WA Works Summer 2019-20

SU

Supply Chain and Major Project News

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

Summer 2019-20

Grid blitz

New dawn for energy transformation Defence

Energy

Construction

Collins, Attack subs shape industry

Special report: Cheaper, more choice

Half century for big WA steel fabricator

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

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

2 WA WORKS Summer 2019

Contents

Cover Story

Front cover: A renewables grid blitz is underway, but we’ll still need poles and wires such as these at Champion Lakes. Photograph — Robyn Molloy.

12 Special feature

Opinion

Summer 2019-20

CEO’s Desk

5

Economic outlook

8

A day in the life - Leigh Hales AGIG

10

On the ground

11

Synergy - Shake it up

14

Some like it hot - FMG & Alinta

16

If I had 10 billion dollars

19

Western Power - Fast and furious

20

Bright Energy - When the wild winds blow

22

Justin Ashley - Pump up the policy

9

Horizon - On the roof again

24

Sarah McNamara - Riddle on the roof

13

More lithium on South West menu

26

Bill Johnston - The heat is on

18

Resources Technology Showcase 2019

28

Peter Kerr - Beer with batteries

23

Fields of gold

30

Tanya Munro - Masters of war

51

Let’s get critical

31

Poised for Pluto takeoff

32

Pilbara 2019 conference wrap

34

Multiplex - Summer in the city

36

Clough - Lowering the roof a new high

39

It’s your business to register.

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

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

Major Projects List

40

New gas, waste-to-energy projects

41

PIC - Shipping steel

42

In the navy

46

Life in her yet

48

Star shots

50

All down the line

52

A swift and fearless approach

54

Major Resources Project Maps

58

Digging in

60

The echidna

65 Summer 2019 WA WORKS 3

Welcome

Editor’s Letter Powerful conundrum

I

t’s January and sun worship is in full swing as we head to the beach to while away the summer heat.

So it’s fitting that this issue digs into the great conundrum: how do we keep powering up new homes, projects and industries while accommodating the increasingly pervasive influx of solar energy into our electricity grids?

Yes, it may be hard to think about this stuff while you are nodding off beside the hotel pool, an old song running through your head: “Summer breeze, makes me feel fine, blowing through the projects to be mined” (apologies to Seals & Crofts).

But fear not, WA Works has done most of the thinking for you via our excusive 14-page New Age of Energy feature, which explores the opportunities and challenges presented by the rise of renewables and microgrids.

As State Parliament’s “Distributed Energy Microgrids Inquiry” interim report points out, our supply of energy once consisted of the “unidirectional flow of electricity” from largescale, fossil-fuelled power stations to mostly passive consumers.

However, those dynamics are changing rapidly as the ‘prosumer’ emerges, individuals both “producing and consuming their own energy within and at the fringes of the network — presenting both operational, engineering and commercial challenges”.

What does this brave new world mean for the supply chain, consumers, and major project proponents?

We hope we’ve answered some of the thorny questions in interviews with three heavy hitters in WA’s energy market: the respective CEOs from Western Power, Synergy and Horizon Power.

Our feature also dissects a “tipping point” for solar power in the Pilbara, while experts such as Australian Energy Council CEO Sarah McNamara and Energy Minister Bill Johnston provide their take on what’s next in terms of technology and regulation.

While all these gurus thrash out the shape and size of our future grids, more major projects — both fuel producers and consumers — are waiting in the wings.

The biggest is Woodside’s $16 billion Scarborough to Pluto LNG project, poised for take off as you read these words, followed by the even bigger Browse to Karratha LNG venture, due for approval next year.

On the energy consumption side, there is Rio Tinto’s $1.1b Western Turner Syncline Phase Two project — one of eight new listings for our latest Major WA Projects list — that will start construction early this year.

It joins several other major iron ore developments, including BHP’s $5b South Flank and Fortescue’s $3.7b Iron Bridge, that will dramatically increase the appetite for energy in the Pilbara — a market already about onethird the size of South Australia.

There is plenty more to savour, including our regular defence section, which blows away some myths about the Navy’s Attack class program.

Stephen Bell

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

Share your thoughts at editor@cciwa.com

4 WA WORKS Summer 2019

Visit cciwa.com/waworks

Published quarterly by Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia Limited 180 Hay Street East Perth WA 6004 (08) 9365 7555 info@cciwa.com www.cciwa.com President Nicolle Jenkins 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 January 2020. CCIWA has taken all reasonable care in preparing this information, however, it is provided as a guide only. You should seek specific advice from a CCIWA adviser before acting. CCIWA 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 CCIWA. Reproduction of any CCIWA material is not permitted without written authorisation from the Editor. © Copyright CCIWA. All rights reserved

CEO’s Desk

Chris Rodwell

Skilful approach needed for growth Mining remains WA’s economic juggernaut and building on that strength requires a big investment in skills, unburdened by unnecessary red tape

W

A’s economy, like our character, is a unique beast.

We’re fiercely independent, voting against the national grain in four of the last seven State elections.

Our property and energy markets follow their own path, frequently diverging from national trends.

We punch above our weight, comprising half of Australia’s export muscle despite being just 10 per cent of the population, and making up 14 per cent of national GDP. It is in our pioneering instincts to develop our resources and engage in trade, with WA businesses accounting for about a quarter of national business investment in the last 10 years.

And of course, our fortunes are uniquely intertwined with the resources sector. Mining provided about 80 per cent of our business investment, driving our living standards and in many ways mapping our state’s economic destiny.

The WA economy is growing more reliant on mining, not less so. The industry was 34 per cent of our economy in 2019-20, compared with 22 per cent in 2007-08.

Our heavy dependence on commodities is a strong argument for more diversity in our economy.

But it’s also vital to secure and build on what makes WA so special.

Our world-leading resources expertise provides skills that are transferrable into the defence industry and shipbuilding, a key argument in CCIWA’s case that full cycle docking, sustainment work on Australia’s submarine fleet, should be based in WA. It’s also worth noting that diversification can mean taking what we’re good at in a new direction. Right now, WA businesses are investing in critical minerals, LNG, high-quality food manufacturing, batteries and services and maintenance.

In the three months to March 2019, 16.7 per cent of apprenticeships and traineeships in WA were learning mining skills. Australia’s other big resources state, Queensland, has less than one quarter of that share, with 3.6 per cent of commencements in mining.

WA undoubtedly needs this next generation of skilled workers.

CCIWA’s Business Confidence Survey shows the number one barrier to growth in WA’s mining businesses this year was not the US-China trade war, Brexit, or even low demand — it was the lack of skilled and available workers. Yet training enrolments have fallen by 40 per cent since the end of the boom, dragged down by falling business investment.

“Our heavy dependence on commodities is a strong argument for more diversity in our economy” CCIWA has called for a consistent and transparent pipeline of infrastructure projects to ensure the business community can plan their investment, manage the workforce and retain critical specialised skills within WA. The fast-tracking of federal infrastructure projects is a timely boost for the WA economy and jobs. The accelerated delivery of nearly $1 billion will ease transport congestion, improve

productivity and support supply chain jobs. But it’s vital that we keep supporting the development of critical trade skills that our economy needs.

Canberra is currently re-examining how funding for vocational training is distributed. The Nationals Skills Commission wants to allocate money based on Commonwealth forecasts of which trade skills are needed in each economy.

As should be immediately apparent, this is fundamentally flawed thinking, presupposing that Canberra bureaucrats know the needs of local businesses better than the businesses themselves.

CCIWA always champions WA businesses, which are best placed to know the needs of the economy.

This informed our successful campaigns to fix the GST and relieve the burden of payroll tax, boosting growth in the economy and supporting the creation of more jobs.

West Australians are in the best position to know the requirements of local businesses.

We don’t need an elaborate pricing framework, we just need to empower states to structure markets that address their own special needs and are fit for purpose. Of course, there is a benefit to having certain core competencies consistent across the states.

But business rather than bureaucrats should be making the call on the skills needed for roles in their industries.

When local businesses don’t prosper, neither do West Australians, because WA businesses create four in five jobs.

If WA is to boom once again in this new decade, it will take all our entrepreneurial drive, businesses unconstrained by unnecessary regulation and red tape and workers armed with the skills to compete and thrive in a global marketplace.

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 5

The Big Picture The Australian Marine Complex (AMC) at Henderson, south of Perth, has been pivotal in the latest burst of major construction, facilitating the assembly and transport of big equipment for projects such as BHP’s South Flank iron ore development and Bright Energy Investments’ Warradarge wind farm.

