associated with mining is the industry’s capacity to build towns into vibrant communities, writes Fortescue Metals Group Deputy CEO Julie Shuttleworth

M

ining is a fascinating, exciting and innovative industry, known for its vast mine sites, and huge equipment. The industry is also in a unique position to bring economic opportunities to regional and remote communities in a way other industries are not able to do.

Over my 25-year mining career, I have had the privilege of working across five continents,

22 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

with a number of companies and across a wide range of commodities. A common theme is an absolute commitment to contribute in a positive way to local communities.

My passion in this area started while working in Tanzania, East Africa, for 10 years. During this time thousands of community members were educated, trained and gained valuable jobs.

I was also able to contribute to improving

education in practical ways such as providing lectures, organising field trips, donating books and laboratory equipment to the mining programs at the country’s universities. In addition, the company partnered with the local communities to construct water wells, power infrastructure, health facilities and many schools. By prioritising wells in the community and at the local school, young girls, previously tasked with carrying buckets of water to supply houses and schools with water, were able to attend classes.

I joined Fortescue Metals Group in 2013 and quickly learned that Fortescue’s approach to communities was very proactive. Fortescue and its Founder and Chairman Andrew Forrest AO, believe in the power of a hand up, not a hand out, and the company was built on its vision of ensuring that local communities benefit from its success.

By providing training for guaranteed jobs via the pioneering Vocational Training and Employment Centre (VTEC) and the awardwinning Aboriginal procurement program, Billion Opportunities, Fortescue has empowered Aboriginal people in practical, sustainable ways.

We begin our exploration activities in South America with the same vision and are committed to providing training, employment and business development opportunities for local communities and indigenous people;

Resources Now, not only do the townspeople have bank accounts, but their village has become a popular stop on the mountain road between Quito and Santo Domingo for travellers to access cash and even stay for a meal at the local restaurants.

Since Fortescue began, we have believed in the power of education and training. The ABC Project is another important example of this goal, established through collaboration between Fortescue, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Education and the people of Santuario de Baños.

government has given us is not common.

Life itself is a school and a daily learning but learning from the classroom is more important because it will open doors for a better future.”

By thinking outside the box, and challenging the status quo, these comparatively small, practical initiatives have made a positive change to the communities of Tandapi and Santuario de Banos.

By allowing community members the flexibility to work and tend their farms,

“Life itself is a school and a daily learning but learning from the classroom is more important because it will open doors for a better future”

just as we have in the Pilbara.

Even before our drilling program has started, we have established community offices and have engaged with the local people in very positive ways.

Some of Fortescue’s concessions in Ecuador are located in Santa Ana, 2.5 hours from the capital, Quito. Here in Santuario de Baños, local community members predominantly tend to small family farms. When Fortescue started working in the area, we engaged with the local townspeople to assist with exploration activities.

To ensure the employees were able to maintain their farms, jobs were designed which allowed each field assistant to work two weeks on, two weeks off. This allowed people to earn additional income and gain valuable skills while still tending to their farms during their two weeks off. I am pleased to report that more than 80 per cent of the Santa Ana working age community have employment with Fortescue, of which over a third are women.

Tandapi is a small, roadside village near Fortescue’s Santa Ana project. When we initially started working with the Tandapi community locals could only be paid in cash because few had a bank account or means to access their money. This made a secure and efficient payroll process very difficult, so Fortescue worked with an Ecuadorian bank to establish an ATM.

The project assists mature age students who have never graduated from high school, to return to school and complete their formal education through an accelerated learning program. Classes are conducted in the evening at the community house in Santuario de Baños. As well as working with the Ecuadorian Ministry of Education to bring the program to the community, Fortescue assists by providing transport to the teachers to and from Tandapi, the closest town.

It is heartening to hear the positive impact the project is having on the people of Santuario de Banos. Bolivar Pullugando, a student and member of the Community Board believes this opportunity is very important.

“We must take advantage of it,” he said.

“The opportunity Fortescue and the

have safe and secure access to money and complete their formal education, we are empowering generational change in these communities.

As we continue to establish ourselves in Ecuador and learn more about the local communities where we work, I am excited about what lies ahead, how many lives we can improve and how we can achieve that through applying the same values and culture as our Australian operations with a strong focus on diversity and empowerment.

As we enter Fortescue’s next growth phase, our promise to the towns, communities and countries where we work is that we will collaborate to contribute effectively to overall social and economic wellbeing of communities.

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 23

Flight

upgrade Air travel in Perth is headed towards an exciting infrastructure-driven future, writes Stephen Bell

24 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

Infrastructure

A

ssuming there are no further delays in the Forrestfield Airport Link rail project, by 2021 Perth Airport passengers will be able to stroll along a new covered and elevated skybridge to catch an underground train that will propel them to central Perth in 17 minutes.

But, if Perth Airport Chief Executive Kevin Brown has his way, the first trains departing Airport Central Station station will just be commuters’ first taste of an array of fresh infrastructure designed to speed their ongoing journeys.

Due to clock up his third year as CEO in July, Brown is charged with executing a phased $2.5 billion refurbishment and expansion of the airport. The first section, the International Terminal Upgrade project, is due to be completed by 2024 and is part of an over-arching plan to bring all flight services into a central hub.

Discussions are ongoing, but Brown says the plan includes integrating a new domestic terminal into the central hub — which would involve Qantas relocating its Perth domestic services by 2025.

The expansion, which will see between $1.5b and $2b invested over the coming decade, is needed to secure additional capacity with international passenger numbers expected to grow by about 50 per cent over that period, Brown says.

A further $520m is earmarked for building a third runway, expected to generate 500 construction jobs during a four-and-a-half-year build program (see breakout).

Early construction works on the hub are not too far away.

“We’ll be doing some of the initial works on the international terminal … towards the end of this calendar year,” Brown told WA Works in an exclusive interview.

“It will be done in phases, as we need to minimise the impact on operations,” he says. >

Facts on the fly Perth Airport: • generates 17,000 aviation and non-aviation jobs • inducted another 1238 new contractors last financial year, bringing the total to 6201 • Is owned and operated by Perth Airport Pty Ltd under a 99-year lease from the Federal Government • is serviced by 19 international and 13 domestic/regional airlines • contributes an estimated $3.66 billion per year to WA economy • spent $1b over the past seven years to unlock capacity and increase efficiency • increased domestic passenger numbers by 1.2 per cent last financial year to 9.3 million • saw international passenger numbers fall by 0.9 per cent.

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 25

Infrastructure

> “We certainly don’t want to degrade the efficiency of the airport, or the experience of our customers, so that’s why it will be done in a phased approach.

“We still have to maintain a 24/7 live business while we are constructing these (upgrades).

“It is not a greenfield site where you can put hoarding around it and the builders get on with it inside, we have to integrate this into the facilities — that makes it interesting,” he says.

The first phase will include three new international gates accessed through the existing terminal building. It will also provide new technology such as self-service bag drop;

improved board gate facilitation; new retail and food and beverage outlet layouts.

“Our aim is to provide smoother movement of passengers from kerbside to flight gate,” Brown says.

“It’s also a great opportunity to fix some of the issues with the current international terminal layout including bringing the lounges and retail areas together for a better customer experience and doing away with the need for passengers to traverse multiple flights of stairs to reach their flight.”

Perth Airport released the first images of the central hub in November and was fine-tuning the template as WA Works went to press.

Take-off for skybridge Contractor Georgiou is building a 280-metre long pedestrian skybridge at Perth Airport that will link the new airport railway station to the international Terminal forecourt.

It will provide an elevated and sheltered walkway across the main terminal car park, providing direct access to the T1 forecourt as well as access to T2.

The design will offer clear orientation and views across the terminal precinct.

Transport Minister Rita Saffioti says the cost is included in the $1.9 billion Forrestfield-Airport Link project total.

“This skybridge is a major step in ensuring that we make taking public transport to the airport as easy and user-friendly as possible for passengers,” she says.

Perth Airport CEO Kevin Brown says the development of Airport Central Station and the skybridge will link the central airport precinct with the new rail line.

“The skybridge will connect the station with current and future terminal infrastructure, and we will be looking at opportunities to create a ‘sense of place’ in the walkway which will offer visitors a great welcome to Western Australia,” he says.

“We expect our skybridge to be finished by March 2020.

“We’ll be on track with that and obviously look forward to the opening of the station after that.”

The first trains are due to run on the Forrestfield Line in the second half of 2021.

26 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

“The efficiency of what we are delivering is really important — we need to be mindful we are building something for the future and meeting the needs of the state and the travelling public,” he says.

More visitors Given the recent reports of a fall-off in international tourists travelling to WA, it may seem an odd time to be contemplating billions of dollars of expansion projects.

But Brown is steadfast, pointing out that the airport is playing a long-term game, with the infrastructure upgrades staged to coincide with forecast passenger increases from Europe and Asia driven by more direct flights and better connectivity.

“It is important that we provide the facilities to not only enable that growth, but also the service offerings, the amenity for our customers,” he says.

“We are the gateway to Perth and WA and beyond and it’s important that the first and last impression is fitting for the state.”

Brown insists that the image of Perth as an isolated city is more myth than fact.

“We’re in a very strong position,” he says.

“Seventeen of the 20 most populous cities in Asia are actually closer to Perth than they are to Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane. So when I hear people talking about us being remote — it’s far from it.”

And evidence of that “closeness” continues to pile up as several of the 19 international carriers operating out of Perth increased capacity last year for routes into Japan, China and India.

Infrastructure

More than just a runway

Artist’s impression of Perth Airport’s skybridge

But the real breakthrough came in March last year when Perth Airport made history with the inaugural Qantas direct flight from Perth to London.

This was followed nine months later by All Nippon Airways confirming it would begin daily direct flights between Tokyo and Perth from September 1, breaking an eight-year drought for non-stop flights on the route.

Brown says the ANA flights will enable about 140,000 passengers to fly directly on the Perth-Tokyo route. “We expect that the direct flights could stimulate that market growth by a further 40 per cent,” he says.

Seats went on sale in February and Tourism Minister Paul Papalia predicts the new route will see about 76,000 new visitors fly into Perth over the next three years.

More visitors could also be lured from other parts of Asia, with Perth Airport partnering with the State Government and Tourism WA in lobbying for direct flights to Shanghai and India.

Those extra visitors usually like to shop.

Employment at the airport was boosted last year by the opening of a new DFO (Direct Factory Outlet), which generated 750 retail and hospitality jobs. It also created a peak construction workforce of 600 during the 15-month build by Georgiou.

And a new Costco warehouse is due to begin construction this year just off Tonkin Highway, adjacent to the new DFO and close to the new Redcliffe rail station.

The $55 million building will be 14,000 square metres — more than three times the

size of a normal supermarket, and include an optical centre, hearing aid centre, tyre centre and a petrol station.

The Costco project is expected to generate up to 200 jobs during construction with up to 275 retail position created when it becomes operational next year.

“We are, obviously, an airport but also a property development business,” Brown says.

“We have significant vacant land holdings on the airport — our campus is 2105 hectares.

“That’s probably bigger than what you’d think of as the Perth CBD, so it is a significant land mass that is well connected, not just by the Gateway Road project, but soon-to-be Forrestfield Airport Link.”

This increased connectivity and improvements — badly needed after the frustrations of many passengers and airlines during the hectic mining boom years — haven’t gone unnoticed.

In March, airlines rated Perth Airport as the nation’s best major airport in the latest Australian Consumer and Competition Commission (ACCC) monitoring report. The airport also took the honours for the best overall quality of service (airline and passenger combined) for the second year running.

The ACCC found that airline ratings of the airport’s overall quality of service had now increased for six years in a row, with a “significant” improvement over the past three years, coinciding with significant investment in the terminals.

If Brown’s vision holds true, that quality upgrade will be just the first of many as the new-look airport takes shape.

Perth Airport is planning a $520 million third runway but the timing depends on how fast flight numbers rebound after WA’s post mining boom slowdown.

At the peak of the Pilbara construction boom in 2013, annual flight numbers at the airport were about 151,000, often resulting in delays to airlines and passengers.

However, activity has tailed off significantly since then — in 2017-18 total flight movements (either a landing or take-off) were clocked at 129,931.

Nevertheless, Perth Airport says its existing runways still reach capacity during peak periods, resulting in flight delays.

The timing of the new runway rests on passenger forecasts, “but it will be somewhere between 2024 and 2028 that it needs to be open”, says Perth Airport CEO Kevin Brown.

“We have to factor in a four-and-a-half-year efficient build program to deliver the runway in that timeframe, so we are watching very closely the passenger numbers,” he says.

“Obviously we are very pleased to see that they are starting to go in the right direction again, with the pick-up in the mining and exploration sector across WA.” The new 3000m-long runway will occupy 293 hectares and run parallel to the existing main runway, with a two-kilometre separation so that both can be used independently.

In addition to the civil works, technical elements related to aircraft landing and navigation systems will be installed and flight testing will be undertaken, it says.

Aside from the actual runway, the project involves: • nine kilometres of taxiways • runway and taxiway ground lighting • visual guidance systems, such as high intensity approach lighting and precision approach-path indicators • air navigation systems • a vehicle-access road around the perimeter • new airside security fence and electronic security system • new airside and landside emergency vehicle staging area • realignment of Perth Airport’s two main drainage channels to manage stormwater and groundwater flows • provision of additional Aviation Rescue and Fire Fighting (ARFF) facilities • relocation of all affected services such as high-voltage power, sewer, potable water, irrigation water and communications.

Perth Airport says a decision on the future of the existing cross runway will be made once the new runway is operational and there is a possibility that it will close.

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 27

Infrastructure

The opportunity to help build half of the world’s biggest radio telescope on a remote Murchison station is edging closer

By Stephen Bell

N

ational science agency CSIRO says the design of WA infrastructure needed for the $1 billion Square Kilometre Array astronomy project has finished, opening the way for procurement to begin next year.

The SKA Infrastructure Australia consortium, led by CSIRO and industry partner Aurecon, has designed everything from supercomputing facilities, buildings, site monitoring and roads, to the power and data fibre distribution.

The infrastructure will eventually support the world’s largest radio telescope, made up of thousands of antennas to be located both in the Murchison region of WA and South Africa.

CSIRO SKA Infrastructure Consortium Director Antony Schinckel told WA Works that initial construction is scheduled for the end of next year.

“Some aspects of procurement will begin in early 2020, but some won’t occur till 2021 and after,” he says.

28 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

“As you can imagine with 12 countries involved, all of them want some expenditure back in their own country, so the procurement will be complex.”

But he expects that WA businesses will have some “very real” opportunities to participate in the program.