6 WA WORKS Summer 2019

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 7

Economic Outlook

Daniel Norrie

Hey, big spender With debt still oozing from its pores, the State Government needs to continue to limit its spending, writes Daniel Norrie

T

here’s one benefit from a big New Year’s Eve that is often overlooked. Someone with a bad hangover is more motivated to create New Year’s resolutions and change their behavior. A bit of self-inflicted pain can help with self-improvement.

WA has also suffered a bad hangover for the last six years — largely due to the contraction of mining investment. Demand for WA goods and services has been shrinking by an average of 1 per cent per year since 2012-13 (as measured by State Final Demand). That translates to a 15 per cent reduction in activity levels in the domestic economy compared with six years ago (a bit like extended inactivity on the couch).

So, CCIWA is hoping that political parties make some extremely good resolutions in the next budget and state election.

We can see signs of the economic hangover around WA: people in WA have higher liabilities on average than those in other states; consumption spending is flat; commercial property vacancies are high (particularly retail); and although unemployment has come down, it remains relatively high (5.8 per cent).

In 2018-19, the WA government earned more revenue that it spent for the first time in six years and achieved a budget surplus. We commend the WA Government for taking action to reduce expenditure growth and constraining expense growth at 2 per cent since 2017-18.

But the State’s finances are still in worse shape than the average person who wakes up on New Year’s Day and discovers a string of bad decisions on their bank statements.

This is largely because between 2007-08

and 2016-17, cumulative spending increased year-on-year, blowing out net debt and interest repayments. The Mid-Year review shows that: 1. Total public sector net debt increased from $3.6 billion in 2008 to a peak of $37.5 billion in 2019 — an increase of 950 per cent.

2. Interest costs will continue to increase from $120 million in 2008 to around $1 billion in 2020 — an increase of 730 per cent.

When a government spends more than it earns, this increases interest costs and reduces the funding available for services or investments over the long run. Increased interest costs also increase pressure to raise fees and charges, increasing the cost people face to start or operate a business. This negatively affects business investment, productivity and employment.

To borrow more money is the ‘hair of the dog’ hangover cure for WA. But this big angry dog will simply take more flesh over the long run.

The best way to cure WA’s hangover is to sweat it out and do the work necessary to reduce consumer and business costs. This includes: paying down debt; reviewing existing spending; and properly evaluating new programs and projects to ensure that they reduce costs and grow the economy.

One problem identified in WA is that there has been poor quality business case assessment of new programs or projects. This can cloud our judgement and make it difficult for people and decision makers to see if a proposal has benefits that are greater than its costs.

Infrastructure Western Australia (IWA) can address this problem by improving the incentive and ability for government staff to properly evaluate and quantify the costs of new spending proposals. IWA must rigorously evaluate business cases and publish its advice on projects as soon as is practicable.

These actions will help to improve information on projects and take the politics out of infrastructure decision making. This can help ensure we invest in proposals that reduce costs and increase productivity, rather than proposals that add to costs and WA’s debt headaches.

By keeping costs low, this will help entrepreneurs and businesses to use their knowledge to identify and invest in new profitable projects. This will help to grow and diversify the WA economy.

Those would be several New Year’s resolutions worth keeping.

Daniel Norrie is CCIWA’s Senior Economist.

8 WA WORKS Summer 2019

Policy Corner

Justin Ashley

recommended a balanced approach to improving the visibility of supply chain opportunities for WA businesses while avoiding heavy-handed regulation, approvals and reporting requirements for project proponents and head contractors.

One way to achieve this is to better utilise the existing reporting framework under the Australian Jobs Act and Australian Industry Participation Plans to capture state-based project information.

CCIWA will stay involved in the consultation process as the State Government works towards finalising the Bill around mid-year.

Streamline WA

Pump up the policy A sprint to the finish line at the end of 2019, won’t stop the policy treadmill from speeding up as the new decade dawns, writes Justin Ashley

I

t looks like the CCIWA team won’t have its post-Christmas pudge for long as we enter a busy 2020 with the State Government working furiously to clear its ‘to do list’ prior to entering campaign mode for the 2021 election.

I’d fill every page of WA Works if I ran through all the live policy issues for 2020, so let’s just take a look at the key areas of interest for major project superfans.

Infrastructure WA It’s been a long time coming but WA finally got its own infrastructure advisory body in 2019. After the passage of legislation establishing Infrastructure WA in the middle of the year, the State Government got busy establishing the agency and appointing an inaugural Board in the second half of 2019.

The first order of business has been to develop the State Infrastructure Strategy, which is intended to outline the state’s infrastructure needs and priorities for the next 20 years.

Hopefully we’ll see a draft of the strategy early in the new year as I’m sure it will be a gripping read for WA Works fans. It will also

provide a good opportunity for CCIWA to provide input into the direction of the strategy. Once the strategy is finalised, work will start on assessing major infrastructure project proposals.

The regulatory nerds here at CCIWA got super excited when the State Government announced Streamline WA, an initiative for improving regulation and regulatory practice. Who doesn’t love a bit of red tape reduction, right?

Of particular interest is Streamline WA’s project to improve regulation of environmental approvals in the mining sector.

There will be a series of workshops to immediately action four of the nine reform proposals that have already been identified through consultation.

These include: • consolidated and simplified application guidelines • inclusive cross-agency and stakeholder training to provide visibility of assessment practices • a user journey map that provides applicants with a clear, step-by-step picture of the mining environmental approval process and timeframes across government • clear and defined process for secondary approvals and amendments.

“CCIWA recommended a balanced approach to improving the visibility of supply chain opportunities” It will be interesting to see to what extent the State Government and Opposition follow the advice provided by Infrastructure WA.

Local Jobs Bill Towards the end of 2019, the State Government closed the first round of consultation for its proposed Local Jobs Bill, which is intended to help provide WA businesses with “full, fair and reasonable” opportunities to participate in major projects valued at more than $500 million.

In our feedback to the Government, CCIWA

This is where the proverbial rubber hits the road for Streamline WA. History is littered with regulatory reform initiatives that came up with plenty of good ideas but ultimately failed to implement anything meaningful. CCIWA will be working to maintain the momentum behind these reforms throughout the year.

If you are interested in these or any other policy issues that CCIWA is working on, contact Justin Ashley, Policy Manager via justin.ashley@cciwa.com.

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 9

On the ground

Life’s a gas A day in the life … Leigh Hales, team leader, Australian Gas Infrastructure Group

Compression station 9, a crucial part of the Dampier to Bunbury natural gas pipeline north of Gingin

I

work on the 1500km Dampier to Bunbury natural gas pipeline. It stretches from Dampier in the Pilbara to Bunbury in the South West, transporting natural gas from our shippers in the north to customers along the length of the pipeline.

For 11 days at a time, 750km of this critical piece of WA infrastructure is my home and workplace.

I’m responsible for safely leading a team of nine to maintain and operate six of the 10 compressor stations, which each have two gas turbine-driven compressor sets and 19 mainline valve sites. These start about 50km south of Gascoyne Junction and run down to our last compressor station in the Kwinana Industrial strip.

The team includes four mechanical fitters, four electrical/instrumentation tradesmen and an apprentice. We work 11 days on, nine days off with a back-to-back team, stationed anywhere along this stretch.

Work can be anything from changing lights, fire and gas system maintenance, power generation, water treatment plants, turbine exchange, valve and actuator replacements and instrument calibration among many others.

The role involves co-ordinating planned and corrective maintenance with our planning

10 WA WORKS Summer 2019

group as well as assessing daily variables and mobilising my team in the field. I’m also responsible for reviewing and closing out all completed work and reviewing and approving corrective maintenance work orders created by my team in our asset management software.

Coming on roster involves either arriving in a country town via a commercial flight or starting in our Perth facility. The first thing to do when our feet hit the ground is to food shop for the next 11 days.

The vehicle I share with my back-to-back will be waiting at my starting location and we then travel to the scheduled, or sometimes non-

is always the first step to understanding what type of roster it will be. Being unmanned sites, we make sure power generation and water supply get our initial focus as no one likes a 2am wake up without any power or to run out of water mid-shower.

Checking on my team, who may be remote from me, is most important for ensuring they have also arrived safely and understand their scope for the next 11 days.

The flies, heat and major weather events all play a major role in the day-to-day activities out here where we are empowered to manage ourselves.

“For 11 days at a time, 750km of this critical piece of WA infrastructure is my home and workplace” scheduled, site. The vehicles are suitable for the remote outback, which is important for our personal safety.

There is no one to cook, clean or make our beds on the pipe, so our arrival is all about setting ourselves up domestically for our stay.

A site walk around and checking of alarms

When the rains come we stay put as the roads become a slippery mess. After lightening, we wait for the response call as the plant is normally impacted.

Our life out here when on roster is about doing our job properly, caring for each other and responding to the needs of the pipeline so that gas keeps flowing.

I started here in 2009. That was after university, a few dog’s body jobs, travelling overseas and completing a mature-aged apprenticeship as an electrician. Since then, I’ve added instrumentation and team leader to my title and have worked and been trained in numerous disciplines I wouldn’t have even considered in my previous work life.

This is the longest job I’ve ever held and even though I tend to drive the keyboard of my laptop a bit more than my terminal screwdriver these days, the variety of work and the fact that I have half of WA as my place of work is what has kept me working on the pipeline for so long.

I’ve had two children in my time here and there is a real family-orientated mentality to the business. The 11:9 roster is great and the people you work with are fantastic.

On the ground

Energy heavyweights are engaging

One of two 40Mtpa ore crushers under construction at South Flank

BHP half-way there

T

he first pieces of the world’s biggest railmounted stackers will leave Henderson bound for the Pilbara this month after BHP notched up a construction milestone for its $5.3b South Flank iron ore project.

WA Works understands the first stacker and reclaimer modules will be loaded onto ships in January from the Australian Marine Complex’s heavy-duty wharves, with loadouts to continue until mid-2020.

The huge modules are expected to be assembled on site from late January.

Germany’s Thyssenkrupp was awarded a $250 million contract in November 2018 for the supply and installation of the giant machines.

The two stackers will deposit South Flank iron ore into stockyards for loading, while the reclaimer will load the ore into trains for transport to Port Hedland.

Each machine has a capacity of 20,000 tonnes per hour.

Late last month AGC delivered the portal frame for the reclaimer — the widest and heaviest load transported in the metropolitan area at 15 metres wide and almost 250t, the State Government says.

Civmec, meanwhile, is assembling 23 “smart modules” including conveyor shuttle and train loadout and feeder modules, and in nearby Naval Base, Pacific Industrial Company won a contract to manufacture the reclaimer boom, tripper conveyor and equipment platform.

South Flank project manager Simon Thomas and Premier Mark McGowan hailed the importance of the Australian Marine Complex (AMC) in BHP passing the half-way mark for its giant replacement project.

“I am proud to say that we are now 50 per cent complete on the project,” Thomas told invited guests at a function just outside the AMC’s Common User Facility (CUF), where several completed modules for the stackers and reclaimer were on display.

BHP approved South Flank in July 2018.

“There are about 3000 people working on the project at the moment — I owe a lot to the accomplishments and the efforts of the contractors that have come into our project,” Thomas said.

“As of the end of October, South Flank would have awarded $3.6 billion of work, with 78 per cent of that Australian-based,” he said Of this, 36 per cent of the work would be done in the Pilbara and 39 per cent based in the rest of the state.

“As of the end of October, South Flank would have awarded $3.6 billion of work” About $110 million of work had been done by WA contractors on the Kwinana strip, creating nearly 540 jobs at Civmec, AGC, Pacific Industrial Company and Promero, he added.

Thomas also said that BHP had employed 346 people for South Flank operating roles, out of an expected 600 in total, with 46 per cent of them female and 20 per cent indigenous.

Meanwhile, McGowan said that collaboration between the CUF and contractors working on South Flank was leading to jobs in Perth and the Pilbara.

“The State Government is working with both the iron ore industry and its supply chain in identifying, and taking advantage of, international market and business development trends “In this regard, my Steel Fabrication Roundtable initiative has an important and timely role to play in managing change with a minimum of discomfort and a maximum of benefit,” he said.

Delegates at the Australian Oil and Gas (AOG) 2020 conference in March will be able to engage with representatives from Chevron, Woodside, Shell and Santos as they outline their two-year forward work plans.

The initiative, to allow for improved planning of contracting activity and supply chain capability, is the next step in the State Government’s LNG Jobs Taskforce.

The oil and gas executives will present Operator Forward Work Plans at briefing sessions, giving attendees the opportunity to “engage directly” with the four operators, the conference organisers say.

The plan was announced at a launch function addressed by Woodside Energy production support general manager Gordon Mathwin and Department of Jobs, Tourism, Science and Innovation (DJTSI) executive director industry development John O’Hare.

The LNG taskforce stand at the event, to be staged March 11 to 13 at the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre, will host Shell, Santos, Inpex, Woodside, Chevron and DJTSI, O’Hare said.

Mathwin said Woodside supports the event as a major sponsor.

“AOG 2020 will be bigger and better than in recent years thanks to the involvement of the LNG Taskforce, which is working closely with conference organisers to facilitate improved engagement, transparency and collaboration between operators and the supply chain,” he said.

Iron ore job in the valley CIMIC’s CPB Contractors has won civil and earthworks packages worth $150 million at Rio Tinto’s Robe Valley sustaining project.

The Robe Valley projects, about 140km southwest of Karratha, will involve: earthworks; roads, bridges and pits; water supply infrastructure and drainage; fencing; and site establishment and demobilisation.

Due to be completed by the end of 2021, the various jobs will require close coordination with Rio Tinto as well as other contractors working on site, according to CPB. Managing Director Juan Santamaria says CPB is “proud to provide significant training and employment opportunities for local communities and indigenous enterprises”.

Rio and its Robe River joint venture partners Mitsui, Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal approved the $1.4b (US$967m) project in September 2018.

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 11

New Age of Energy - Special Feature

House of the rising sun Western Power CEO Guy Chalkley says the ‘poles and wires’ utility is preparing for more upheavals in the way energy is distributed via standalone power systems, batteries and advanced meters.

1.7 billion reasons to go green

Energy: the lifeblood of WA’s economy, powering everything from air conditioners to massive resources projects, writes Stephen Bell

B

ut the source of that lifeblood is changing rapidly, as is the way it is distributed to customers.

The multitude of rooftop solar panels, for instance, is capable of generating 1.1GW of electricity in total, making solar the state’s biggest “power station” on the South West Interconnected System (SWIS).

As the sun rises on solar, coal declines. The State Government is preparing to scale back the oldest generators at Synergy’s Muja coal-fired power station at Collie because of the lower demand for traditional baseload power.

The “Distributed Energy Microgrids Inquiry” interim report from State Parliament, tabled last April, summarises many of the challenges for regulators and industry ahead.

Chair of the inquiry, MLA Jessica Shaw, noted that the state’s electricity sector had previously operated on the “unidirectional flow of electricity from centrally controlled large-scale, fossil-fuelled power stations to largely passive consumers”.

“The sector’s dynamics are now fundamentally changing as the ‘prosumer’ emerges — individuals both producing and consuming their own energy within and at the fringes of the network — presenting both operational, engineering and commercial challenges,” Shaw said.

One of those challenges is maintaining the integrity and reliability of the network.

The SWIS will need more than $10 billion of investment in new generation, storage and networks upgrades in the next two decades, according to the State Government.

We are yet to see where those billions of taxpayer dollars will be directed, although our

12 WA WORKS Summer 2019

interview with Stephen Edwell, independent chair of the WA Government’s energy transformation taskforce, provides a few hints.

The State Government’s three utilities — Western Power, Synergy and Horizon — are having to rapidly readjust their business models to cope with the emergence of renewables, improving battery storage technology, smart meters and microgrids.

Horizon CEO Stephanie Unwin tells WA Works the utility is on the cusp of working out how to manage the distributed energy resources on its network, which covers an area of thinly populated regional WA that is bigger than Saudi Arabia.

Synergy CEO Jason Waters is also reinventing the generation and retailing utility as the explosion of rooftop solar turns the industry on its head.

To store and discharge all the green power when it is most needed, there are now about 100 batteries connected to the network, a number that is expected to grow exponentially.

The changing landscape presents both opportunities and challenges for the supply chain.

Steel fabricators, for instance, may find the brave new world of energy a tough place to get a grip on, given the demise of the fossil fuel power stations of yesteryear.

And the generation sources replacing them, sun and wind, don’t require huge industrial facilities. Indeed, the giant wind towers and industrial-scale solar panels are mostly imported from Europe and China.

Nevertheless, parts of the supply chain — engineers, concreters, earthmovers, highvoltage electricians, etc. — are carving out profitable niches in renewable energy projects.

And there is no shortage of activity. WA Works estimates there is at least $1.7 billion of green power projects now underway.

Privately owned retailer and generator Alinta Energy is spending $400 million on its Yandin wind farm, plus another $200m on its Pilbara solar farm for Fortescue’s Chichester operations.

Fortescue itself is spending $365m on stage one of its Pilbara Energy Connect venture that will connect all of its mines into one vast network powered by gas and solar.

Bright Energy Investments — Synergy’s partnership with the private sector — has started building its $500m Warradarge wind farm and is close to finishing the delayed Greenough River solar expansion. China’s Risen Energy is well into construction of its $160m Merredin Solar Farm in the wheatbelt, that required 300 construction workers.