“Partnerships will be important, especially with the Wajarri people,” Schinckel says.

“While we all focus on construction, remember that this is a 50-year project and the operations costs each year are such that the expenditure in operations quickly outweighs that of construction.

“And local companies are even better situated for some aspects of the ongoing maintenance and operations work.”

Schinckel says SKA is expected to explore the universe in unprecedented detail, doing so hundreds of times faster than any current facility.

“We’re setting the groundwork to host 132,000 low-frequency SKA antennas in Australia — these will receive staggering amounts of data.

“The data flows will be on the scale of petabits, or a million billion bits, per second — more than the global internet rate today, all flowing into a single building in the Murchison.

“To get this data from the antennas to the telescope’s custom supercomputing facilities we need to lay 65,000 fibre optic cables.”

In designing the support infrastructure, CSIRO and Aurecon engineers drew on their experience working on the design for the Australian SKA Pathfinder telescope, CSIRO’s 36-dish radio telescope that is already operating at the Murchison Radio-astronomy observatory.

Turn the radio down “From an infrastructure perspective, one of the biggest challenges we have is maintaining the radio quiet nature of the site,” says SKA Infrastructure Consortium Director Rebecca Wheadon.

“The signals we are listening for are so faint, that the slightest noise from an emitting piece of equipment here on the ground, can interfere with the instrument from working properly.

“There is an irony that the computing facility needed to run the instrument is the biggest source of interference.

“So, we needed to design a fully radio shielded

Infrastructure

(L to R) SKA team members Anthony Schinckel, Rebecca Wheadon, David Luchetti and Shandip Abeywickrema

building that prevents the radio signals getting out whilst making thousands of penetrations into the building for the fibre and power to get in, and still have a way for people to get in and out of the building safely.

“All this, and the services still need to be accessible and maintainable. It has been a very interesting design challenge.”

Wheadon says there are also several unique quality requirements required in the construction of SKA, which has necessitated a modular design.

scientific discoveries in history have been in the application of a technology designed for something else.

For instance, radio astronomy was discovered trying to understand the cause of static on long distance radio transmissions and the microwave oven was developed as a part of a radar technology program.

“Who knows how we can repurpose the developments of the SKA,” she says.

“The SKA will be a step change in the amount of data produced, collected, combined and distributed from a single point.

“We have designed a radio sensitive supercomputing facility with the ability to filter radio noise down to negligible levels.

“Somewhere in there will be an application that combines these concepts into something else, something medical perhaps? The next step after Cloud computing?

A new way to reduce energy consumption?

Artificial/virtual intelligence? Millimetre-precise wayfinding?

“I am sure in 40 years’ time we will be having a very different conversation about the SKA. I am just glad to have been a part of the pioneering process,” Wheadon says.

“We’re setting the groundwork to host 132,000 low-frequency SKA antennas” “The modules can be built offsite and quality tested without the environmental challenges of construction in the desert,” she says. “Then they will be put on the back of a truck and assembled onsite.”

The SKA team believe that some of the novel design solutions will eventually find applications in many fields beyond radio astronomy.

It is difficult to pinpoint them, but Wheadon points out that some of the most fortuitous

While the CSIRO-Aurecon team has been working on the designs for Australia, a second consortium has designed the infrastructure for the South African SKA site.

This design work was funded by the Federal Government and the European Union.

Once all the design packages are complete and approved, a critical design review for the entire SKA system will take place ahead of a construction proposal being developed.

Built like a submarine The SKA fits perfectly into the definition of “big science”, an international project involving a dozen countries and infrastructure on two different continents.

So, how did WA leap to the front of the queue in getting half of the project built here? It is one of the least populated, “radio-quiet” areas in the southern hemisphere.

The area of the Murchison desert scrub housing SKA has an estimated 114 residents, yet is the size of the Netherlands with a population of about 25 million.

Thus, no mobile phones, no phone towers, no digital modems streaming Netflix — perfect for a massive radio telescope listening for extremely faint echoes of the Big Bang.

Ironically, this means the supercomputer needed to process SKA’s vast amounts of data is the biggest source of radio interference (see main story).

The need to shield the computer from the rest of the site resulted in a unique design challenge, says SKA Infrastructure Consortium Director Rebecca Wheadon.

“The design is effectively a fully welded box within a box; with the computing equipment contained within the inner shield.

“Probably one of my favourite parts of the computing facility is the RFI (radio frequency interference) doors.

“These are the doors that allow access to the inner shield.

“They look a bit like a submarine door; they are very sturdy, but surprisingly easy to manipulate.

“To gain access, there is a double door situation where one activates the doors from within a void between the two shields.”

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 29

Infrastructure

Ports of call It’s the multi-billion dollar question for WA’s supply chain: what will the State Government choose as its blueprint for Perth port developments over the next five decades?

T

he answer could be with us as soon as September, when the Westport taskforce is due to deliver its final recommendations to the State Labor Government after two years of studies.

It will be a landmark moment, with Westport’s recommendations to shape the future of freight movements for Fremantle, Kwinana and Bunbury as the WA population rapidly grows.

And, importantly for WA’s supply chain, the final report will help the Government address the timing of a future major port, alongside its precise location, size and operating model.

Westport independent chair Nicole Lockwood, who also chairs the Freight and Logistics Council of WA, is juggling many balls in choosing her recommendations, including whether to deindustrialise Fremantle and move its containers and bulk freight to either Kwinana or Bunbury.

Along with this possibility, she is considering several other options shortlisted since Westport was established in September 2017 as a response to the McGowan Government cancelling the $450 million Roe 8 road project.

These include: • leaving things unchanged • transitioning to either Kwinana or Bunbury as freight and transport hubs

30 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

• share containers between Fremantle and either Kwinana or Bunbury • removing only bulk cargo from Fremantle.

“This project is about addressing the problem of congestion within our current freight network so that we’ve adequately planned for capacity for the future,” Lockwood says.

“This is for what we currently have, and also for new and emerging industries like defence, lithium and range of other heavy industrial uses.”

Whatever Lockwood decides, it’s no secret the State Labor Government has been in favour

of building an outer harbour in Kwinana, and the work done so far has shown the availability of land and road and rail access make it a good choice to accommodate bulk, general cargo and containers.

It has been estimated that, in addition to a current throughput of 23.6 million tonnes, upgrades to the existing facilities would increase the capacity in the short-term, plus the addition of up to 6 million twenty-foot equivalent (TEU) containers a year.

But for this to happen, Kwinana would need integrated rail access, intermodal facilities, efficient transport links, bulk handling facilities and other storage alternatives to maximise supply chain efficiency.

Lockwood, who leads a Westport steering committee comprising six government department heads and the chairs of the Planning Commission and Fremantle Ports, says connections in and out of WA’s ports is one of the limiting factors preventing existing port capacity from being unlocked.

“Kwinana has a fantastic land precinct adjacent to what could be some new facilities there,” she says.

“It also has the ability in the future to unlock capacity that is already there with several

What’s next for Fremantle Port?

jetties, rail and road that need immediate work done to them.

Adding weight to speculation the Government will look to move the bulk of the freight task away from Fremantle was the recent formation of a steering group to oversee plans to develop Victoria Quay as a people-oriented waterfront precinct.

Regional Development Minister Alannah MacTiernan and Transport Minister Rita Saffioti said the steering group’s brief would include land usage options in identified precincts, the needs of the working port and how to better link Fremantle CBD to Victoria Quay, across the rail line.

They said the group’s work builds on the recently completed $3.25 million makeover of the Fremantle Passenger Terminal, which receives visiting cruise ships.

“Clearly for Fremantle, we need to look at what the opportunities are for that area in the future. We are very interested in unlocking Victoria Quay and the southern side of the port,” Lockwood says.

Fremantle is seen as already highly productive, handling 1003 ships and 769,686 TEU containers last year.

It is estimated this port could potentially handle more than double this number of

containers and more passenger ships.

In comparison Bunbury Port had 450 ship visits with 16.7 million tonnes of throughput in the previous financial year — with zero capacity to handle containers.

Fremantle Ports’ Outer Harbour at Kwinana has previously been estimated as costing up to $6 billion and is likely to entail thousands of jobs over many years for the southern industrial strip.

It will also become the hub for the majority of the state’s grain harvest for the next 50 to 100 years.

With this option, Fremantle would initially transport its bulk freight to Kwinana or Bunbury and a container port at Kwinana would eventually share, then take over, Fremantle’s containers.

Fremantle would develop into a passenger port and Bunbury would become a container, bulk and passenger facility.

The main components of the Kwinana option are the construction of an automated port facility — containing three two-berth container terminals and one two-berth general cargo terminal, and an intermodal facility.

A network of upgraded and new roads would service port facilities. This would mean upgrades at the intersection of Russell Road and Rockingham Road and Rowley and Anketell Roads.

To ease congestion on the busy Kwinana Rail Loop, upgrades to double gauge on various stretches of the single rail line are also being considered.

Alternatively, the report says an Inner Harbour at Fremantle could theoretically increase port functions, through berth and infrastructure upgrades, to accommodate bigger vessels up to 13,000 twenty-foot equivalent units. If infrastructure was upgraded, it would have the capacity to cater for significant increases in bulk trades, passenger vessels and a container trade.

This option would also require major road improvements to alleviate congestion on High Road and other major connections, as well as another line added to the rail bridge over the Swan River.

Bunbury has been recognised for its ability to handle agricultural and resources commodities with good road infrastructure to Perth.

But this option requires significant infrastructure to be upgraded to have the capacity to cater for increases in bulk trades, passenger vessels and container trade. Rail is also a limiting factor with a single rail line between Bunbury and Mundijong and many passing loops likely to cause delays.

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 31

C

ivmec and Total Marine Technology are the early winners from a new $388 million Defence contract to build a state-of-the-art submarine rescue service at Henderson.

Defence Minister Christopher Pyne announced the award in March to US-based Phoenix International, saying the service will support both the Collins submarines and the yet-to-be-built Attack Class submarines for the next 25-plus years.

Civmec will build a Submarine Rescue Facility (SRF) at the Australian Marine Complex (AMC) to house the new rescue vessel and support facilities, while Bibra Lake-based Total Marine will design and fabricate a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) as part of Phoenix’s contract.

The acquisition phase will run for four years and is valued at $255m, which includes the cost of building the SRF, Defence says.

Defence Issues Minister Paul Papalia

32 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

says it is expected to generate 70 jobs, with the deal aligning with the McGowan Government’s commitment to developing WA as the principal location for submarine maintenance and sustainment.

operations,” Papalia says.

Phoenix says the Submarine Rescue Service (SRS) contract includes: • Design and construction of the facility for training of rescue personnel and

“Aligns with the McGowan Government’s commitment to develop WA as the principal location for submarine maintenance and sustainment” Phoenix has established an office within the State Government-owned AMC. “Defence West is now working with Phoenix and other key stakeholders to develop purpose-built facilities for its

RAN submariners, storage of all submarine escape and rescue equipment, and mobilisation of the Phoenix Australia team in the event of a disabled submarine casualty.

Navy rescue unit to anchor in Henderson WA industry will feature prominently in Defence’s four-year contract to build a submarine rescue service, writes Stephen Bell

• Design and fabrication of a 600-metre (depth) capable Remotely Operated Rescue Vehicle (RORV); the design will be a joint effort between Phoenix Australia in WA, Phoenix International in Largo, Maryland, USA, and Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) in San Antonio, Texas; fabrication and outfitting of the RORV will primarily take place in WA at the facility.

• Design and fabrication of a shallow water Submarine Rescue Bell (SRB); like the RORV the design will be a joint effort by Phoenix Australia, Phoenix International, and SwRI with outfitting of the vehicle in WA at the facility.

• Design and fabrication of a robust Launch and Recovery System (LARS), which will launch and recover both the RORV and SRB and will fit on a variety of ships to support a rapid response to a disabled submarine casualty; Melbourne based Thrust Maritime will design and fabricate the LARS.

• Design and fabrication of complete Transfer Under Pressure (TUP)/ hyperbaric suite for decompression of rescued submariners; Sydney-based HI Fraser and subcontractor Drass, will design and fabricate this system in Livorno, Italy, at the HI Fraser facility in WA, and at the facility.

• Design and fabrication of a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) by Total Marine, which will also apply its design expertise to the control systems for the RORV and SRB. Phoenix International is the primary contractor for the operation and maintenance of the US Navy’s submarine rescue systems.

Phoenix Australia Program Director Ian Milliner says he expects to engage additional Australian companies, especially in WA, as the acquisition program progresses.

“In excess of 80 per cent of the acquisition phase of the contract will be carried out

by Australian companies, demonstrating

existing and further expanding Australia’s engineering and industrial capabilities,” he says.

A Defence spokesperson told WA Works the SRS will be deployable both by sea and by air.

“The system is modular and comprises technology to locate a submarine in the event of an incident; enable transfer of the submarine’s crew to a rescue vessel; and allow hyperbaric and medical treatment of rescued submariners,” the spokesperson says.

The system will be accepted into operational service in 2022, becoming one of four air transportable systems in the world, Defence says.

While the primary mission is to deliver a rescue capability for Australia’s submarine fleet, the system will also be capable of supporting other submarine operating nations in distress through the use of the NATO standard escape hatch.

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 33

Defence

Fighting fit Maintaining the warfighting capability of Royal Australian Navy Anzac class frigates is front and centre for BAE Systems Project Manager Karen Burke, who shared her insights into running the major project with Robyn Molloy

M

id-life upgrades for Australia’s eight Anzac class warships is the largest program of its type ever undertaken by the Royal Australian Navy — and most of it is taking place at BAE Systems’ Henderson shipyard in WA’s Australian Marine Complex.

Ship number two on the schedule — HMAS Anzac — had been virtually stripped bare when WA Works walked through, with the hull removed and a new one manufactured onsite, communications systems removed and the major refit well underway.

The Anzac Midlife Capability Assurance Program (AMCAP) sits within the $2 billion Warship Asset Management Agreement (WAMA) Alliance between BAE Systems, SAAB Australia, Naval Ship Management and the Australian Government for works undertaken on the frigates from 2016 to 2024.

Works include improving habitability of each vessel for crews, replacements and upgrades of air search radar capability (SEA 1448) and upgrades to communications systems to fix obsolescence issues (SEA 1442).

As part of WAMA, BAE’s role also includes asset management in Rockingham and platform engineering and integration support in Williamstown, Victoria.

HMAS Arunta was first to undock late last year and will start sea trials mid-this year; HMAS Anzac is due to undock later this

34 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

year; HMAS Warramunga will arrive mid-year; followed by HMAS Perth, which is currently docked and being assessed.

While the program is already underway, BAE Systems Project Manager Karen Burke says there are always supply chain opportunities for WA businesses to become involved in the defence programs.

“BAE Systems directly engages 35 to 40 local SMEs and puts circa $40m into the WA economy, as a result of the AMCAP program,” she says.

“Upwards of 100 local organisations are involved in our broader (Henderson) business supply chain and more than 70 SMEs have pre-qualified their involvement in the Hunter class frigate program.”

The $35b Hunter class frigates, set to start construction next year, will replace the ageing Anzac fleet with BAE Systems subsidiary ASC Shipbuilding awarded the head contract late last year.

Burke already has an intimate knowledge of the Anzac class, having seen each of the eight Anzac vessels undergo the Anti-Ship Missile Defence (AMSD) upgrade between 2011-17 as an assistant project manager.

She is also production manager for SEA 1442 — the multi-phase project to upgrade the communications systems and equipment on all Anzac class ships. She thrives on the complexity of such a large project. >

Defence

Able Seaman Boatswains Mate Autumn Nicholas 2019Dent WA WORKS throws 35 a heaving line to the wharf as HMAS Anzac arrives in Singapore during their South East Asia Deployment. Image courtesy Commonwealth of Australia

Defence

HMAS Anzac and HMAS Perth at BAE Systems in Henderson. Photographs – Robyn Molloy

> Biggest of its kind “The work being undertaken on the ANZAC fleet is the biggest project of its kind undertaken for the RAN. Success on this project will mean the fleet is both available and capable for any operational requirements until the new Hunter Class frigates come into service,” she says.

“Working as part of an Integrated Project Team including the people who will operate these ships has helped me to appreciate a variety of perspectives on such massive projects.

“I love the interaction with all the different functions, such as production, finance, quality, etc, and understanding the activities that each are responsible for. I find it interesting that within the projects I have been involved in there is a tangible end product delivered to the customer.”

Burke says there is one team working across the whole ship with responsibility for the master schedule and the work required on each vessel varies depending on where they have been deployed.

“The refit stages generally consist of fabrication, rip out, installation and in water set to work. Generally, there is one project manager and one ship manager for each ship, however, there are a number of project managers on AMCAP to deliver on specific scopes of work.

“During the AMCAP availability, a condition assessment is undertaken by the customer so that any additional work required can be then contracted and undertaken at the same time. For example, deck corrosion and additional capability enhancements that the Navy may require for that ship.”

Burke works closely with the ship manager to review overall progress with weekly reports generated for customer meetings.

“During refits, there are generally a lot of queries with regard to scope, so a lot of time is spent investigating and resolving these.

I attend regular meetings with internal and

36 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

external stakeholders covering a variety of subjects ranging from production, scheduling and finance.”

All rounders She says each member of her team has a diverse skill set.

“The production team’s primary role is the fabrication, installation and commissioning of new systems and technologies that will increase the capabilities of the ships (going through the AMCAP).

“This ranges from welding and running cabling to installing new equipment into the ships. Our project management office on a daily basis deals with management of schedule, finance and production control. This involves updating the schedules as work is completed, a range of administration tasks as you’d expect on a project this size and the delivery of materials to enable the production team to deliver the scope of work.”

Burke says managing the overall schedule, which includes integrating new scopes of work, is a challenge with the most interesting aspect, “delivering a good product to the people who will sail these mighty ships”.

“Their ability to do their job depends on us and we’re proud to support the men and women of the RAN,” she says.

“With the AMCAP program, you can see

BAE Systems Project Manager Karen Burke

changes every day which is really energising and helps you remained focused. The new systems are modernised and are more efficient, and it’s clear to see when comparing before and after.”

“Success for me is delivering on time and on budget and that is a strong focus for me and my team.”

Once the AMCAP is complete, the ship returns to active service but will continue to undergo a maintenance cycle, until the Hunter class frigates are phased in.

“The Navy is currently looking at future requirements necessary for the ANZAC ships to be sustained until the Hunter Class frigates replace them,” she said.

While Burke is firmly planted in ship sustainment, she started at BAE Systems 12 years ago in the United Kingdom as a graduate in the air business unit within the Nimrod MRA4 bid team.

“The Nimrod MRA4 was a planned maritime patrol and attack aircraft intended to replace the Nimrod MR2. After that I moved to the Maritime business unit, where I have spent most of my time since.”

Burke has worked in various project management roles across the UK including the Trinidad and Tobago Offshore Patrol Vessels, Oman Ocean Patrol Vessels and finally the Queen Elizabeth Aircraft Carrier Project, before moving to Australia.

History of HMAS Anzac • Launched in 1994 and commissioned in 1996, it’s the lead ship of the eight Anzac class frigates and the third RAN vessel to take the name Anzac in honour of the troops who landed at Gallipoli in 1915.

• The 3600-tonne frigate is 118m long and almost 15m at the beam.

• It was deployed to Iraq in 2003 where it supported the British in an assault off the Iraqi coast in the Iraq war.

• HMAS Perth, the final of the Anzac class frigates, was commissioned in August 2006.

• HMAS Arunta commissioned in December 1998.

• The Anzac class includes eight ships and was based on a German design.

STATE BUDGET BREAKFAST FRIDAY 10 MAY 2019

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As the peak body representing WA business, CCIWA will once again host the State’s major business event. WA’s Premier, the Hon. Mark McGowan MLA, and Treasurer, the Hon. Ben Wyatt MLA, will outline what the 2019-20 State Budget will mean for WA’s businesses, households and the wider economy.

Join us for breakfast and the opportunity to ask the Treasurer your questions as part of our audience Q&A, which will be facilitated by CCIWA Chief Economist Rick Newnham.

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Defence bridge for L3 growth A fast-growing Fremantle contractor is making waves in the nation’s defence industry

By Stephen Bell

T

he prospects for local defence work are “multiplying” as the Department of Defence starts cranking up its $195 billion renewal program, says one of Australia’s up-and-coming defence contractors.

L3 Oceania, which provides technology to Defence programs such as the Navy’s Offshore Patrol Vessels (OPVs) and the Army’s Night Fighting Equipment, grew its workforce by nearly a third last year, says Managing Director Eve Clark.

And the company, which started in Fremantle about 30 years ago by a small group of engineers, is gearing up for more jobs, Clark told WA Works in an exclusive interview.

“There are new opportunities everywhere you look,” she says.

“Space is expanding in Australia so that is another new area of technology that we’d like to get into, plus there are aerospace

38 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

programs, army programs, the list goes on.”

However, the company’s core business remains support of the Collins submarines based out of Fleet Base West at Garden Island.

“We’re very much a defence-based company, doing a lot of work for Department of Defence — all the submarines are based out of WA,” Clark said.

“We’ve really been growing a lot in the last several years, up 30 per cent last year, so now we’re a hundred employees — we have some in Queensland, but the majority are based here in Fremantle.”

The growth phase is rich reward for the home-grown contractor, which helped pioneer noise assessment technology for the Collins submarines in the late 1990s when the company was still known as Nautronix.

Nowadays it provides several core technologies to military customers here and overseas having decided to specialise in defence more than a decade ago when most small

WA companies were jumping on board the resources boom.

“By now customers trust us — we get opportunities to expand into different areas,” Clark says.

“A lot of it has been the Federal Government, now with the defence spending and all the new naval shipbuilding programs. We have a part in each of those, which gives us a lot of opportunities.”

More prospects are generated via its parent, US-based defence and aerospace company L3 Technologies.

Clark travelled to the US last year to catch up with executives from the various L3 group companies. Having learned more about L3 Oceania’s capabilities, they are now eager to bring several of their products into Australia via L3 Oceania, she says.

One of L3 Oceania’s core growth areas is the Navy’s $4 billion OPV program, which recently started construction in South Australia before it moves to Henderson in WA early next year.

The company sub-contracts to Prime Contractor Luerssen on the OPV build.

“L3 Oceania is providing an Integrated Bridge

Defence

System for the OPVs so that the electronic charts, radar and other ship data are provided in a more cohesive form to the users,” Clark says.

The company also supports the hydrographic chart data collection system on the Survey Motor Launches based in Cairns and provides systems and data analysis for ship/submarine signature management.

And the Army is an important customer after L3 Oceania won a $307 million contract in 2016 to provide in-country management and support of the new Night Fighting Equipment in Brisbane, while it also supports the Army’s

portable satellite equipment in the same location.

“Each of these defence projects includes some engineering support from our Fremantle office,” she says.

Outside of defence, L3 Oceania specialises in maritime surveillance devices useful to resources companies.

“We take data from radars and other sensors, and link a camera into that, and it helps to protect oil and gas rigs,” she says.

“There is one of those up in Darwin — Inpex has an installation up there that uses our system — but also in the Middle East, we have exported it to the UAE and Saudi Arabia.”

Clark says the current growth spurt will test the company’s systems and culture.

“You have to be able to bring the people in, and have them understand the technology, which is quite complex,” she says.

“And you want them to be able to get them to deliver fairly quickly — the customers don’t really give you leeway if you say, ‘I’m on a three or six-month learning curve’.”

“So that is a challenge, but at the same time new people bring in new ideas — there is a lot of capable people in WA. “For a lot of things you don’t have to be on the east coast or somewhere else — you just have to be able to build the smart technology and people will come to you to give you the business.”

The cutting-edge nature of most of the work makes it easier to attract and retain talented employees for long periods, she says.

“We go out to the universities, we do have internships through Defence, and some of the other defence companies get to know what we do and are interested in working for us when we have opportunities as well.

“And retaining them, people don’t leave our company — once they are here they find the work interesting and WA’s a good place to be, why would they go over to the east coast?”

After rising through the ranks to the top role, Clark is proof of that, having joined the company 15 years ago as a project manager with experience working on the Collins

submarines in Australia and in the North American engineering space.

After starting part-time while raising her son, Clark worked on various programs L3 Oceania in her early years. “Our managing director at the time moved to the east coast so I was really running a lot of the day-to-day operational aspects from here, and when he left the company at the start of last year, I moved to the managing director role,” she says.

World’s deepest tweet

Director James Cameron is probably best known for his Terminator, Titanic and Avatar movies, but he’s also enjoyed considerable success as an underwater explorer.

And L3 Oceania once played a key role in the movie maker’s ‘second career’ by helping produce what Managing Director Eve Clark fondly calls the world’s deepest tweet.

It was generated in 2012, when Cameron descended 14km in a small submersible to the bottom of the Marianas Trench in the Western Pacific Ocean.

“Just arrived at the ocean’s deepest pt. (point),” he tweeted. “Hitting bottom never felt so good.”

Clark says the only way Cameron could talk to anybody on the surface was through L3’s technology. “It was important for him, and his wife was very happy to hear from him,” she recalls.

“We had L3 modems on the submersible that did the dive and hydrophones on a surface support vessel, so when James Cameron reached the bottom his voice communication was transmitted up to the surface via the modems using ‘through water’ communications.

“In effect it works like a mobile phone message without any wires connecting the sender and receiver. We called it a tweet as the length of message is limited.”

L3 Oceania had a project manager, several electronic engineers and field support engineers working for several months as part of Cameron’s team to prepare for the dive.

And the L3 team was present when James Cameron did the historic dives to the trench.

“It was a very competitive atmosphere as James Cameron thought Richard Branson was competing to get to the bottom of the Marianas Trench first,” Clark recalls.

“So the whole support team had to be on site to fix any issues quickly.”

The successful Marianas campaign came after Cameron’s famous dives in 1995 to the RMS Titanic wreck on the bottom of the North Atlantic Ocean, which proved to be the genesis of his blockbuster Hollywood movie two years later.

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 39

Major Projects List

More projects to the rescue The value of the latest batch of major projects tops $3b

By Stephen Bell

W

hether defence rescue, offshore gas or rare earths, there is plenty for the supply chain to get its teeth into in WA Works’ latest Major Projects list.

Seven new ventures identified for this issue amount to at least $3.4 billion in planned investment across the state — four in the metropolitan area and the others in the regions.

Even so, the total figure may understate the value of this latest batch by billions of dollars, as Shell is yet to publish the estimated capital expenditure for its Crux gas project off the Kimberley coast.

Indeed, it is possible the energy giant may not release an estimate for Crux, given it has never published an official cost forecast for Prelude — the giant floating LNG plant that Crux will backfill as its production begins tapering off in the mid-2020s.

Nevertheless, Crux amounts to a substantial project, possibly extending into multi-billions of dollars, involving design and installation of a ‘not normally manned’ platform that will be remotely operated from Prelude about 165 kilometres away.

Shell plans to make a final investment decision mid-next year and recently called for expressions of interest (EOI) on the CCI-run ICN Gateway site for Crux’s three key work packages: topsides, jackets and piles, and subsea and pipelines.

The project will be installed in water depths of about 170 metres and tied back to Prelude — which is in the early stages of production — via a 165-kilometre export pipeline.

Crux has started front-end engineering and design (FEED) after Shell awarded Wood the sought-after contract early this year.

Gorgon’s Jansz-Io Compression (JIC) project for Gorgon LNG will also be a likely $2 billion-plus investment after operator Chevron and its joint venture partners awarded a FEED contract to Norway’s Aker Solutions.

The project is jet to be sanctioned, but JIC was part of the original development plan for Gorgon. It is needed to help maintain plateau gas production rates as the Jansz-Io reservoir pressure decreases over time.

In an Australian first, the technologically complex project will use subsea compression to enhance recovery of Jansz-Io to maintain long-term gas supply to the Chevron-operated LNG and domestic gas plants on Barrow Island.

magnets which drive the motors in electric vehicles and wind turbines.

It is also pleasing to see a new defence project pop up this issue in the form of a Submarine Rescue Service to be built and operated at Henderson’s Australian Marine Complex by US-based Phoenix International, which won the $388m contract from Defence.

The four-year acquisition phase amounts to $255m, which includes the cost of Civmec building a Submarine Rescue Facility to house the new rescue vessel and high-tech support facilities, while Bibra Lake-based Total Marine will design and fabricate a remotely operated vehicle (ROV) as part of Phoenix’s contract.

“Seven new ventures identified for this issue amount to at least $3.4 billion in planned investment across the state" The remaining five projects in this list cover a mix of road, defence, transport infrastructure, commercial office space, and rare earths.

The latter, Hastings Metals’ $427 million Yangibana project north of Carnarvon in the Gascoyne, is probably the most speculative of the new entries.