Energy Expert’s Memo

Sarah McNamara

Riddle on the roof

Disruption by renewables of traditional power sources is bringing with it both challenges and opportunities, writes Sarah McNamara

W

A has a standalone electricity market and as a result has developed differently to power markets in the eastern states.

Despite the differences, however, the State also faces similar challenges to other parts of Australia in managing the unprecedented level of transformation that is underway and driven by the adoption of newer technologies.

Solar is perhaps a leading example. Data from the Clean Energy Regulator shows that the number of solar panel installations by postcode around Australia has surpassed 2.2 million, with close to 9.5GW of installed small-scale solar PV capacity.

WA now has more than 1.1GW of rooftop solar on its main grid, known as the South West Interconnected System (SWIS), which covers the south-west corner of the state and extends as far north as Kalbarri. That makes rooftop solar the single largest source of electricity by capacity.

The adoption of solar PV has also been accelerating in WA with annual growth of more than 25 per cent and, as a result, WA can now boast of nearly 30 per cent of homes having panels on their rooftops.

The shift in the way electricity can be generated and delivered has encouraged the emergence of “prosumers” — households that want greater control over their energy use and supply — and smart grids.

The change in the generation mix that we are now witnessing is leading to a reduction and displacement of traditional generators under the right seasonal and operating conditions.

The existing generators also deliver grid services, such as frequency control, inertia, system strength and voltage control, so the change in when they can operate (along with the intermittent nature of the new forms of electricity supply) does present challenges.

“WA can now boast of nearly 30 per cent of homes having panels on their rooftops” We have to ensure that the existing grid can manage the shift without adding costs while maintaining the security and reliability of the system.

Managing this changing energy profile also represents opportunities. Both large and small-scale renewables, along with battery

storage systems and smart meters, offer great opportunities for low emissions energy and cost management.

New approaches, such as employing distributed energy resources and developing microgrids (an area in which WA has been a leader given their applications in regional and remote areas of the state) are two examples.

The rollout of community battery programs, such as that introduced in WA by Western Power and Synergy, and new business models and approaches, such as subscription electricity plans that make it more like a mobile phone plan are other examples.

These are the kinds of innovations we can expect to see continue to develop.

To be in a position to recommend on the best way forward, the Australian Energy Council has joined with the Chamber of Commerce and Industry WA, and other industry associations in Vision 2025.

Vision 2025 is designed to better understand cross sector barriers impacting the WA business community, uncover industry-wide solutions and clearly pinpoint emerging trends.

It will identify the barriers to growth and opportunities for reform in specific industries and seek direct industry feedback and statistical support for policy recommendations.

This is an important piece of work that will help support developments in industries like energy which are undergoing such a dramatic change. It should help inform work by other bodies, such as the Energy Transformation Taskforce set up by the State Government and regulators.

Sarah McNamara is the Chief Executive Officer of the Australian Energy Council

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 13

Shake it up Data will drive the new mix of energy with benefits for all customers, writes Peter Milne

U

ntil 1995 there was just one player in the WA power industry — the State Electricity Commission. Today, with one exception, you still have to be big — the SEC has been broken up into Western Power for transmission, Synergy for generation and retail, and Horizon Power for regional power; and there are private sector power generators and retailers for larger customers.

The exception turning the industry on its head is rooftop solar: 280,000 tiny power producers that operate “behind the meter” without regulation and together at about 1.1MW to form the State’s largest power station.

Batteries are the next wave of change, and then there will be electric vehicles. To make it all work data will need to flow both within the home and across the South West.

Synergy chief executive Jason Waters sees opportunities in these changes for new businesses to follow the growth solar installers have experienced.

14 WA WORKS Summer 2019

“I think we’re going to see it broaden into multiple product lines and then ultimately deepen down those product lines as things pick up and become more affordable, more mainstream,” he said.

Waters expects the number of batteries connected to the network, now about 1000, to grow exponentially.

He said pool pumps could be controlled to operate when there is excess solar generation and power prices were zero, or even negative.

Synchronising the operation of air conditioners in an area so they are not all on at the same time could reduce the load on the network while still cooling homes.

Making these new technologies available to customers who rent or do not have their own meter is an additional challenge.

“I don’t want to look back in 10 years’ time having achieved an exciting new energy world in WA but find we’ve got 300,000 or 400,000 customers that are left behind,” Waters said.

Retirement villages residents, retailers in shopping centres and offices in city high-rises often sit behind a master meter controlled by the landlord.

“On the 20th floor of a 34-floor apartment, how are they going to access batteries, how are they going to access solar?” Waters said.

That will require access to the data from

Muja Power Station at Collie

the private electricity network embedded in the building. Waters said the utility’s hardship customers could also benefit from better data flow.

“The stereotype is that hardship people tend to be very low volume users of power, elderly people for example, but our average hardship customers actually uses twice as much power as the average consumer,” Waters said.

He said in the future a large family under mortgage stress due to job loss could be messaged when the air conditioner is running up the power bill and offered a lower tariff in return for their load being managed to suit the network better.

Synergy, the State’s largest generator and monopoly retailer to smaller customers, is also planning new offerings to its more significant contestable customers.

Waters said Synergy wants to help customers such as mine sites and processing plants to complement grid supply with power they generate themselves.

“We’ll be looking at people who can work with us to install maybe mid-scale solar and batteries for businesses behind the meter,” he said.

Synergy is facing changes to how it transports its energy as well as how it sells it. The South West Interconnected System is moving from unconstrained access, where every generator must pay for the maximum capacity it would ever use, to a constrained model that allows the sharing of transmission capacity.

Synergy is the biggest holder of capacity rights on Western Power’s network but supports the change in access arrangements.

“To keep the network unconstrained is like ensuring that you’ve got enough lanes of freeway to meet the biggest peak demand that you have for one hour of the year,” Waters said.

February will mark 30 years with Synergy and its predecessors for Waters and the past few years have been his most exciting. He expects it to continue.

“We’ve got so many opportunities to innovate, work with external businesses, learn from this

global phenomenon: the shift to renewables, participate in decarbonisation and move to cleaner energy while we keep the critical elements of cost and reliability in check,” he said.

To implement these changes Waters needs a different organisation to the one that nurtured him.

“We’re dealing with decisions that were all good decisions made over decades that are not necessarily the best decisions for the way we’re going to be,” he said.

“The old way that utilities run is number one: you’re always building for growth, number two: you make long term investments in expensive facilities with long-term payback.

“All of a sudden, the last five or seven years, that model has been a bit tipped on its head.”

The future is using data to coordinate the generation of both renewable and fossilfuelled power to supply what customers cannot produce themselves and keeping it all in balance with storage and demand management: an end to the simple life.

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 15

New Age of Energy - Special Feature

Some like it hot

In what could be a “tipping point” for industrial-scale solar power, Fortescue has teamed up with Alinta to fuel its Chichester iron ore hub, writes Stephen Bell

T

he Pilbara has long been a rich source of supplier opportunities for WA’s worldleading iron ore and LNG industries.

The pioneering iron ore mines opened half a century ago and now dominate world trade of the steel-making commodity.

And the recent $200 billion construction boom in LNG has catapulted WA to global significance in export markets.

One critical aspect is sometimes forgotten amid all the giant-sized plant and export infrastructure: powering it all.

Traditionally, the region’s power stations use combinations of diesel, gas and LNG to keep the mills turning. In this heavy duty, risk averse landscape, less predictable renewable energy has been a laggard.

But Fortescue Metals Group jumped the gun

16 WA WORKS Summer 2019

in October by unveiling a $200 million deal with Alinta Energy to power up to 100 per cent of daytime energy requirements at FMG’s Chichester mines from solar arrays.

The 60MW project is expected to displace about 100 million litres annually of diesel, FMG says, while the remaining requirements will be met from integrated battery storage and gas power station facilities.

Could this be the long-promised game changer in the Pilbara — one of the hottest and sunniest places on the planet — for the rise of solar power? After all, the Chichester Transmission and Solar project will end up powering more than half of FMG’s 165 million tonnes per annum iron ore production capacity.

Alinta CEO Jeff Dimery notes that a lot of miners are investigating similar green energy

projects, while smaller-scale versions, backed up by diesel, are already operating.

“But this is the big one,” he told media at the launch of the project in Perth.

“This is the tipping point where a heavyweight draws a line in the red dust and says, ‘The case for renewable energy supply more than stacks up and we are going to move swiftly and confidently to a smoother energy supply’.”

“To Fortescue’s credit they have gone first and taken the big leap and I see others absolutely following,” Dimery said.

No doubt the likes of Rio Tinto, BHP and Roy Hill will be watching with interest this dawn of Pilbara sun power as the project, about 100km north of Newman, heads toward completion in mid-2021.