Nevertheless, Hastings is confident of starting construction of a processing facility and other above-ground infrastructure in the second half of this year, pending approval from the EPA. The company aims to produce a high proportion of neodymium and praseodymium — among the rare earth metals used in the

Meanwhile, the State Government’s effort to expand and improve rail networks continues via Metronet, with the $146 million Bayswater Station Upgrade the latest project to enter the tendering phase.

Contracts — including a new bridge, station, track work and civils — are expected to be awarded by Christmas.

Elsewhere in transport, the State Government announced that a $215 million extension of Mitchell Freeway 5.6km from Hester Avenue to Romeo Road at Alkimos, would start late next year.

The project will be jointly funded by the State and Federal Governments.

Footnote: the new list does not include two new mining projects on the horizon — Newmont’s $1b Tanami Expansion 2 (gold) and Arafura’s $1b Nolans (rare earths) — that will be of great interest to the WA supply chain.

However, both suffer the misfortune of not being in WA — they are based in the Northern Territory.

40 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

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Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 41

Defence

Storming

the skies With Australia’s space sector set to triple in the next decade, Defence wants to turbocharge its space capabilities by picking the brains of some of our best boffins, writes Stephen Bell

42 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

Defence

S

pace could be the final frontier for WA’s growing defence industry as our armed forces prepare to spend big on emerging technologies that are literally out of this world.

Defence needs innovation and commercialisation in fields such as automation, tracking, launch systems, communications and satellite imagery to keep Australia secure.

At the same time, thousands of new jobs are expected to be created as industry, academia and government collaborate on building our space capabilities.

The Federal Government established the Australian Space Agency (ASA) mid last year and funded it to the tune of $41 million, aimed at creating 20,000 jobs and tripling the size of the nation’s space sector to $12 billion by 2030.

This investment was on top of more than $300m in funding aimed at kick-starting the Australian industry and developing world-leading core satellite infrastructure.

Space junk, biological sensors and the impact of space tourism over the next 20 years were among the topics discussed by internationallyrecognised academics, industry and Defence leaders at a two-day Space Technologies symposium in Perth last month.

Four universities — Edith Cowan, Curtin, Murdoch and the University of Western Australia —co-hosted the symposium in partnership with Defence Science and Technology (DST) at the new Woodside building.

WA Works attended the event, described as “brain-storming on steroids” by one participant. A picture emerged that was both exciting and somewhat alarming.

For those of us civilians contemplating a ride into space courtesy of Elon Musk, Richard Branson or Jeff Bezos, it seems clear that near-Earth space is becoming increasingly crowded and dangerous because of the rapidly

growing number of commercial and government launches — mostly for deployment of satellites.

It is estimated that there were nearly 4987 satellites orbiting earth at this start of this year, an increase of 2.68 per cent compared with the end of April last year. And with the increasing popularity of cheap-to-launch CubeSats — miniaturised satellites as small as 10cm-square — the growth rate is set to rocket.

This activity is adding to a haze of fast-moving orbital space junk that is a danger to satellites, the International Space Station (ISS), and humans, especially once space tourism kicks into gear.

DST senior research scientist Travis Bessel told the symposium that current sensor technology in Australia is used to track objects orbiting earth that are greater than 10cm — about 29,000 objects in total.

“But there are a lot more objects smaller than this,” he said.

“From one centimetre to 10cm they predict there is about 700,000 objects,” Bessel said.

And from 1mm to 1cm there were potentially 170 million objects in space, he added.

A millimetre doesn’t sound like much but most of these very small objects are moving at 28,000 kilometres per hour. In 2016 a window on the International Space Station was chipped by a fleck of paint.

WA is vital in tracking the growing pile of debris.

Already WA houses the C-Band Space Surveillance Radar and will soon be home to the Space Surveillance Telescope. Both assets are owned by the US and positioned at the Harold E. Holt Naval Communications Station near Exmouth.

However, there remain major gaps in coverage and the ability to sound warnings. Defence believes there is a potential market opportunity for ground-based networks, which can provide more persistent coverage through a dispersed, wide-angle sensor network. >

Boon for business From an industry point of view, there is certainly plenty of excitement for space buffs ahead as Defence chases down emerging technologies.

It is looking at core areas including earth observation; communications, sensor network enabling; positioning, navigation and timing; and logistics (transport, storage, asset management and tracking).

The Federal Government’s 2016 Integrated Investment Program, released as part of the Defence White Paper, recommended nearly $12 billion in spending on key space-related technology improvements in coming decades: • $3-4 billion on satellite imagery capability from 2023 to 2039, • $1-2 billion on space situational awareness systems and radars from 2018 to 2033 • Up to $1 billion for position, navigation and timing capability through to 2033 • $2-3b on satellite and terrestrial communications through to 2029 • Just under $1b for Collins Class submarine communications through to 2024 • Up to $750m on maritime communications modernisation up to 2028 Australia is increasingly dependent on space-based systems to provide information and communication to support Defence operations and national security.

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 43

Defence > Phil Bland, a professor of planetary science at Curtin University, said the university is active in the ‘space situational awareness’ field through its existing Desert Fireball Network of robust digital cameras in the outback, used to track meteorites.

And Curtin recently teamed with aerospace giant Lockheed Martin in developing FireOpal, adapting the Desert Fireball technology to the tracking of orbiting satellites.

Developed in Australia and set to be expanded worldwide, the technology will also aim to provide an early warning system of potential problems affecting satellites and their interaction with space debris.

“FireOpal has the potential to be a disruptive technology in space situational awareness,” Bland said. “Essentially it is always on, some portion of it is always imaging the sky; its disruption tolerant — it’s a big network — it is persistent, you are seeing those objects all of the time.”

Pam Melroy, a former NASA Space Shuttle pilot and now director of space technology and policy at South Australian service company Nova Systems, said new Australian jobs could be created in attempting to resolve the “complicated” issue of space debris.

But with the amount of tracking data rising,

Government needed to let the market know what its intentions were in managing space junk.

“Are they going to buy the (raw) data or are they going to buy processed data?”

Melroy said. “Do they want a vertically-integrated industry or horizontal, where they have many new options of that they want to buy?”

Melroy, who in 2007 became one of only two women to command the Space Shuttle on a mission, said industry was trying to organise

Space giants “want to come and play” The Australian Space Agency expects increased international deals in the nation’s space sector after entering several key partnerships in its first nine months of existence.

In that time, the agency has signed cooperation agreements with the UK, French, Canadian and UAE Space Agencies, said ASA deputy head Anthony Murfett.

“These agreements are all about understanding where there are opportunities for us to engage and see where our industry can contribute to international missions,” he said.

The ASA also signed agreements with commercial giants Airbus, Sitael and Lockheed Martin and, following on from the Avalon International Airshow in Victoria earlier this year, “I think we’ll see more coming forward”.

Even resources companies are coming to the party. Last month Woodside and the ASA agreed to collaborate on improving the competitiveness of Australian industry and promoting transfer of technology between the space sector and other industries.

“What is becoming really clear to the industry and the international community is that Australia has a significant role that we can play,” Murfett said.

Australia had a huge automation sector developed for the mining industry, which operated in conditions that were very similar, or could be translated to, the space domain.

“As we start to have those very clear conversations and articulate how Australia could play a role, we are not only getting interest, people want to come and play with us.”

The agency’s arrival came at an eventful time, with NASA recently landing a new Mars Rover via its InSight mission, China’s Chang’e 4 probe landing on the far side of the moon, and Space X successfully docking a trial passenger capsule with the International Space Station.

44 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

around “multiple business models, which means they are going to start arguing with each other about the right way to go forward”.

“That will only confuse the Government about what the right thing to do is.”

Melroy said she’d like to see the Australian Government become the customer for “all the data”.

“And I’d want those companies to sell the specialised, advanced services to the commercial companies that need them,” she said. “There is a great business model around that, but the Government does need to get its act together.”

New technologies to deal with space junk could be one of the symposium’s outcomes, which will be collated in a “Big Picture Assessment Report” developed through the workshop contributions of all attendees.

Dale Quinn, DST’s group leader of concepts and futures, said it had taken about 12 months to develop the space technology theme, develop it using experts in the field and then host the conference.

“After this we have an in-house workshop where we sit down with our Defence colleagues and work through some of the concepts that have come out,” he told WA Works on the sidelines of the symposium.

“By mid-year we would like to have had that meeting, and that’s when they’ll really get their teeth into which of the technology themes could be taken forward,” he said.

“That then leads to things that can directly be picked up by Defence, potentially.

“It is also aimed at informing some of our big research programs — we have the chief of our ISR (Intelligence, Reconnaissance and Surveillance) here in the audience and he is leading the space theme for the Next Generations Technology fund.

“So he would like to take some of the key outcomes, thoughts and players from this and feed them into that program, which has a five to 10-year life.”

Minister’s Memo

Karen Andrews

The Space Science and Technology Centre at Curtin University is home to the largest planetary research group in the southern hemisphere.

Lockheed Martin has partnered with Curtin to create the FireOpal project, which is an adaption of the Desert Fireball project. It uses a range of sensors to track satellites and space debris.

“Government invests in space activities because space impacts on the broader economy”

Array of projects prove WA is light years ahead WA’s role in the Federal Government push to grow the nation’s space industry is off to a flying start, writes Karen Andrews

W

e all know the possibilities in space are endless and for Western Australia the chance to play a major role in expanding our nation’s opportunities in space is just as big.

Take the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), which will be located in the WA outback and South Africa and will be the world’s largest telescope, as just one example.

The Liberal National Government has invested $293 million in this international project, which highlights our importance on the global stage and the world class abilities of our scientists.

The SKA reached a significant milestone in February with the completion of infrastructure designs. The designs include about 210km

of power supply and fibre optic trenching for the telescope’s array of 132,000 individual antennas; 200km of access tracks; and an onsite high-performance computing centre with radio-frequency shielding.

The designs were completed by a CSIRO-led Infrastructure Australia consortium, one of 12 groups worldwide designing specific aspects of the SKA. It takes impressive engineering skills to overcome the challenges presented by a project of this technicality and scale in the West Australian outback, but rest assured, the job will be done.

This is just one element of a deep connection between WA and the space sector.

This includes a collection of cameras across WA and South Australia which track meteoroids and record meteorite falls, a network which has the potential to be commercialised as a space situational awareness capability.

CSIRO is providing maintenance and operational support for the European Space Agency’s deep space tracking station at New Norcia — a first for Australia which demonstrates our nation’s strengths in contributing to global space activities.

Perth-headquartered Woodside has partnered with NASA on one of only three Robonauts worldwide to advance technology that will increase safety on remote operations, in space or on earth, as part of a five-year collaboration.

The Liberal National Government invests in space activities because space impacts on the broader economy, creating prosperity and jobs for Australians.

It is also a growing market and an important part of our structural transition to a high-tech future.

The Coalition is proud of establishing the Australian Space Agency, which has been allocated $41 million over four years, including $15m to support international projects.

Its purpose is to transform and grow a globally respected Australian space industry that lifts the economy and inspires and improves the lives of Australians.

For us to achieve that goal and see lift-off for our space sector, we need all states to play a role.

Karen Andrews is the Federal Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 45

Ebbs and flows Robyn Molloy finds out what’s next for the Henderson company that manufactured the world’s largest trimaran superyacht?

46 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

Construction

W

hen an 84-metre, superyacht with an opulence beyond imagination set sail for Singapore late last year, Echo Yachts Director Mark Stothard was unconcerned by the void in the Henderson yacht yard.

Being nimble in the superyacht manufacturing game is something he’s well used to.

The White Rabbit Golf trimaran with a 19-metre beam, four-storey lift and oozing luxury at every turn, was the longest project Stothard had ever been involved in since he started in the industry more than three decades ago.

Ironically, when the global financial crisis and downturn was being hardest felt by WA in 2014, Echo Yachts picked up the contract for the largest superyacht ever manufactured in Australia.

“So the industry is always like this, feast or famine, and manufacturing is often like that but we kind of learn how to deal with that,” he says.

Last year vessel refits accounted for about 20 per cent of Echo’s work, but this year it will be closer to 50 per cent.

The Echo workforce now numbers about 120, down from a peak of 300 when building the White Rabbit from 2014, when the company was formed.

It took on 45 apprentices at the time, with most retained. The company’s senior management team is entirely ex-apprentices, apart from the chief financial officer. Echo also built a 46-metre cat GRP shadow vessel which was delivered in 2017.

“It’s very unusual for an apprentice to be on the whole project for the whole duration of their apprenticeship,” he says. “And to come out with your apprenticeship or your tradesman’s certificate is a pretty damn good start to your career. It’s the best of the best,” he says.

“We’ll take on more. It really depends on work that’s coming in. We’re working on a couple of yachty type new builds and if any of them come through we’ll look at putting on a new batch, probably another batch of around 45 with another big project.”

Having been in the shipbuilding industry since

“The only shipyard in the history of Australian shipbuilding that can boast being able to do steel, aluminium and fibreglass under the one roof" Luxury Kimberley cruiser True North — of which Stothard is co-owner — has been in for her annual refit so she can return to the northern waters looking “better than new”.

A 60-metre superyacht that has been cruising around West Papua and Papua New Guinea for six months is on the hardstands for a major overhaul.

Another needs a heli-deck, which Echo will fabricate then install. There’s also a team in Singapore finalising works on the White Rabbit.

Stothard sits tight on who his clients are and what contracts are worth, only revealing that they are mostly overseas customers and contracts can range from “a couple of hundred grand to millions”.

While he is working on securing “a few new builds” the refits are coming in “thick and fast”, he says. That’s not surprising, given all vessels require some form of work annually and Echo is prepared to send teams virtually anywhere in Australia or globally.

“One of the advantages with refit works is it is cost plus, you give estimates of what it is going to be, but it is what it is. It’s a good earner and keeps most of the trades busy because there is electrical and engineering, painting, fabrication and fit out and everything else,” Stothard says.

the mid-1980s Stothard has seen it grow from its foundations of building cray fishing boats.

He’s worked for and started several companies in that time and has etched out a niche in superyachts. Stothard co-founded Image, which was sold to Austal in 1998 and he’s also at the helm of Evolution Commercial, which started in 2010 and caters for marine, offshore and industrial customers.

“We’re the only shipyard in the history of

Australian shipbuilding that can boast being able to do steel, aluminium and fibreglass under the one roof. By definition, we are very flexible in what we can and can’t do,” he says.

“We went initially to steel, then back to the smaller fast ferry aluminium fabrication to superyachts and now we’re back into more the commercial core again and superyacht refit work, so whatever turns a button and pays for keeping people busy and the overheads is what we’ll do.”

The tentacles of the shipbuilding industry have spread since Stothard started out, with fast ferries, naval and commercial vessels all manufactured and sustained on the Henderson strip.

“So unlike a lot of other countries, we had that volume of work to better our skills in aluminium fabrication, our design skills and all the support workforce; so window, door, seat manufacturers and aluminium suppliers.

“There is a lot of that common knowledge base (amongst WA shipbuilders) because we’ve all come from very similar backgrounds.”

Defence work has also come Echo’s way, though not in shipbuilding. The company is contract agent for a type of flooring that must be used as a replacement on all Australian naval vessels. It also picks up some works on the submarines.

“We either build new or refit damaged fibreglass components on the subs and other bits and pieces. We’re getting more and more known in the defence industry but we have been pretty busy building White Rabbit so haven’t chased too much up until now.”

Stothard says he didn’t consider tendering to build new vessels for the Royal Australian navy because with the cost of tendering said to be as high as $3 million he considers it a “roll of the dice” as to whether you’d get a return on that investment.

And who needs to roll out warships when you can build superyachts anyway?

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 47

Construction

All aboard WA Works hit the tracks with Bombardier Transportation to find out about maintenance of Perth’s trains and delve into the bid to build Metronet’s C-series railcars

By Robyn Molloy

I

t’s all systems go when it comes to railcars with the last of the Forrestfield Airport link trains due for delivery by the end of March and the awarding of the contract to build the first of the new C-series cars set to be awarded in July.

Delivery of 17 six-car sets — the first of 102 new railcars needed for the State Government’s Metronet — is part of a $1.6 billion project that also includes construction of 144 railcars to replace the A-series trains.

Three hopefuls are in the running for the lucrative contract: France’s Alstom, the Momentum West joint venture of Spain’s CAF and CIMIC’s UGL, and Downer EDI-Bombardier.

Included in the project total is a tender, which opened in November, to design a new railcar depot in Bellevue for the assembly and commissioning of the new railcars.

The State Government has decreed that 50 per cent of manufacturing of the trains must be in WA, creating new employment and supply chain opportunities.

Natasha Elkins, Bombardier’s HR business partner, says if the Downer-Bombardier joint venture is successful in the C-series railcar tender, mobilisation of staff and supply chains will be large and fast.

48 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

“Obviously it’s a great investment in WA, not just for our internal labour but the offshoot of that is our procurement supply chain. All of WA can benefit,” she says.

“We are lucky as we already have a lot of local supply chains and a lot of engagement with local businesses as well, it’s all about getting people involved.

Smaller businesses were now getting the opportunity to participate in rail projects, Elkins said.

in rail to get their foot through the door.

“It could be something as simple as providing a rail for a train, could be seating, a light fixture, it could be anything.”

Passengers on the new trains, which will be delivered between 2021 and 2028, can expect the best in technology, but Mounica Achuthan, rail graduate for Downer transport and infrastructure, who has been working on the C-series tender, confirmed there were no plans for autonomous trains on the network.

“Delivery of 17 six-car sets is part of a $1.6 billion project that also includes construction of 144 railcars” “Historically what has happened is whoever the original manufacturer of the train or the component used was the ongoing supplier. It was very hard to change from that and allow smaller or new businesses to get involved in rail.

“But if you are already talking to them at the time you are creating the platform you are going to use, it is an opportunity for those people who would never get a chance to work

“There has been a lot of technology that will be put in the tender, but more for passenger experience and to help make maintenance schedules more reactive. We still need drivers,” she says.

Bombardier Downer General Manager Carl Delaney says customers have switched their thinking on the length of build-and-maintain contracts, with the company bidding for 30

Construction

Bombardier HR business partner Natasha Elkins, Downer-Bombardier Governance, Risk and Compliance Manager Kym Saunders, Downer transport and infrastructure rail graduate Mounica Achuthan, Bombardier Project Engineer Charlotte Moss, Rio Tinto Specialist, Learning and Development – Rail Victoria Kent. Photograph – Robyn Molloy.

years for the C-series, instead of the current 15.

The company won the 15-year contract to maintain the A-series in 2012.

“We’re tendering on a 20-plus-five-plus-five contract and that is roughly similar to the life of the vehicle, which is 30-35 years,” he says.

“Most customers are mirroring the maintenance to the vehicle life, which has been done in NSW and QLD.” He says the last trains in the B-series — to be used on the Forrestfield airport link — are already in use on the Perth city network.

Built by Downer-Bombardier in Maryborough in Queensland, the railcars have arrived at either the Midland or Bellevue workshops where transport bogies are removed and replaced with narrow gauge bogies suitable for the Perth intercity trainlines.

The last train was due to arrive in late March. “So all the trains will be here well in advance of the tunnel opening,” Delaney said.

“We can’t use Midland now for the bogie change so we use the Bellevue site where the future depot for the C-series assembly will be.

“We fit the narrow-gauge bogies there, then pull the train up to Nowergup, finish off the final commissioning and then get the train into service.

“We’ll have 78 Bs in service probably by

about May this year and that will be the last of the B series.

Between 62 and 64 trains each day are used on the Public Transport Authority’s network.

The maintenance contract employs approximately 140 people on the A and B series trains at three Perth depots including Claisebrook, Nowergup and Mandurah.

Every night trains are cleaned, checked and maintained, and fully serviced every 30 days.

Nowergup, which opened in 2004 as part of the B-series contract and is 1.5km long is open 24/7.

“We are like a chauffeur service where the driver pulls in and hands the train to us then we drive it into the depot, clean it every night, maintain it if needed and then park it up ready for the next day,” Delaney says.

“We have 62 trains in service in the B and 44 on the A. So at night you have 40 coming back to Nowergup and the rest to Mandurah.

He says if Bombardier wins the Metronet contract, it wouldn’t be too difficult to integrate the fleet into the way the current railcar contracts are managed.

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 49

Denny, Bayswater set to roll Two more links in the State Government’s grand public transport plan will soon be ready for contractors to get their hands on. Robyn Molloy finds out how they will be awarded

C

ontracts for two Metronet projects — the Bayswater station upgrade and Denny Avenue level crossing removal in Kelmscott — will be awarded by Christmas, Public Transport Authority executives said at an industry briefing on Tuesday.

A Request for Proposal (RFP) for the Bayswater project will be released this month while the Denny Avenue Request for Tender (RFT) will be released mid-year, with executives revealing details of the tender processes and scopes to more than 200 contractors.

Bayswater will be awarded under a

50 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

competitive alliance, while Denny Avenue will be released for tender as two separate design and construct (D&C) packages, one for rail and one for road and civic works.

The three jobs — part of the State Government’s multi-billion-dollar public transport renewal program — will be awarded by Christmas and together are worth $215 million.

PTA Executive Director Major Projects Ross Hamilton told contractors that both projects were complex and challenging because they involved existing rail and road networks and the identification and protection of existing services.

“We’re moving Bayswater Station over the top of King William Street, allowing space for the connection of the Morley Ellenbrook line and providing additional rail infrastructure further towards the city to allow for a turnback siding between Bayswater and Meltham stations,” he said.

“There is also a significant improvement in passenger amenity but also in the amenity around the station itself.

“Part of the Bayswater station is an underpass, traffic and road changes, changes to signalised intersections, integration with bus services as part of a circle route that runs through that area, new bus facilities, modified car parking, demolition of the old Bayswater station and the associated infrastructure and improving pedestrian access and design and delivery of the public space.”

He said Denny Avenue works, which are just north of Kelmscott railway station, needed to be carefully planned to minimise impacts to passenger services on the Armadale line, the Australind services and the large amounts of traffic and pedestrians that use the area.

The grade separated railway line and related infrastructure will be raised 2.5m and will require the construction of a single span bridge and significant retaining walls between Denny Avenue and Davis Road.

Construction “Main works are the station, the bridge, track work, civil work, drainage, retaining walls, overhead line services, signalling, communications, control systems and public areas,” he said.

“It is quite a complex little area and there is a lot going on and it’s going to be in an elevated space that we are looking at.”

He said there was potential for optional works if Bayswater station was chosen for the proposed Morley-Ellenbrook connection as duplication of the platform and station would be required.

rail component would be awarded first, followed by the road package a month later.

The RFP for Bayswater closes mid-year, while the RFT for Denny Avenue closes mid-late year.

Tender issue of payment for top two The top two proponents for the Bayswater station upgrades will receive payment for their efforts — even if unsuccessful, PTA Principal Project Director Kevin Guppy told the industry briefing.

“The three jobs will be awarded

by Christmas and together are worth $215 million”

Building bridges PTA Principal Project Director Kevin Guppy said Bayswater contractors must have bridge building capabilities as the project required the new station to be built on an “extensive” new bridge.

Forward works, to be awarded as a D&C, would include carpark construction at adjacent stations, construction of cable routes, and relocation of PTA and third-party services.

“We have to build another 150m-long, 10m-wide platform and bridge with similar facilities. They will be included as optional works as part of the process with similar requirements to the main station,” he told the briefing.

Two preferred proponents would be selected as part of the alliance development stage. The successful bidder would then enter into a project alliance agreement with the PTA. Guppy said the two Denny Avenue packages would be procured separately as each required different skills and needed to be completed in different timeframes to minimise disruption.

“One has to be done before the other.

We have to move the railway line before we put the road under it,” he said.

He said contractors were required to have bridge and road pre-qualifications.

The request for tender would be preleased in the middle of this year, with contracts to be awarded before Christmas, he said. The

“There will be a payment to each proponent and I know that’s a big concern of industry and we are having lots of discussion about the extent of that payment. We are continuing to discuss that across government,” he said When asked for more details during the Q&A session, he said that as part of the alliancing process, a fee would be paid to two proponents “for the intellectual information, so we can take it and use it”.

He did not say how much the fee would be, with discussions continuing.

“Those amounts are calculated and set in our proposals. We are getting lots of feedback from industry about the level of that and we are discussing it with government as to what is the appropriate level,” he said.

“Obviously, we are aware of expectations and what’s happening on the east coast and we get lots of feedback about what level of they’re remunerating … we are just working through that process at the moment.”

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 51

Construction analysis of these options which will help identify a preferred solution ahead of a business case being submitted to Government mid this year,” Guerinoni said.

“Once Government has endorsed the preferred solution for Karnup Station, we will start the project definition plan phase, and that’s intended to be submitted to Government for endorsement before going out to market in 2020 as well.”

Midland on the move

Next Stop Ellenbrook Metronet executive Natasha Guerinoni has given a rundown of when some of the remaining projects will be released for tender

By Robyn Molloy

T

he Morley Ellenbrook railway extension is a step closer with a business case set to be submitted to the State Government this year, clearing the way for the long-awaited project to go to tender in 2020.

Metronet project director Natasha Guerinoni confirmed the timeframe at a recent Metronet construction industry briefing for the Bayswater station upgrade and Denny Avenue level crossing removal.

Guerinoni said an extensive risk analysis had identified 114 options for the project including different nodes, mixes of nodes, alignments and station locations.

“We have whittled them down to the last few shortlists and they are undergoing a rapid cost benefit analysis. This will form the business case which is going to be submitted to government this year identifying the preferred solution,” she told more than 200 business representatives.

“Acknowledging the intent to deliver this project to Perth’s northern east suburbs as quickly as possible, these shortlisted options actually share some common areas so what the project team is starting now is the project definition plan for these shared

52 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

areas such as Ellenbrook station.

“That means in the coming months we are going to be starting or continuing works along the alignment looking at the environmental assessments, geotechnical studies, groundwater monitoring, traffic surveys, topography surveys and heritage significant site identification.

“Doing some of this work early, the intent is we will have a project definition plan submitted to government for review and endorsement ahead of going to market with the project in 2020.”

She said the project would need to integrate with significant roadworks in the area such as Northlink WA and not sever communities, such as the Ellenbrook town centre or road connections.

The State Government says the new rail line will provide Perth’s growing north-east suburbs with improved transport connections and create new communities around integrated station precincts.

The case for Karnup Meanwhile, locations for the new Karnup station — between Mandurah and Warnbro stations on the Mandurah line — have included Lakelands, Stakehill and Paganoni Road, with Paganoni Road looking like the preferred option.

“We are completing our rapid cost benefit

The plan to move Midland station 500m east of its current location to Cale Street, could be coupled with other projects in the area, including the future railcar assembly and maintenance depot in Bellevue, the Metropolitan Redevelopment Authority’s redevelopment of the Midland activity centre and the potential extension of the line to Bellevue.

Guerinoni said it was likely two project definition plans — Midland station relocation and Midland line extension — would be submitted to Government late next year and go to tender in 2021.

She said one of the challenges was the level crossings in the area with the boom gates likely to be down 40 minutes each hour in peak periods with increased passenger trains in and out of the new depot and the addition of the future line.

“One of the PTA’s policies is no net new level crossings on the network and wherever we can, we try to remove that. So the team is currently completing a grade separation feasibility study and also what is going to be the traffic movements in this area with the station relocation.”

Meanwhile, the extension of the Armadale line to Byford is still in the early planning phase with no firm timeframes on when it will go to tender.

New contracts for planning will be awarded soon.

“The same goes for the remaining level crossing removal projects at Oats Street (Carlisle), Wharf Street (Cannington) and Caledonian Avenue (Maylands).

“We’re just finalising some planning budgets for those and we’ll be able to have much firmer timeframes in the coming months,” Guerinoni said.

Minister’s Memo

Rita Saffiotti

Building rail lines is next phase The new approach to engage with industry on Metronet projects prior to tendering is already paying dividends, says Transport Minister Rita Saffioti

G

ood cities grow with effective public transport. It plays a vital role in creating competitive economies, liveable, inclusive communities and reducing reliance on fossil fuels.

The initial planning for Perth was focused on railways. We see it with the existing centres built along our oldest lines — Midland to Fremantle — where connecting the regions to our Port and creating industries and communities close to effective mass transport was ingrained in our planning and thinking.

Then came the popularity of private cars throughout the 20th century. While they still have a huge place in the way Perth functions to this day, our city has reached a mass where we need to once again re-focus on rail.

Through Metronet, Perth’s rail network is about to embark on its biggest expansion since the New MetroRail project in the early 2000s.

With around 72km and up to 18 stations added to the network, the program is being planned hand-in-hand with land use to maximise the billion-dollar investment in transport infrastructure to create new communities and grow existing ones.

For industry, 2019 is presenting enormous opportunities.

Major projects — Thornlie-Cockburn Link, Yanchep Rail Extension, Denny Avenue Level Crossing Removal, Bayswater Station Upgrade, Railcar Manufacturing and Claremont Station Upgrade — are all undergoing procurement this year.