First of many?

Gary Bryant, Alinta’s general manager of asset strategy, believes the Fortescue deal will encourage further solar investment in the Pilbara, which ships about two million tonnes of iron ore each day.

New Age of Energy - Special Feature

Fortescue CEO Elizabeth Gaines

Solomon mine in the Pilbara

“The amount of energy that is required is quite impressive,” he told the Pilbara 2019 Conference in Perth.

“In terms of market size, the Pilbara is about one-third the size of South Australia if we were to aggregate the whole lot together. I think there is enormous potential for organisations to hit some sustainability targets … and for equity participation in a market of that size,” Bryant said.

Alinta has spent about $1 billion since 2013 on WA energy projects, much of it on renewables, including the $400m Yandin wind farm in the Mid West and Australia’s biggest battery at the company’s Newman Power station.

But Bryant warns new entrants that the Pilbara can be a harsh taskmaster, given its extreme climate (seasonal cyclones and high heat/ humidity) and the need for very robust systems to guard against power blackouts.

“If you are dealing with the miners, my goodness they can be tough in terms of the power quality they want, the availability and reliability,” he said.

“You don’t get that out of the solar project itself. The system design needs to be done from the ground up, because the miners don’t want you to have a South Australian-type blackout experience at their expense.

“That’s why we did the (Newman) battery first — that enabled us to then do the renewables.

“If you look at Alinta’s history in the Pilbara it has been Newman to Roy Hill (transmission line), then we did battery, and now we expand at Christmas Creek, Cloudbreak, then we do the solar.

“That’s how you get the system to work — it’s an incremental expansion — you can’t do it all at the beginning,” Bryant said.

Heating up construction jobs Alinta expects the Chichester project to generate about 200 construction jobs, with Downer awarded the $165m engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contract.

The project, which is listed on the CCIWA-managed ICN Gateway website gateway.icn.org.au, includes the solar farm, new substations at FMG’s Christmas Creek and Cloudbreak mine sites, and a substation expansion at the Roy Hill mine.

The solar farm, expected to consist of 150,000 panels spread over 150 hectares, will be connected to Alinta’s Newman Power station infrastructure via a new 60km transmission system.

Alinta will operate the power station, transmission system and the solar farm, and back it up with the Newman power station battery.

Fortescue CEO Elizabeth Gaines said the deal was a “significant milestone” in the company’s energy strategy and a further step in creating its

Alinta CEO Jeff Dimery

$365m Pilbara Energy Connect project, also listed on ICN Gateway.

WA Works exclusively revealed Fortescue’s call for help from suppliers to build the massive first stage of the network: 223km of high voltage transmission lines to run from the company’s Solomon gas-fired power station to Fortescue’s new Iron Bridge magnetite project south of Port Hedland.

Gassing up at Newman Separately, Alinta is also expected to spend up to $95m on new gas generating equipment at Newman.

“The expansion of our Newman power station is a separate project to the Chichester project, but it is tied into the same electrical system,” said Ken Woolley, Alinta executive director of merchant energy.

“The reciprocating engines are highly efficient, so they’ll burn a lot less gas and produce more electricity for the same amount of gas.

“So, it’s very much improving the cost of energy for our customers.”

Woolley said Alinta hadn’t made a final investment decision on the Newman project, but had recently received development approval from the local council to build it.

“It will be about $90-95m of further investment,” he said.

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 17

Minister’s Memo

The heat is on As energy transitions from traditional sources, the state can expect cleaner, affordable and more reliable energy, writes Bill Johnston

I

’ve said this many times since becoming Energy Minister, Western Australia is experiencing a rapid transition in the electricity sector.

In fact, nearly one in three households in our state have solar panels and more than 650 megawatts of large-scale renewable energy generation has been installed.

We’re expecting that in the next 10 years there will be more than 20,000 standalone power systems throughout WA. With its own solar panels, batteries, inverters and back-up diesel generator, a standalone power system can supply power to remote properties 24/7, regardless of the weather and is more reliable and safer than long feeder lines.

The energy transition being experienced worldwide presents great opportunities for affordable, low-emissions energy.

However, it also presents challenges for maintaining a secure and reliable power supply, and for affected workers and communities as we move away from traditional electricity sources.

For example, the exponential year-on-year increase of rooftop solar uptake, paired with increases in large scale renewable generation, is decreasing the demand for electricity

18 WA WORKS Summer 2019

generated from traditional energy assets, such as Synergy’s coal-fired assets.

In particular, the Muja power station in Collie, which will be scaled back from 2022.

In response to the challenges presented to our electricity system, the McGowan Government recently launched the Western Australian Energy Transformation Strategy.

“In the next 10 years there will be more than 20,000 standalone power systems throughout WA” The strategy will deliver cleaner, affordable and more reliable energy to households and businesses for decades to come.

To maximise the environmental benefits and minimise the costs of this energy transition, the

Bill Johnston

Energy Transformation Taskforce implementing the strategy, will develop a Whole of System Plan outlining actions required to achieve a more co-ordinated electricity system.

This will be complemented by a Distributed Energy Resources Roadmap, to guide the integration of solar panel generation, battery storage and future technologies, such as electric vehicles and microgrids.

As well as considering how we can better prepare our electricity system for the future, it’s important that our workforce is equipped with the right skills.

The State Government has taken action by investing in a first-of-its-kind training program to upskill its energy utility workers in new energy technology solutions, such as standalone power systems.

Western Power and Horizon Power powerline and cable jointing workers commenced a 12-month program at North Metropolitan TAFE to become trade qualified electrical fitters in November.

Once qualified, the employees will be able to operate, maintain and repair standalone power systems, which combine solar, battery and diesel generation.

The Horizon Power Port Hedland and Karrathabased employees will be able to maintain and repair the North West Interconnected System transmission terminal yards and distribution substations in the Pilbara, as well as the new Onslow utility grade solar farm and battery.

Horizon Power installed 17 standalone power systems in the Esperance region this year, making it Australia’s first utility to remove parts of its poles and wires network and replace it with an off‑grid renewable energy power solution.

Meanwhile, Western Power will install a further 57 standalone power systems this year, which is Australia’s biggest rollout.

The standalone power systems enable customers to generate and store their own electricity, and so far the response from the recipients has been very positive.

The McGowan Government will take a considered approach to transforming our energy sector, founded on coordinated planning, a strategy to support system security, and sensible adoption of low emissions technology.

I look forward to sharing the Roadmap and the first Whole of System Plan with the energy sector participants, innovators and the community in mid-2020.

I believe this is the way we adapt to this transformation and how we set Western Australia up for a brighter energy future.

Bill Johnston is the WA Energy Minister

New Age of Energy - Special Feature

If I had ten billion dollars The South West power system will need more than $10 billion of investment in new generation, storage and networks upgrades in the next two decades, according to the State Government

By Peter Milne

A

s independent chair of the WA Government’s energy transformation taskforce, Stephen Edwell will produce the plan to guide the multibillion dollar spend.

Appointed to the post in May, he’s well qualified for the big job ahead, having reshaped energy markets before. Edwell prepared Queensland to enter the east coast’s ill-named National Electricity Market and later set up the WA Wholesale Electricity Market (WEM).

The WEM supplies electricity to customers via the South West Interconnected System, incorporating more than 7800km of transmission lines for the majority of the state’s population.

Energy Minister Bill Johnston said a key responsibility of the taskforce was a long-term plan based on the comprehensive modelling of costs, new technologies and any changes to the rules of the electricity market recommended by the taskforce.

“The Whole of System Plan, which will be released mid-2020, will present a 20-year outlook on the optimal mix of large-scale generation, energy storage and network investment required to meet demand, to inform future investment, policy and market development,” Johnston said.

The NEM has a similar plan produced by the Australian Energy Market Operator, but Edwell

has one advantage energy reformers in the east can only dream of — a single jurisdiction that can make timely decisions.

The grid in the west also differs in fuel mix and ownership.

The NEM was powered by 74 per cent coal, 8 per cent each from gas, hydro and wind and 2 per cent solar during the last financial year.

The fuel mix for the WEM, with cheaper gas and no mountains for hydroelectricity, was 49 per cent black coal, 40 per cent gas, 9 per cent wind and just 0.3 per cent utility-scale solar.

Both sets of numbers ignore the contribution of rooftop solar as it is behind the meter and invisible to market operators.

State ownership is strong in WA. Western Power runs the grid and its sister company Synergy has a 38 per cent share of generation and a retail monopoly for residences and small businesses.

Edwell said the WA electricity market is fundamentally sound but needs to “fit with the brave new world of intermittency and renewable energy”.

The plan will outline the capacity mix required for four different demand and technology scenarios.

Two scenarios outline a future with very low emissions, but no carbon price is modelled.

“My view of the world is that a carbon price is almost yesterday’s problem,” Edwell said.

“Because the economics of renewable energy now is such that if we ensure we’ve got open access we’ll get the benefits of lower carbon emissions over time.”

Coal’s share of WA power generation will drop and be replaced with large scale wind and solar farms and gas-fired generators.

Edwell said the future split between renewables and gas remains to be seen, but gas had its advantages.

“You’ve got to have a resource…which keeps the…power flow stable and the network stable, and that is a traditional role for gas, as well as peaking capacity,” he said.

“Having that resource there at a very competitive price is a big competitive advantage for WA compared to the eastern states where

the price is three times more.”

Edwell said he thought most new gas-fired power generators would be the less efficient open-cycle design or even reciprocating engines. They respond more quickly to changing demand than the larger more efficient combinedcycle units that use steam from waste heat to generate additional power.

The modelling behind the Whole of System Plan will allow the government to make an informed decision about balancing the elements of the energy trilemma — affordability, reliability and emissions.

“I think other jurisdictions, to be frank, have sort of gone off on a bit of a frolic, and they are now in trouble,” he said.

The taskforce leader also wants different tariffs to reflect the high fixed costs of generation and transmission and the variability of demand and renewable generation.

“We have to move away from, in my view, the current flat tariff arrangements with a small fixed charge and a variable charge to a more time of use type pricing structure,” he said.

“The trick has got to be constructing a tariff arrangement which sends appropriate signals but is simple to understand.”

For Edwell, data will be essential to transforming WA’s energy system.

“If we just had renewable energy without the ability to capture data, analyse data — massive amounts of data at the consumer end — this would be a bigger challenge,” Edwell said.

“It’s not about Big Brother controlling things, it’s about having good data analytics, smart networks, and value streams for small scale producers of electricity to get a return on their investment.”

He said the data would require strong regulation to protect consumers and maintain competition.

Edwell is optimistic that a decentralised digitalised power system with distributed energy at a low or zero marginal cost combined with storage will lower prices.

“So we’re all going to end up in a happy place, the trick is making sure that we can avoid upheaval in getting there,” Edwell said.

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 19

New Age of Energy - Special Feature

Change: it’s fast and furious Standalone systems, batteries, community power banks, advanced meters are all in the race for the powerful new energy mix

By Peter Milne

U

ntil recently Western Power has done what it has always done — string poles and wires across the South West of WA to link power stations with customers — but now it is responding to technology upheavals from renewable energy, batteries and the availability of data from throughout the system.

Guy Chalkley, the Western Power chief executive in charge of $10.8 billion of State-owned assets, has been amazed at the pace of change in recent years.

“In terms of what’s coming…for us that means standalone power systems, integrated batteries, the community power bank, advanced meters,” he said.

“There probably isn’t a silver bullet in terms of what is out there…there’s lots of different solutions that suit different scenarios.”

Western Power, which has 7800km of transmission lines and a further 64,000km of distribution lines, is now serving harder to reach customers with standalone solar-battery-diesel hybrid power systems.

20 WA WORKS Summer 2019

An $8.8 million rollout of 57 systems announced in February is expected to save Western Power $6m when compared to a traditional refurbishment.

“I think batteries will really embed themselves in the network,” he said.

“If you think where solar PVs have moved in five years, you can certainly put batteries on that curve for the next five as well.”

South Australia is home to the world’s biggest battery at Hornsdale, three hours north

of Adelaide, that was famously built in less than 100 days after Tesla founder Elon Musk bet it would be free if his company did not meet the deadline.

The Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) backed a 50 per cent expansion of the battery in November.

“The Hornsdale battery is a groundbreaking project that has proven what batteries can do for our electricity system,” ARENA chief executive Darren Miller said.

Western Power sees opportunities for a similar battery in WA. “Our transmission system is basically Perth with a line running to Geraldton, a line running to Kalgoorlie and a line to Albany. It would be nice to put extra security in and a large battery could certainly offer that,” Chalkley said.

With the WA power industry split between Synergy and private operators generating and retailing electricity and Western Power transmitting it, it is not clear who would install a grid-scale battery.

“It could be a bit of all of that, we wouldn’t want it from a capacity perspective but obviously a generator-retailer would, but we would want it

New Age of Energy - Special Feature

The powerbank installed at Meadow Springs, south of Perth near Mandurah. It is the equivalent to about 50 household batteries with customers given the option to rent storage rather than buying their own battery

from a network security perspective,” he said.

“And that’s the beauty of a battery — it’s not just solving one issue, it’s solving two or three issues.”

According to ARENA the Hornsdale battery has provided back up power, lowered spot prices for power and brought down the cost of so-called frequency control ancillary services by competing with existing gas power plants.

For Western Power, putting power banks in urban areas could defer expensive upgrades to substations.

Customers get the option of effectively renting storage instead of buying their own.

“If I think of myself as a customer, do I want to spend $10,000 on something that is behind the meter?” he said.

Having the storage under its control allows

“An $8.8 million rollout of 57 systems announced in February is expected to save Western Power $6 million” On a smaller scale Western Power, together with Synergy, installed a Tesla battery about one-thousandth the size of Hornsdale for the community at Meadow Springs near Mandurah.

Chalkley said the Meadow Springs power bank was equivalent to about 50 household batteries at about half the cost.

Western Power to use the battery to improve the performance of the entire network as well serve customers that have signed up to the storage service.

In another initiative to increase the transparency of electricity flows around the South West, Western Power in April announced the $251m rollout of 238,000 smart meters.

The meters will help manage the surging output from rooftop solar.

“We’ve ended up with the biggest power station in WA ...but we haven’t actually got visibility of that data,” Chalkley said.

While WA is a world leader with its speed of adoption of rooftop solar Chalkley sees the opposite with electric vehicles that promise to bring both extra demand and storage to the power system.

“WA is behind the pace, and I’d even say Australia is probably behind the pace of the rest of the world,” he said.

“People are struggling to buy the cars because that haven’t got the charging points and then people are struggling to put the charging points in because there aren’t any cars.

“I think someone has to bite the bullet on that.”

Chalkley was amazed at the pace of change, with technologies that three years ago classified as emerging were now centre stage: “we’re trialling them with an extremely high success rate in terms of what they can achieve.”

“I struggle to see poles and wires in 50 years.”

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 21

New Age of Energy - Special Feature Windmill blades arrive at the Australian Marine Complex and are then transported to the Warradarge wind farm near Eneabba

When the wild wind blows The McGowan Government’s plan to develop WA renewable energy projects in partnership with the private sector is more than hot air in the Mid West

By Stephen Bell

I

n Henderson, the giants have left the building as WA’s surge in renewable energy investment marches on.

The first of the big turbine components for Bright Energy Investment’s (BEI) $500 million Warradarge wind farm started leaving the Australian Marine Complex (AMC) last month bound for the project site near Eneabba.

BEI, the partnership between State Government-owned Synergy, Dutch Infrastructure Fund (DIF) and superannuation giant Cbus, says 153 turbine blades, 153 tower sections and 51 turbine nacelles — the covers housing the generating components — will be trucked north over the next few months.

While all the pieces are large loads, the 66-metre long blades, some of the largest in Australia, will require special handling during transportation.

To minimise road delays, transportation is carried out at night and each load takes about six hours to reach Warradarge.

BEI General Manager Tom Frood described the trucking of the giant components to the site as a major milestone for Warradarge, which started site works in July and remained “on track for planned first energy around the start of the fourth quarter of 2020”.

As of December, about 25 out of a total 51 foundations had been poured ready to receive the wind turbines, he added.

Denmark-based Vestas is supplying the turbines and civil works on the turbine foundations, while the balance of plant is

22 WA WORKS Summer 2019

carried out by subcontractor Decmil.

Decmil won a $72m contract in March 2019 — the Perth-based engineer’s first role on a wind farm. The scope includes wind turbine bases, 55km of access tracks, site cabling, switch room and substation.

BEI said each wind turbine tower would be assembled out of three sections. The turbine nacelle placed atop the towers will have a hub height of 84 metres.

“153 turbine blades, 153 tower sections and 51 turbine nacelles will be trucked north over the next few months” The project is expected to generate about 200 construction jobs and, when complete, will boast a generating capacity of 180MW — enough to supply the equivalent of 148,500 homes.

Warradarge is one of three big wind farm construction projects fanning a renewables construction boom in the Mid West.

The others are Alinta Energy’s $400m Yandin

project, which is also using the Vesta/Decmil combination and APA Group’s Badgingarra, which was completed early last year.

Keep on the sunny side Meanwhile, BEI reported progress at its other Mid West energy investment — the Greenough River Solar farm expansion.