Not to mention the Forrestfield-Airport Link, a $1.86 billion project that is already under construction, plus the Radio Systems Replacement project that was awarded last year.

In anticipation of the big-ticket tender items, the Metronet team has held a number of construction industry briefings — the most recent being for the Bayswater Station upgrade and Denny Avenue level crossing removal projects.

This is a new approach, aimed at engaging with local industry to get as many WA jobs as possible out of these projects, and to listen to the ideas from industry about what works and what doesn’t before we go out to tender.

The results so far look positive, with more than 200 industry representatives and stakeholders attending the most recent briefing.

Building Metronet is set to create unprecedented activity in the construction sector, which will outshine the enormous amount of roadworks currently underway across Perth and wider WA. So much so, the State Government is committed to a trade training centre that will enable WA workers to be trained, and for the State Government to address skill shortages in the rail industry in coming years.

“In 2020, there will be three new train lines and one extension under construction” In 2020, there will be three new train lines and one extension under construction, which makes for an incredibly busy state. Over the following decade, we will also be requiring 246 extra railcars that will be largely built in Bellevue — just down the track from the famous Midland Workshops which served as WA’s rail powerhouse for almost a century.

Ensuring WA workers are in a position to benefit from the whole lifecycle of the project — design, construction, sub-contracting, and ongoing maintenance — is paramount. The

flow on benefits to the WA economy are huge in the rail sector alone.

Meanwhile, the areas directly around the stations are also getting attention, particularly from developers. Metronet is now a regular mention in real estate listings for properties within a stone’s throw of a future train line or station redevelopment. The excitement in palpable among industry and government as we edge closer to the more serious construction phase.

To ensure Metronet creates the best possible outcomes in its surrounding communities, a range of improvements have been introduced.

For example, strata title reform opens up new styles development opportunities such as community and leasehold titles. There is also the first stage of Design WA, ensuring new apartments and subdivisions factor in quality design, tree retention and other vital components such as natural lighting.

Feedback to date from industry is encouraging.

It is pleased the State Government’s departments and agencies are working with communities and industry at a much higher level than before. They are also pleased to see a coherent plan of works for the state through Metronet. And industry is pleased about the opportunities created by the groundwork set out by the McGowan Government in our first two years of government.

The next two years of the term — we build.

Rita Saffioti is the Minister for Transport; Planning.

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 53

Construction jobs blow in Enormous turbines will invade a couple of small towns north of Perth this winter, writes Stephen Bell

D

andaragan and Eneabba, best known as wildflower stops on the Mid West tourism trail, are to become the lands of the giants this year as WA’s two biggest and tallest wind farms begin construction.

The wind turbines — some of them as high as 180 metres — to be installed by Vestas for Alinta Energy’s $400 million Yandin project near Dandaragan and Synergy’s Warradarge near Eneabba — will generate 350 construction jobs in total, starting mid-year.

Alinta’s long-awaited green light for Yandin in February enabled Danish wind turbine giant Vestas to tighten its grip on

54 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

WA’s wind power boom after securing the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) role for the project. This came just two months after it won a similar role for the State Government’s nearby Warradarge venture.

Yandin is forecast to generate 150 construction and assembly jobs and Warradarge 200. Most of them will be in WA, although both projects will import the huge turbines.

Alinta says Yandin will boast generating capacity of 214MW, which will comprise 51 V150-4.2MW turbines with hub heights of 105m capable of powering up to 200,000 homes per year. On-site construction is due to begin

mid-year and be completed 12 months later.

Based on peak capacity, Yandin pips Synergy’s 180MW Warradarge, which will be built near Eneabba, about 80km further to the north.

Vestas’ head of sales for Australia and New Zealand Peter Cowling confirmed the wind turbines for Yandin — each with a diameter of 150m — would be made by the company overseas and imported to WA. “We always try to incorporate as much local content as we can, but most of that will be in the balance of plant,” he told media in Perth.

“So, the foundation, electrical works, substations, and transmission systems — we’ll have large local content in those, and a lot of local jobs created in the installation process.”

Cowling said Yandin would produce “incredibly cost-effective renewable energy” because of the latest technology combined with favourable wind conditions.

“The Fremantle Doctor is real and quite unique in the world in terms of the strength of wind and its consistency,” he said. It would enable Yandin to yield an approximate 50 per cent capacity factor — the average power generated, divided by the rated peak power.

Alinta Executive Director of merchant energy Ken Woolley said Yandin was the company’s first

Artist’s impression of the Yandin wind farm

direct investment in a renewable project.

“Yandin will drive more affordable and cleaner energy for us, and with our gas-fired power stations it will also help us use gas more efficiently,” he said.

“The output of this wind farm will be cheaper than gas-fired generation.

plant, located at Alcoa’s alumina refinery, also provided base load electricity to the grid.

“We’re able to turn it down, and still meet all of Alcoa’s steam requirements, so it will be Pinjarra that runs in concert with the variable output of our Yandin wind farm,” Woolley said.

He said the wind farm would be economic

“The wind turbines — some of them as high as 180 metres — will generate 350 construction jobs in total” “All of the output will be taken into Alinta’s electricity portfolio. Obviously the wind is very variable, so it doesn’t blow when you want it to blow but, on average, we are seeing it up to 20 per cent cheaper (than gas).”

Woolley said Alinta already had about 15 per cent of WA’s contestable electricity market in the South West Interconnected System (SWIS).

“This additional generation will lower the cost of generation in our portfolio and allow us to increase our market share,” he said.

The company’s Pinjarra co-generation

even without Federal Government renewable energy target price subsidies.

“The cost of constructing this particular wind farm, coupled with the high-quality wind resource, means it doesn’t need a renewable policy sitting across the top of it — it competes very well by itself on energy alone.”

Woolley said Alinta continued to grow its renewable electricity portfolio nationally.

“The Yandin wind farm is just one of the investments we intend to make. We are planning over 1000MW of windfarms that we will

underwrite over the next couple of years,” he said.

A Vestas spokeswoman, meanwhile, said the company was finalising its balance of plant contractor for Yandin, after last month awarding Perth engineer Decmil a $72 million contract for Warradarge — as flagged by WA Works in January.

Yandin will connect to Western Power’s 330kV electricity network via a new 10km transmission line and terminal station that will be built, owned and operated by Western Power.

Vestas will operate and maintain the project from completion of construction under a long-term service agreement.

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 55

Energy

Rockingham revs up WA’s embryonic waste-to-energy sector is set to take a giant leap with a second major consortium planning to break ground by mid-year

By Rueben Hale

A

fter years of broken promises and deals that went nowhere, suddenly Perth is awash with big waste-to-energy construction projects.

The proponents of Australia’s second thermal waste-to-energy venture have confirmed they are moving towards construction this year at Rockingham, setting the scene for a southern suburbs jobs boom in the technology which converts household waste into electricity for the grid.

To be developed by a Hitachi Zosen Inova (HZI), Tribe Infrastructure Group and New Energy Corporation, the $400 million East Rockingham Resource Recovery Facility (ERRRF) will divert 96 per cent of residual waste from landfill as it converts about 300,000 tonnes of waste per year into baseload renewable energy. It will produce 28MW of electricity at full capacity — enough to power 36,000 homes.

In contrast, the rival Avertas consortium is building a 36MW plant at Kwinana, sufficient to power 50,000 homes, which will divert up to 400,000t of waste from landfill.

Waste-to-energy ventures have had their

56 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

sceptics in the past, but ERRRF’s developers say the January announcement of its partnership with worldwide recycling giant SUEZ has bolstered its credentials. Suez was awarded the role of waste management partner for the project for 20 years — bringing its experience in the operation of 55 other international projects.

Works are expected to start mid-year and will include many employment opportunities for Perth’s southern industrial strip, with the developers tipping an average workforce of

300 jobs over the life of the construction and more than 50 new full-time jobs throughout its 30-plus year operating life.

EPC contractor HZI has built more than 500 Energy from Waste (EfW) plants worldwide and has employed a templated approach of constructing proprietary components offshore, months ahead of construction.

Design and construction of the long lead-time components — such as steam turbine boilers — is already happening offshore. Early works will build to a peak construction workforce of about 500 people onsite by early 2020.

Work packages are still being defined and are expected to be released in coming months for the start of a 36-month construction period.

It will begin with ground preparation and excavation, before moving to civil construction, installation and erection, commissioning and hand-over in June 2021.

It is also understood there will be a requirement to procure a lot of plant and equipment — such as tanks, pumps, water treatment plant, minor hoists and jib cranes — in Australia.

With debt and finance proceeding on time and as expected, construction plans for ERRRF are rolling out without delay, says Tribe Infrastructure

Energy

executive director Edward Nicholas.

“The project preparation is going very well, and with all the configuration partners in place for the consortium, everything has very much crystallised,” he told WA Works.

“There is still always a lot to do before we have our financial close and stick shovels in the ground and start building, but it’s as good as we could have hoped.”

Nicholas says the project will offer substantial employment and contract opportunities to the local economy because a combination of process and resource recovery expertise will be required.

“There is a strong knowledge base in WA,” he says. “We’ve always seen this project as being attractive from the construction perspective and on the operations perspective because of the existing knowledge base that has been involved in other coal and gas projects.

There’s a lot of them, and they’re complementary to a lot of the work that we need to do for our plant.”

The consortium is confident of securing more waste contracts that will fill the completed facility’s remaining one-third of capacity.

“We’ve had several discussions around securing a high proportion of contracted

feedstock,” Nicholas says. “And that’s the process that will continue to maximise the balance for the projects and its owners, around contract intelligence versus a sort of merchant capacity.”

In terms of other projects, Nicholas says the completion of Macquarie’s Avertas waste-to-energy project and ERRRF will provide enough waste collection and energy generation for Perth’s current needs.

“We’re very comfortable, and the stakeholders

involved in the project are very comfortable in that there’s more than enough waste available in the Perth market for both projects to operate simultaneously,” he says.

“I think once both have been built, that will probably satisfy Perth and the metro areas for quite a long time. There may be small expansions or other alternative technologies and such that might be implemented on a smaller scale, but in terms of this scale of the facility, I think Perth will probably be maxed out when both are set up.”

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 57

Energy

Suppliers: No time to waste Avertas’ $700 million waste-to-energy project is on the way as pre-construction activities ramp up at the Kwinana site

By Stephen Bell

P

remier Mark McGowan has turned the first sods at Avertas Energy’s waste-to-energy project at Kwinana, marking the start of a new technology for WA’s green power sector.

The milestone also signals a looming jobs boom on the Kwinana industrial strip, with 800 construction workers needed to build the huge 12-storey facility. About 60 people will also be required to operate it from late 2021.

58 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

With job numbers like those, Federal and State politicians were more than happy to share the glory at the official shovelling ceremony last month.

McGowan was joined by Federal Environment Minister Melissa Price and project officials to toss the first dirt.

Price said the project go-ahead meant waste that would otherwise go to landfill would be converted to energy, reducing carbon dioxide emissions and improving the stability of the grid.

“It also avoids more harmful methane

emissions that add to our overall greenhouse gas emissions, and the Federal Government was pleased to support this project with a $23 million grant and up to $90 million in debt finance,” she said.

Approved in October, the project is being developed by Avertas — owned by Macquarie Capital and Dutch Infrastructure Fund — to transform about 400,000 tonnes per annum of waste into electricity.

Spanish-owned Engineering, Procurement Construction (EPC) manager Acciona needs to install more than 900 piles to provide a secure footing ahead of major construction later this year.

Companies can express their interest in the many work packages now listed on the CCI-run ICN Gateway site gateway.icn.org.au.

The venture is due to begin commercial operations late next year with a generating capacity of 36MW. Veolia will operate and maintain the facility for 25 years.

Avertas CEO Frank Smith said the facility represented a significant opportunity to reduce pressure on landfill capacity and create a new source of green power.

“We are proud to be supporting WA to

Energy

Federal Environment Minister Melissa Price (L) turns the first sods at Kwinana with Premier Mark McGowan and Avertas Energy Minister Frank Smith

achieve its waste management and green energy goals, and we are committed to engaging with local communities throughout construction and once the facility is operating,” he said.

Although new to Australia, thermal waste-to-energy has a long track record internationally. Avertas plans to implement moving grate technology which is used in about 2000 facilities globally.

The plant will also recover metallic materials that would be recycled, alongside by-products able to be reused as construction materials, the company said.

Meanwhile, Acciona’s local management has urged local sub-contractors to “sharpen their pencils” in pitching for early work.

Acciona project director Chris Pratt said the “big game” for the local supply chain would begin late this year when the contractor started taking delivery of major plant from overseas.

Nevertheless, the contractor would also procure a lot of plant and equipment — such a s tanks, pumps, water treatment plant, minor hoists and jib cranes — in Australia.

“And I need concrete to sit it on and people to erect it,” he told a packed WA Works Sundowner.

Pratt said Acciona had secured the EPC role by

bidding a design and construct contract, so “money is important”.

“If you want to get involved, come with solutions and get the pencil sharp,” he said.

“My justification for using anyone here is that they are best value world-wide.”

“It all gets pieced together progressively from the bottom up but still gets hung at the end of the day,” he said.

“So it’s a really good rigger’s job to get this in and some of the welding is in situ as well,” he said.

“Avoids more harmful methane emissions that add to our overall greenhouse gas emissions” Explaining the operating process, Pratt said trucks would deposit rubbish into a bunker, where it was mixed by remote operators using a hanging claw-like grabber. The mixed material would then enter vertical boilers — huge, eightstorey high vessels hung from the top of the plant — generating steam for power generation.

The boilers and much of the ancillary plant and equipment would be provided by Keppel Seghers, Acciona’s technology partner, Pratt said.

“Our job here is to erect, install and commission all of their equipment.

“This year, following April, we will go through a reasonably sophisticated process to select people to be our partners and participate in that erection — we are scoping that at the moment, here and overseas.”

Pratt said ICN Gateway would introduce suppliers and sub-contractors to the various packages and navigate them to Procur-e, Acciona’s world-wide procurement system.

“And if you are inside Acciona at a full registration level, you are inside for Australia and the world,” he said.

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 59

60 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

The Big Picture Lithium landmark: Pilbara Minerals’ first ship of lithium concentrates leaves Port Hedland Harbour bound for customers in north Asia. The Perth company is now in the midst of a $231 million upgrade of its Pilgangoora mine and planning a third expansion to supply a proposed lithium hydroxide chemical plant in South Korea.