The original 10MW facility operates south of Geraldton and is being expanded by a further 30MW. The expansion had a rocky start when former contractor RCR Tomlinson collapsed in November 2018, about seven months after winning a $60m contract for stage two.

BEI terminated RCR’s contract in late 2018 and, after retendering, appointed Brisbane-based Juwi Renewable Energy in September 2019 to finish building the project.

About 300,000 solar panels needed to be installed, alongside half the piles, cabling, inverters and switch equipment.

“It is expected that the workforce will peak at approximately 120 workers,” said Frood, who told WA Works the final cost of the venture was commercial in confidence.

Last month BEI said the project was progressing well and remained on track for energisation in the second quarter of 2020.

“Progress is becoming quite clear on the site now with the installation of the posts nearly complete and tracking systems and panels going up rapidly. We expect stage two to be generating by the second quarter,” Frood said.

Unlike stage one, which has fixed solar panels, the expansion panels are mounted on a single axis tracking system which follows the sun to provide more electricity generation in the mornings and afternoons, BEI said.

When finished, the overall 40MW facility will generate enough electricity to power nearly 20,000 homes.

Distributed cheer

Peter Kerr

Love to have a beer with batteries Have you ever thought that beer and electricity networks had a lot in common? How about beer and batteries? Don’t worry, you’re not alone, writes Peter Kerr

J

ust as the huge brewing companies and their associated logistics networks are facing challenges from “distributed” or local craft breweries, so too are electricity networks facing competition — and opportunities — from distributed renewable energy.

While more solar on rooftops means less electrons flowing through the traditional network, it also opens a range of new possibilities and products.

Like any industry in transition, it’s about making sure that the whole community makes the best use of both large-scale and smaller consumerdriven energy sources to ensure we all win.

One of the keys to linking these two macro and micro trends is storage. Batteries help households to make best use of their local generation, and they help us to smooth out the swings and fluctuations that come with industrial-scale renewables.

Importantly, batteries to store power generated at a community scale (as well as trials we are undertaking with small-scale hydro power) are on the cusp of becoming commercially viable.

While all of this is happening, our biggest challenge is to make sure our customers realise the value in the network they have already paid for, stay connected and therefore make the grid sustainable for the whole community in the long run.

Just as we will need more renewables and eventually more electric vehicles, we will need the grid. Poles and wires connect power to our hospitals, schools and streetlights.

Every time one of our customers defects from the grid, we lose a contributing member of the community helping with the upkeep of those poles and wires. The broader challenge to keep the network working for everyone is growing.

This was brought home to us sharply, when a brand-new school in Perth’s north got in contact to connect up with the grid. After getting the quote, they instead chose to spend the money on solar and batteries. That in itself is not a bad thing, but in doing so we lost a contributor to keeping the grid functioning.

We need to change the perception that going off grid is actually the right thing to do. We can do

that by offering products and services that let our customers source, store, use and manage their power the way they want to. On the grid. And by keeping grid power affordable, safe and reliable.

A tale of two networks So, over the past couple of years, we’ve been trialling a bunch of different solutions and products. It’s exciting stuff, and it’s showed us is that the future of our grid will really be a tale of two networks.

The most highly populated parts of WA will be powered by what we call the mesh network.

Why mesh? Because poles and wires mesh together with newer power solutions like solar panels and advanced meters.

We’re also trialling community batteries that will provide all the benefits of storing excess solar power without the cost and hassle of installing one in your home. Working a little like buying storage space on the internet, it will make having a battery solution cheaper for the average

resident. Importantly, those community batteries will still use the grid.

The other part of our network, reaching out across WA’s vast expanse, will be more autonomous. Using standalone power systems and microgrids, we will assist customers at the end of lines with costly poles and wires to create their own power, often renewably. This is a win for them — and for us.

Their reliance on long, exposed lines is reduced, which means they have less outages, and we have less costly upgrades of infrastructure that only services a very small number of people.

So the future of our network is not about providing one solution to fit all. It’s modular, innovative and flexible.

The power framework we are installing over the next 10 years will make it easy for people to power up their lives how they want to, improve long-term cost efficiencies and keep WA homes and the services like schools, shops and hospitals, connected to the all-important grid.

It means creating better power outcomes, for our environment, for reliability and safety and for our community.

We’ll drink to that.

Peter Kerr is the Executive Manager, Growth at Western Power

“Every time one of our customers defects from the grid, we lose a contributing member of the community”

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 23

On the roof again Distributing electricity to the largest area with the least customers in the world has put state-owned utility Horizon Power at the forefront of technology, says CEO Stephanie Unwin

By Robyn Molloy

H

orizon Power is so close to cracking the code for distributed energy resources management, it believes it will have the solution by the middle of this year.

The eyes of the world have been Horizon’s Onslow microgrid where it’s been trialling a platform and developing software to unravel the technological challenge of grid-connected distributed energy resources.

It means solving the problem of monitoring and managing the thousands of smaller scale grid connected assets that make up the local distribution system, such as, power stations, solar panels, batteries, appliances and electric vehicles, while balancing energy generation, use and storage.

Horizon commissioned an 8MW gas-fired power station in Onslow in 2018 and a 1MW solar farm and 1MW utility scale battery last

24 WA WORKS Summer 2019

year, with smart technology managing power fluctuations on the microgrid that services the remote Pilbara town.

The utility operates 38 systems across its network, of which 32 are microgrids, supplying power to 100,000 residents and 10,000 businesses in regional and remote parts of the state.

This translates to a massive service area of 2.3 million square kilometres — bigger than Saudi Arabia — but one very thinly populated: one customer for each 53 sq km.

CEO Stephanie Unwin, who traverses the state to access Horizon’s assets, says distributed energy resource management is not an easy challenge to tackle, and one that requires smart people to “make it play nicely”.

Moreover, there are often several parts of the network speaking “different languages” which need translating so they can operate in harmony.

“But we’re very close, we’re using some great

technology that’s come out of the United States.

And we’re quite convinced so far that we’ve got the answer,” she told WA Works.

“We’re working through it and I think we may be forefront in at least Australia, maybe the world in this. There’s a lot of interest in the work that has been happening in Onslow.”

The next step, she says, is working out how to scale it while bringing down customer bills.

Unwin, who has been CEO since last May, has been in the power industry for more than 10 years having held senior executive roles with Synergy and Verve from 2008-17.

“Like anything these days, you’ve got to collaborate with brilliant people in the industry, so we’ve got a software provider who is helping us to come up with this,” she says.

“We’re not in the business of creating software, but we are in the business of having a wicked problem that needs to be solved, and then working out how we can turn that into something able to be scaled and deployed.

“We would license that software, but it’s absolutely been developed with our people.”

The aim is to develop algorithms to smooth out the inherent fluctuations of renewable energy such as solar and wind power. “How do we make them all so that the orchestra is making beautiful music instead of this sort of scratchy, horrible stuff,” she explains.

Working out the hosting capacity of solar panels while keeping the system reliable and stable is critical, as well as meeting customer

New Age of Energy - Special Feature is much more in the pipeline including a hydrogen trial, creating a digital utility, deploying community battery and solar products and having zero hydrocarbon towns.

“But we also need to rebuild our generation capability. And so when I talk about right-sizing our systems, how do we then capitalise on this new technology and bring it in at the right scale and size whilst really firmly acknowledging that the rooftops of all of our customers will be a huge part of this system going forward?

as it transitioned from a coal dominated base into what needs to be a more sustainable future.

“Are there opportunities for example, to leverage the technology that we already have in WA and some of the great businesses we have here or could bring here to become hubs for manufacturing?

“You could do the same in Esperance and other areas. I think those supply chain opportunities are enormous.

“You’ve got to collaborate with brilliant people in the industry, so we’ve got a software provider who is helping us” “I think it’s enormously exciting because it speaks to our absolute clear purpose. We are all here to serve the regions and when we’re all connected with the things we do, our regions thrive. And that’s what this strategy is really all about for Horizon.”

Good for the supply chain demand for bringing in their own solutions.

“We’re trying very hard to work out what is the right amount that we can bring in? How can you push it back a little, when the system is not going to like it, and bring it on when the system needs it?”

Unwin says getting the system right will mean cheaper bills, which is critical for helping regional areas thrive.

“The cost of power from a consumption basis is very, very high, where we’re seeing customers with bills that are like $2000 for the two months, while we might have a bill down here in Perth that’s $500 or $600,” she says.

“Everything we can do to bring a bill down to allow solar on rooftop and then come up with solutions so it plays nicely means those communities can have more money in the hip pockets.”

She expects Horizon’s solutions will have global appeal.

“WA could be at the forefront of this, but also there are economies such as India and Indonesia where they really do need microgrids — small solutions that don’t involve long investments and a lot of money in poles and wires.