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 61

Commodity Corner

Iron ore on the rise

I

ron ore prices are expected to strengthen this quarter, boosted by a surge in Chinese construction activity and uncertainty about the long-term impact of the Brazilian mining dam collapse in January, according to two expert forecasters.

However Citi Research co-head of Pan Asia Metals and Mining Paul McTaggart and J Capital Research managing partner Tim Murray diverged on their outlook for the remainder of the year.

Citi’s McTaggart told the Global Iron Ore and Steel Forecast Conference in Perth last month there was continued uncertainty about iron ore supply following the dam disaster, which had already resulted in Brazil shutting down more than 80 million tonnes per annum of iron ore production because of safety concerns.

This, combined with improved steel demand in China because of the seasonal uptick in construction, meant prices would climb further to peak at US$100 per tonne by mid-year.

“Our view is you will get a pick up in demand as we head into construction season and you’ll see iron ore prices peak at roughly $US100/t, with an average of $US95/t for the (second) quarter. For us that that gives an average for this year of $US88/t,” he said.

And 2019 looked like it would be another “reasonable year” for steel demand, McTaggart added.

Murray, meanwhile, agreed that the Brazilian supply issue and strong infrastructure spending meant iron ore would enjoy a “great first half of this year”, averaging US$80-90/t.

“You’ll see iron ore prices peak at roughly $US100/t, with an average of $US95/t for the (second) quarter” “We’ve got early and very large infrastructure spending (in China) — it normally comes later in the year,” he said.

During a recent visit to China, Murray found that State-owned banks were very keen to lend to local government agencies to build

Oversupply woes for cobalt

By Robyn Molloy Cobalt prices could bottom out at between US$14 and US$16 dollars per pound in the coming months, S&P Global Platts senior pricing specialist Joyce Zhang told the Lithium and Battery metals conference on March 20.

Zhang said talk of what was happening to the cobalt price, which has seen sharp falls in recent months, had been a hot topic on the lips of producers, consumers and traders.

Cobalt reached highs of US$45/lb in the second quarter last year on the back of a supply deficit and increase in demand for electric vehicles in 2017, after remaining relatively stable around US$15/lb in 2015.

“It reached the highest point in April to May 2018 and stayed at US$42$45/lb then we saw the price correct downward to US$35/lb and then a slight rebound in Nov-Dec last year due to the increase in demand,” she said.

62 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

infrastructure, while sentiment in the market was “still really positive.”

However, he expected the “hit” from infrastructure building would soon fade and iron ore prices would fall to $60-70/t in the second half of this year.

Moreover, Murray said that Chinese steel consumption had peaked in 2018 at about 700Mt and would fall to 550 million tonnes in 2023.

“Most people would agree that there are probably enough roads, enough rail and airports now in China — you can’t sustain that level of growth.”

He also expected Chinese iron ore imports to halve over the next five years.

“It has been coming down almost every week despite the slight rebound last month and a lot of people are worried. It is supply driven as there as just too many suppliers and people are so worried that there might be more and more supplies coming out of Democratic Republic of China that will push the price further down.

She said some people in the market were tipping $14 to $16/lb could be the bottom price for cobalt cathode. “I hear these voices coming from China and somewhere else, but still the majority are thinking there might still be further price softening.”

Associate Director of Lithium and battery materials at IHS Markit Nell Agate Tsui said she took a more conservative approach to the booming lithium market than some other analysts with global demand from energy storage and industry to hit at least 850,000t lithium carbonate equivalent (LCE) by 2030.

Major WA lithium player Pilbara Minerals estimates demand will hit 1 million tonnes LCE by 2025, while Albemarle forecasts and an ever higher 1.2mt.

Tsui said while the market would triple, she did not see demand reaching a million tonnes by 2025 when other factors were considered.

“We’ve seen aggressive high demand figures but we are not as aggressive as that, we have a more balanced view,” she said.

“The point is very much that we also consider mass mobility so the ridesharing story, urbanisation, developing nations rolling out infrastructure, public transport and other factors like hard bans, congestion, charge stations, lifetime cost of vehicles that make it unfeasible, so there are many factors that need to be incorporated, especially longer-term views post 2025.”

All thethe rightnetworking connections Join for local industry

platform that’s helping Australian business grow If you are looking to connect with mining, construction, infrastructure, defence and other major projects in WA, you need the Industry Capability Network of Western Australia (ICNWA).

ICNWA offers access to project information and opportunities and is a FREE service for both Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia Members and non-members.

By using our online platforms, you can register your interest as a supplier for major projects. Projects and procurement teams can use the service to access an extensive supplier base.

To find out more about ICNWA, for assistance in listing your project and using our service or registering your business on our platforms, please contact the team today on (08) 9365 7543 or visit cciwa.com/icnwa

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 63

Major Resource Projects

Mutineer Fletcher Exeter Finucane Lambert Deep Persephone Athena Eaglehawk Hermes Lambert Searipple Angel Egret Capella Thebe Cossack Forestier Perseus Wanaea Ajax North Rankin Gaea Montague Chandon Goodwyn S/Pueblo Goodwyn Hurricane Keast Tidepole Yellowglen Rankin/Sculptor Dockrell Urania Jansz/lo Dixon/W.Dixon Wheatstone Sage Jansz Pemberton Pluto Iago Geryon Reindeer Saffron Io South Toporoa Eurytion Scarborough Gnu Xena Winchester Wilcox Brunello Caribou Corvus Chrysaor/Dionysus Balnaves Bravo Briseis Maenad Orthrus Julimar Wandoo Orthrus/ Maenad Glencoe Brocket Tusk Acme West Tryal Rocks Achilles Nimblefoot Oryx Stag Clio John Clio South The Grafter Chamois Gorgon Brookes Clio North Yara Pilbara Fertilisers NWSV LNG Satyr Rosella Davis Mentorc Pluto LNG Yara Pilbara Nitrates Chester Rosella North Anketell Dampier Spar Dampier Salt Halyard Maitland Cape Preston Cape Lambert Bianchi Cape Preston East Zola Maitland River Devil Creek Gas Antiope Radio Hill Tallaganda Pasco Whundo Zn Cu Bunyip Sino Iron Flinders Shoal Balmoral South

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HALLS CREEK Brockman REE Nb Zr

Browns Range REE Cummins Range REE

Asian Renewable Energy Hub wind & solar

Woodie Woodie Mn

Minyari–WACA Au Cu Co Telfer Au Cu O'Callaghans W Cu Zn Pb

Nifty Cu

Maroochydore Cu Co Kintyre

Yeneena Cu

Lake Mackay K

Nicholas Downs Mn Lake Disappointment K

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Yangibana REE

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Butcherbird Mn

Abra Pb Cu Zn

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Plutonic Dome Horseshoe Lights Cu Au Ag Plutonic Fortnum Hermes Thaduna Cu Ag Telecom Hill DeGrussa Monty Cu Au Cu Au Jack Hills

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Savannah North McIntosh Gr Panton Pt Pd

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Matilda Paroo Station Pb

Port Gregory Grt

Boundary Sundown

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Citadel Au Cu

Au (or as shown)

Ti–Zr (or as shown)

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Port Hedland

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Base metal Iron Alumina

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Cockatoo Island Irvine Island Koolan Island

Phoenix South Roc Dorado

Speciality metal

Blacktip

Cape Bougainville

Gwydion

Paulsens

Precious metal

Tern

Sorby Hills Pb Zn Cu Ord Stage 2

Bambra Ulidia Wonnich Deep Linda Lee Bambra East Spartan Rose Harriet Monty North Alkimos Josephine Baker Ginger Agincourt South Plato Simpson Barrow I Little Sandy Double Island Pedirka Victoria Gorgon LNG Denver Barrow Island West Cycad Narvik

Rough Range

Dmd

Petrel

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Wyndham

10 km Wonnich

Announced 7/2018

Ag........... Silver Au........... Gold Kentish Knock Co........... Cobalt Brederode Cu........... Copper Eendracht Dmd........ Diamond Fe........... Iron Fl............ Fluorite Gp........... Gypsum Gr............ Graphite Grt........... Garnet K............. Potassium Kln.......... Kaolin Li............. Lithium Lst........... Limestone LNG........ Liquefied natural gas Mag......... Magnetite See North West Shelf enlargement Mn.......... Manganese Nb........... Niobium Ni............ Nickel Pb........... Lead Pd........... Palladium PGE........ Platinum group elements Pt............ Platinum Cape Cuvier Lake MacLeod Gp REE........ Rare earth elements Lake MacLeod Salt Ta............ Tantalum CARNARVON !

Ti............ Titanium V............. Vandium W............ Tungsten Zn........... Zinc Zr............ Zirconium Precious mineral

Projects operating or currently under development with an actual or anticipated value of production greater than A$10 Million are shown in blue Proposed or potential projects with a capital expenditure greater than A$20 Million are shown in red Mineral Projects under care and maintenance and Prometheus petroleum fields that are shut-in are shown in purple

Barrow Island

Commodities

Mineral symbols

Project labels:

Mardie Salt K

Rivoli

Cape Range Lst

Laminaria East

Mardie Salt K

South Chervil Nasutus Cyrano Cadell

Toro

January 2019

Balline Grt

Yogi Mag

Dalgaranga Mt Magnet

West Musgrave

Wingellina

Tollu Cu Lake Wells / Salt Lake Potash Lake Wells / Australian Potash

Gruyere

Windimurra V Fe Youanmi V Ti

Geraldton

Kirkalocka

Cyclone

Coal and lignite Uranium Industrial mineral Processing plant

Tropicana

Mulga Rock

Petroleum symbols

Gas field Oil field Oil and gas field Significant gas discovery Significant oil discovery Significant oil and gas discovery Processing plant Oil / gas pipeline, operating Oil / gas pipeline, proposed

Infrastructure

Power plant Irrigation / water / desalination Port

Edna May

PERTH Fremantle

64 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

EUCLA !

Tampia See Goldfields Wickepin Kln enlargement

Bunbury

Cosmic Boy Concentrator Salmon Gums

Katanning Mt Cattlin Li Ta Great Southern Au Cu

See South West / Mid West Coastal enlargement

Enquiries for latest information for Commonwealth controlled waters is available from the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator (NOPTA) at <info@nopta.gov.au>

Silver Knight Nova–Bollinger

Collgar wind !

Southdown

Albany & Grasmere wind

Albany

Scaddan Ravensthorpe

Esperance

0

100

200

Kilometres

300

400

Major Resource Projects Gnu Reindeer Corvus Caribou Wandoo Brocket Tusk Oryx Stag Chamois

Ridley

Port Hedland

Yara Pilbara Fertilisers NWSV LNG Pluto LNG Cape Lambert Yara Pilbara Nitrates Anketell Dampier Cape Lambert Dampier Salt Sherlock Bay Cape Preston Cape Preston East Maitland River Devil Creek Gas Radio Hill Plant Sino Iron

January 2019

Port Hedland Salt

Balmoral South

Precious metal

Spinifex Ridge Mo Cu

Wodgina Li

Speciality metal

Ti–Zr (or as shown)

Base metal Iron Alumina

All sites are bauxite

McPhee Creek

PANNAWONICA

Middle Robe Mesas Mesa J Mesa A – Warramboo

West Pilbara

Mulga Downs

Brockman 4

Kings Cloud Break

Beasley River

Tom Price

Hardey

0

50

100

Kilometres

Prairie Downs Zn Pb Ag

Mineral separation Geraldton brick Narngulu synthetic rutile Greenough River solar Alinta–Walkaway wind Mumbida wind Irwin River

Proposed or potential projects with a capital expenditure greater than A$20 Million are shown in red

Mungada East Extension Mt Mulgine W

Karara Mag

Rothsay

See Dongara enlargement Cliff Head Xanadu

Three Springs Tlc

Extension Hill Mag

0

50

Warro JURIEN BAY !

Badgingarra wind

Dandaragan K Phos

Emu Downs wind and solar Atlas Cooljarloo/Tronox

Moora Silica Waddi wind Cataby

Senecio Waitsia Centauri 1 Xyris Xyris South Eremia Hovea Apium Jingemia Evandra

Dongara

Yandin wind

Neerabup/Newgen Malaga brick

PERTH Fremantle

!

Bentley Zn Pb Cu

Mondarra Gas Storage

Leonora/Kin

Mt Alexander

!

Windarra Murrin North Mt Morgans

LEONORA

Burtville Mt Weld Phos Mt Weld REE

NiWest Wallaby Murrin South

Sons of Gwalia Mt Bevan

Murrin Murrin

Mt Mason

Sunrise Dam Red October

Ulysses

Mt Ida

Lake Carey

Second Fortune

Deep South

!

Lake Giles

Deception Windarling

Mt Jackson

Marda

Koolyanobbing Athena

!

Marvel Loch

Saddleback

SOUTHERN CROSS

Kemerton Sisd Titanium pigment Worsley Alumina Collie Bluewaters 1–2 Premier Ewington Doral mineral separation

Whicher Range

Ta

Greenbushes Li Ta Sn

Comet Vale Goongarrie Scotia Siberia

Sandy Ridge Kln

Armadale brick Cardup brick

Willowdale

Highway Davyhurst

Meckering Kln

Karari

Bardoc Lindsays Silver Swan

Ora Banda

Pinnacles

Paddington Kanowna Belle Castle Hill Millennium Bombora – Lake Roe KALGOORLIE–BOULDER Kundana Superpit !

Frogs Leg Nimbus–Boorara Ag Au Zn White Foil Lithium Refinery Geko Nickel smelter Blair COOLGARDIE !

Coolgardie South Kal Bullabulling Mt Monger Aldiss Burbanks Randalls Carnilya Hill Mt Marion Li Ta Nepean Long–Victor Nickel concentrator St Ives Widiemootha

Nevoria

Mariners

Lanfranchi Miitel

Bald Hill Li Ta

Polar Bear

Capel North synthetic rutile Yoganup Extended Wonnerup Wonnerup North Wonnerup South Yoongarillup Tutunup

100

King of the Hills

Mt Forrest Cashmere Downs

Boddington Au Cu Marradong

Bunbury

Ben Hur – Epsilon

Irwin Synaphea

Caversham tile Middle Swan brick Midland brick Airport brick

Wagerup Alumina

Cristal mineral separation

Garden Well & Rosemont

Calingiri Cu Mo Ag Au

Keysbrook Huntly Pinjarra Alumina

Southern Seawater desalination Lithium hydroxide Silicon smelter Chlor alkali

Vivien Thunderbox

Chandala mineral separation and synthetic rutile NORTHAM !

Felicitas Dana Kln Fortuna

G

Alumina refinery Ammonium nitrate Bulk terminal Cement and lime Chlor alkali Desalination Fused alumina Fused zirconia Lithium hydroxide LNG LPG Nickel refinery Nickel sulfate Oil refinery Power plant Sodium cyanide Titanium pigment Zirconia

Darlot

Lawlers Agnew–Emu

Gingin West Wandoo Red Gully

Boonanarring

Kwinana–Rockingham

Moolart Well

Rosie

Leinster

100

Tarantula Dongara Redback Beharra Springs

5 km

Yerecoin

Odysseus–Cosmos Bellevue

Kilometres

Dongara

Warradarge wind

Kilometres

Magnetite Range

Goldfields

Eneabba/Sheffield Eneabba/Iluka

50

Mineral Projects under care and maintenance and petroleum fields that are shut-in are shown in purple

Shine Golden Dragon

Oxley K

Corybas

Enquiries for latest information for Commonwealth controlled waters is available from the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator (NOPTA) at <info@nopta.gov.au>

Karlawinda

Projects operating or currently under development with an actual or anticipated value of production greater than A$10 Million are shown in blue

Deflector Au Cu Ag Golden Grove Cu Zn Pb

Oakajee

Geraldton

Power plant Irrigation / water / desalination Port

Project labels:

South West / Mid West Coastal

0

Infrastructure

Ophthalmia Wonmunna Hope Downs 4 West Angelas 31 24–25 Wheelarra JV Giles Mini Mt Whaleback !

Davidson Creek NEWMAN 35 17–18 Jimblebar Robertson Range

PARABURDOO Turee Syncline !

Western Range Eastern Range Paraburdoo Channar

Pilbara

Oil / gas pipeline, operating Oil / gas pipeline, proposed

Extension Nyidinghu Yandi/BHPB Iron Valley Yandicoogina/HI Hope Downs 1 Mining Area C Jinidi South Flank Rhodes Ridge

Marandoo

!

Rocklea CID

Christmas Creek Roy Hill

Koodaideri Marillana

Western Turner Syncline TOM PRICE

Gas field Oil field Oil and gas field Significant oil discovery Processing plant

Mesa – Ant Hill Mn

Nammuldi

Paulsens

Petroleum symbols

Nullagine Nullagine CID

Investigator

Weelumurra Firetail

PIOP/Flinders Serenity Homestead Silvergrass

Eliwana

Coal and lignite Industrial mineral Processing plant

Big Hill W

!

Bungaroo South

Ni (or as shown)

Corunna Downs

Mt Webber

Caliwingina

Steel alloy metal

Miralga Creek Pilgangoora Li Ta Li Ta Sulphur Springs Zn Cu Pb ! MARBLE BAR Iron Bridge Mag

Mardie Salt K

Bungaroo Creek

Ag........... Silver Au........... Gold Cu........... Copper Fe........... Iron K............. Potassium Kln.......... Kaolin Li............. Lithium LNG........ Liquefied natural gas LPG........ Liquefied petroleum gas Mag........ Magnetite Mn.......... Manganese Mo.......... Molybdenum Ni............ Nickel Pb........... Lead Phos....... Phosphate REE........ Rare earth elements Sisd......... Silica sand Sn........... Tin Ta............ Tantalum Ti............ Titanium Tlc........... Talc V............. Vandium W............ Tungsten Zn........... Zinc Zr............ Zirconium

Au (or as shown)

Whim Creek Cu

Whundo Zn Cu

Commodities

Mineral symbols

Balla Balla Salt Creek Zn Cu Pb Balla Balla Fe V Ti

Earl Grey Li

Mt Thirsty Lake Johnston

Flat Rock wind New Morning

Flying Fox Spotted Quoll

!

NORSEMAN Mt Henry

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 65

Done and dusted

Decmil’s rush of wind, road work Decmil has won a flurry of new jobs as the Perth-based engineer extends its reach into two growth areas: renewables and road infrastructure.

As flagged by WA Works in January, Decmil won a contract with wind turbine maker Vestas on the State Government’s Warradarge project near Eneabba — its first wind farm job.

The $72 million contract includes design and construction of the civil and electrical balance of plant for Warradarge, the 180MW project funded by Bright Energy Investments — a joint venture between Synergy, global investment fund DIF and Australian super fund Cbus.

Denmark-based Vestas EPC contract for Warradarge, which is expected to generate 200 construction jobs.

Decmil’s scope includes the design and construction of the civil and electrical balance of plant for the 51-turbine project, including wind turbine bases, 55km of access tracks, site cabling, switch room and substation. The works are expected to be completed by September 2020.

Separately, the contractor also announced two new road wins, including a $46 million job with Main Roads WA to design and build a dual carriageway along Reid Highway from Altone Road to West Swan Road in the Perth suburb of Caversham.

The widening contract will commence immediately and is expected to be finalised in late 2020, Decmil says.

Federal Minister for Cities, Urban Infrastructure and Population Alan Tudge says the project is estimated to create 400 jobs.

Meanwhile, Decmil is undertaking several transport infrastructure projects across Australia.

In partnership with McConnell Dowell, it won a $25m early works package earlier this month for the Mordialloc Freeway project in Victoria, after the joint venture was announced as the preferred tenderer.

This follows Decmil winning the $86m Drysdale Bypass and the $60m Warncoort projects in Victoria last year.

“There are currently a significant number of major transport infrastructure projects across Australia and Decmil continues to progress its business plan in this sector,” it says.

66 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

Fortescue’s Eliwana on track

F

ortescue says key railway earthworks are now underway at the $1.8 billion Eliwana project, boosting confidence that the company will meet its tight schedule of first ore by late 2020.

Fortescue Chief Office Greg Lilleyman said contractor NRW had mobilised on the first 20 kilometres of the project’s 143km railway and started earthworks, he told the Global Iron Ore and Steel Forecast Conference in Perth.

“That first 20km happens to hold about 30 per cent of the total volume of earthworks, so it allows us to get an early start on the railway construction,” he said.

“We’re on target for delivery on time and budget.

“The majority of our major equipment has been tendered and many orders placed — nothing is out of line with our budget expectations.”

NRW won a $62 million contract for earth, road and drainage works at Eliwana in February.

The project’s total onsite construction workforce is expected to peak at 1300 in the first half of next year.

Lilleyman said Fortescue ran an in-house design and management team, which was ramping down, having already passed the peak

of the detailed engineering and design.

He cited the smaller footprint of the ore processing plant compared to the company’s current Firetail mine — which Eliwana is slated to replace — as a major plus.

“They are both 30 million tonnes per year dry processing facilities,” he said.

But Eliwana’s had half of the concrete of Firetail’s, half the steel and half the height.

“It’s also half of the capital intensity of our competitors in the Pilbara when you look at the price per tonne installed,” he said.

“It is a very lean, significantly well-designed plant and that’s through the focus of our Fortescue integrated design team.

“One of our company values is frugality and that shows through in our approach to this plant that is about to be built in the Pilbara.”

It was also modular, which helped with the company’s approach to design and construction and would enable the delivery of ore at the end of 2020, following approval in mid-2018, he said.

Meanwhile, Fortescue had its 200-person fly camp mobilised to site, while construction tenders were out and a couple awarded, he said.

Work packages available for Eliwana are listed on gateway.icn.org.au

UGL, Cape clinch Karratha gas deal A joint venture between engineers UGL and Cape has won a new services contract on the Woodsideoperated Karratha Gas Plant in the Pilbara.

UGL, part of the Cimic Group, says it will generate about $190 million in revenue from the deal, which includes two further multi-year extension options.

UGL has provided services at the plant — the LNG processing facility for the Woodside-operated North West Shelf Venture — since 2015.

The JV will provide brownfields implementation services including planning and execution of work scope for mechanical, electrical and instrumentation, access, fire protection application, blasting and painting, cladding and insulation.

UGL Managing Director Jason Spears says UGL is pleased to have secured the extension and looks forward to supporting Woodside in delivering the extensive project.

The plant has the capacity to produce 12,000 tonnes of domestic gas per day.

Done and dusted

Two-way battle for Lumsden Point

C

onstruction of a new general cargo facility at Port Hedland’s Lumsden Point is expected to begin next year after Pilbara Ports Authority short-listed two big infrastructure groups.

ASX-listed Qube Bulk and Melbourne International RoRo & Auto Terminal (MIRRAT), a subsidiary of shipping company Wallenius Wilhelmsen, have been invited to deliver detailed proposals to build and operate the facility, PPA says.

The two groups were respondents to an EOI process last year by PPA, which has spent more than $80 million on land remediation dredging, and reclamation works at Lumsden Point in preparation for major construction activities.

The PPA aims to have the facility — expected to cater for the growing trade in lithium and agribusiness ventures — operational in 2021.

The State Government-owned authority told WA Works the successful respondent will likely be announced in the last quarter of this year.

“It is expected that construction of the general cargo berth at Lumsden Point will commence in the first half of 2020,” a PPA spokesperson says.

The facility will be developed in stages to meet trade demand.

Construction activities are expected to include seawalls, dredging of a shipping channel, swing basin, berthing pockets, construction of the wharf and laydown area, and the initial development of a 95-hectare logistics hub.

The new port will ultimately boast two new general cargo wharves and laydown areas.

“We expect that the project will further facilitate trade opportunities between the Pilbara and international markets and provide more investment and job opportunities in the region,” he says.

The Port of Port Hedland is the world’s largest bulk export port courtesy of the huge iron ore

“The new port will ultimately boast two new general cargo wharves and laydown areas” PPA says it has consulted with The Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF) and received confirmation that the development has the potential to be eligible for a NAIF loan.

PPA General Manager of Development and Trade Lyle Banks says developing Lumsden Point will increase port capacity for businesses currently operating in the Pilbara and support emerging opportunities, including lithium and other battery minerals and agribusness exports.

traffic generated by BHP, Fortescue and Roy Hill.

Trade volumes have increased by more than four-fold over the last 15 years.

As iron ore exports grow, so too does other trade, resulting in the need for additional port facilities.

Lumsden Point is part of PPA’s long-term planning for the increasingly crowded port, with existing berths 1,2, and 3 having reached general cargo saturation point.

Civmec charges into lithium Civmec will play a key role in WA’s battery materials boom after winning a “significant” construction contract on Albemarle’s lithium hydroxide project near Bunbury.

Fabrication has begun at Civmec’s Henderson yard, with site works at Kemerton expected to run from mid-2019 to March 2021, the contractor says.

At peak construction there will be about 300 people involved in the delivery of the project, providing significant opportunities for skilled workers in the South West.

“We are delighted to have been selected by Albemarle as a significant construction partner for this exciting project,” Civmec Chief Executive Pat Tallon says.

“This two-year project is ideally suited to our operations, fabricating, modularising and site erecting steel work for this key WA development.”

The first phase at Kemerton will comprise three production trains, each producing 20,000 tonnes per annum of lithium hydroxide, with a potential expansion to five trains which would take the ultimate production to 100,000tpa by 2025.

Civmec’s scope of work includes structural, mechanical and piping for the hydrometallurgical and final product, reagents and utilities for the first three trains.

The company’s Henderson facility will be used to fabricate and pre-assemble selected components for the on-site plant erection.

Citing accelerating demand for lithium hydroxide from global battery manufacturers, Albemarle approved the bigger-than-expected Stage One plant late last year.

Autumn 2019 WA WORKS 67

Echidna Tales

A fascinating bush yarn was delivered recently to WA Works’ offices by snail mail, handwritten, no less, by quill pen.

Once the bona fides of The Echidna were established, it was agreed the pointed observations should be shared

F

ederal Liberal MPs are giving animals a bad name.

With former Turnbull lieutenant Craig Laundy the

latest of eight (at last count) Libs to head for the exits, he growing exodus is routinely described as “rats

deserting a sinking ship”.

The Echidna reckons this is unfair to our native rats, who are

known to be loyal and driven by selfless motives in caring for their immediate colonies.

Those fickle Canberra rodents, in contrast, head to their comfortable

Don’t those mad green agitators know that if they set free all the sheep and cows, they will fare much worse running wild.

They’ll end up just like Luna the rag-doll cat that escaped from her WA owners’ car on a trip to South Australia and turned up at a darts match five months later. The feline was skinny, dehydrated and parasite infected — sick as a dog in other words.

The darts players had to feed her sausage rolls to nurse her back to health.

Yes, the Echidna can attest that running wild sounds like fun and

retirements underpinned by free air travel, the lucrative speaking

probably is, for a couple of days until you’re attacked by rabid dogs,

circuit and regular piles of gumnuts to pay the occasional liquor bill.

fleas and tapeworms. But at least we can move faster than wombats.

At least former Minister for Women Kelly O’Dwyer came up with a good excuse in wanting to spend more time with

Speaking of running wild, it has been a wild and crazy ride so far for those non-indigenous (made in China) tunnel boring

her young family after suffering all those “homophobic,

machines on the State Government’s

anti-women, climate change deniers” in the

Forrestfield Airport Link project.

Federal Liberal party.

Already delayed by up to a year

Who could blame her. Even the kids are

because of sinkholes and safety

revolting about the nation’s climate politics

concerns, the project hit another

by wagging school for a day.

snag early this year when

Funnily enough, the schoolyard

tunnel borer Grace was halted,

putsch happened the day

supposedly for a month, to

after Premier Mark McGowan

enable mechanical repairs.

convinced EPA chairman Tom

But the last time The Echidna

Hatton to pull his tough new

looked, Grace and her sister Sandy

greenhouse guidelines that

were both parked for welding repairs to

would have blown State Labor’s

cracked screw conveyors. I hate to say it

jobs policy to smithereens.

That’s where these wellintentioned protests fall down. Many domesticated primates in suburbia express concern that human activity may be hastening climate change. But few want to lose their jobs or stop driving those petrol-guzzling SUVs to the shops.

And what about those animal activists that seem hell-bent on wrecking our agriculture industry.

The Echidna, being of the ye old marsupial fraternity, is a big fan of treating all farm animals, pouched or not, as humanely as possible prior to consumption. That includes termites.

But remember the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

68 WA WORKS Autumn 2019

but Echidnas are built for digging and in this case could dig faster than a machine.

There is a happy ending to the story, though, as the Public Transport Authority tells us that a lot of aboveground construction work is now becoming more visible.

So, come the middle of next year, we’ll have plenty of railway stations, car parks and retaining walls ready to go. All we’ll need is a couple of tunnels for the trains to run through.

Let’s hope they all stay there and don’t slip down yonder where the sandgropers dwell.

(Fun fact: In Greek mythology, Echidna was half-woman, half-snake and known as the mother of all monsters.)

Mrs ECHIDNA, March, 2019

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