“So, I think there’s a lot we could be doing and sharing with our colleagues, not just here, but around the world along this technology line.”

Unwin says the changing technologies will undoubtedly create supply chain opportunities, with battery technology one of the most obvious.

Horizon is studying where it could deploy energy storage on its network and, “with the right investment we could be deploying a significant number of batteries,” she said.

“And that would include our fellow Government Trading Enterprises in the South West Interconnected System, who would be looking at similar things.

“You can bring supply chain opportunities all the way through to the battery manufacturing.

And you could look to do that in economic areas that would really benefit from the investment.”

She said Collie was a is a great example,

Those opportunities might extend beyond Horizon’s activities to other businesses in and around Esperance and other parts of the state, she says.

No stranger to breaking new ground Transforming the electricity grid is not new for Horizon, which after the 12 days of bushfires in Esperance in 2015 found itself with 320 badly burnt power poles.

Rather than replace them, Horizon delivered standalone power systems. It now has 17 systems deployed on farming properties, cutting poles and wires for 64km of the network.

Unwin says regulation is holding back this sort of innovation across the rest of the country, but because Horizon is vertically integrated, it can cut the poles and wires.

“These things need to catch up quite quickly. At the moment, they are standing in the way of, I think, really the customers’ desires and a much better financial outcome for the customer and the utility, if we can move ahead with these sorts of solutions.”

Zero hydrocarbon towns While reducing power bills is at the heart of Horizon’s five-year plan, Unwin says there

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 25

More lithium on the South West menu The battery-making commodity may be in a short-term lull, but there is still plenty of activity at the world’s biggest lithium mine tucked away in the forests of the South West, writes Stephen Bell

T

alison Lithium has celebrated one expansion project and expressed confidence that another, its stalled CGP3 project, can proceed in the next few years.

Speaking at the official launch of the $320 million CGP2 project in October, Talison Chief Executive Lorry Mignacca told guests there was “still a lot of work ahead for us” at Greenbushes — the world’s biggest lithium mine, about 250km south of Bunbury.

“Talison’s next expansion, the CGP3 project, which is a duplication of what we have just seen today, is in detailed engineering design and we expect to bring it on in three

26 WA WORKS Summer 2019

to four years depending on the market demands of the customers.

“The lithium concentrates that we produce are an extremely sought-after commodity and the growth prospects for our industry remain strong, irrespective of current market commentary of a possible short-term oversupply,” Mignacca said.

Talison confirmed last August that its $516m CGP3 project would be “paused” as its two shareholders review the timing of construction and the need for additional volumes of lithium concentrates to align with their converting capacity.

Talison is an operating company owned by China’s Tianqi and US-based Albemarle, which

are building separate lithium chemical conversion plants at Kwinana and Kemerton, respectively.

The timing of a mooted third Greenbushes upgrade, CGP4, will also depend on the rate of growth in the lithium market. Should all the expansions go ahead, Talison’s permanent workforce of 550 could double, the company forecasts.

Mignacca said the new CGP2 plant had boosted the mine’s production capacity to about 1.3 million tonnes per year of concentrates grading about 6 per cent lithium.

“This scale, together with the quality of the Greenbushes orebody, will ensure Greenbushes retains its position as the largest and one of the lowest cost lithium sources in the world and it also demonstrates the significance of the expansion to global lithium production,” he said.

The recent project resulted in 700 temporary onsite construction jobs, while Talison added nearly 300 full-time equivalent jobs to support the new plant and associated infrastructure.

Talison’s lithium concentrating facility at the mine in Greenbushes

CGP2 is ramping up to full production after processing the first ore in September.

Talison has also begun delivering lithium concentrates to Tianqi’s Kwinana lithium hydroxide plant, which is also in commissioning.

Deliveries to Kwinana will increase as the Tianqi plant ramps up but, for the time being, most Greenbushes’ concentrates are trucked to Bunbury for export.

A tail of Talison Meanwhile, Talison has begun building a plant designed to strip high-grade lithium out of a pile of old tailings left over from earlier mining operations, when metals such as tin and tantalum were more highly valued than lithium.

Mining of tantalum began in 1960, while the first lithium processing plant — to produce technical grade lithium for the ceramics

“The new CGP2 plant had boosted the mine’s production capacity to about 1.3 million tonnes per year” Despite the start-up of several other WA lithium mines during the boom, Greenbushes remains the largest single-source producer of lithium mineral concentrates, accounting for about 27 per cent of global supplies.

and glass industries — wasn’t commissioned until 1983.

During most of those 23 years, lithium ore was diverted to tailings, which Talison now wants to recover using a speciality retreatment facility.

Talison awarded a $100m contract last May to Mondium — a joint venture between Monadelphous and Lycopodium — for the design and construction of the tailings operation.

However, preparatory earthworks only recently started due to delays in Talison receiving a final set of environmental approvals — mostly from the Federal Government.

WA Works understands that construction is due to start early this year and run for about 12 months, with the project expected to employ hundreds of construction workers in the South West.

Mondium will undertake all engineering and design, procurement and site construction as EPC contractor.

The job includes earthworks, concreting, structural, platework, electrical and instrumentation works and controls. It is Mondium’s largest contract to date and the second with Talison, following the delivery last year of a new chemical-grade plant feed system.

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 27

Resources Technology Showcase 2019

The times they are a changin’

WA’s world class technology was up for discussion at the Resources Technology Showcase, at the inaugural conference held by Seven West Media. Stephen Bell and Robyn Molloy were there

Taking care of bug dust Fortescue Metals Group has patents pending on technology developed for its $3.8 billion Iron Bridge project, according to Chief Operating Officer Greg Lilleyman.

He told the audience the project would use smaller, dedicated, intelligent process units, which efficiently remove the waste immediately as it presents itself in the processing flow.

“But you need lots and lots of data sources and analytics to do that,” he said.

“That is very innovative and it is what, we believe, is going to be the secret sauce to us delivering, developing, building and operating the first significantly successful iron ore magnetite project in WA,” he told WA Works in an interview on the sidelines of the conference.

It would help the miner avoid the typically expensive and inefficient routes of other magnetite mines that use lots of energy to grind their ores into very fine ‘bug dust’-sized power to liberate the iron from the silica.

Fortescue had adopted processes from industries far and wide to build the technology.

“In some cases the equipment, albeit perhaps slightly modified, has been validated and used in other industries, including in the production of cement and paint pigments, for instance,” Lilleyman said.

28 WA WORKS Summer 2019

Know your enemy Digital disruption has the power to make or break an industry and Rio Tinto must be a Google, not a Kodak, Rio Tinto’s Head of Group Technical Mining Santi Pal told the crowd.

And that comment shows the power and the fear of digital disruption, given that Rio Tinto was recently ranked amongst the top 50 companies globally by Boston Consulting Group.

“When it comes to digital disruption, complacency is actually our enemy,” Pal said.

“We can never be fully content, we need to continue to learn and disrupt

ourselves before someone else does. We must challenge everything, absolutely everything we do.”

“Fortunately, for us in Rio Tinto, we constantly seek ways of doing things better and it’s actually part of our DNA.” Pal said Rio Tinto would harness the power of digital disruption over the next 10 years to operate mines that were fatality free, reduce its environmental footprint, extend the life or ore bodies and equipment and operate as part of an integrated value chain.

Getting the right tempo for talking to each other Meanwhile, Rio Tinto’s automation of rail and road haulage has generated an “an ocean of data”, said Ivan Vella, Managing Director of Rio’s Port, Rail and Core Services: “Without a doubt, it (data) is the greatest untapped enabler and disrupter available to our industry,” Vella said, in introducing Project Tempo, where Rio partnered with EY data and analytics, Monash University and Strukton Rail to develop artificial intelligence solutions for rail maintenance.

“We can now pinpoint problems to within 100 metres on any part of our rail network and the deep learning AI models predict speed restrictions up to 16 weeks prior to them actually occurring based on track degradation information.

“These are then given a ranking so predictive

maintenance schedules stay prioritised based on business impact,” Vella said.

Harvesting and analysing data like this had delivered great efficiencies and improved productivity, but was there was plenty of upside.

“We know that the next phase of automation is to get our assets — our trains, trucks, and drilling systems to talk to each other.

Resources Technology Showcase 2019

Honey, I shrunk the kit

Starman Woodside’s Executive Vice President Exploration and Chief Technology Officer Shaun Gregory said collaboration between the resources giant and NASA had both industries reaching for the stars, or in this case, Mars.

Woodside has access to one of eight of NASA’s robonauts to test and trial ideas at the company’s remote locations, while NASA gets the chance to trial a robot in harsh environment which will ultimately help the Mars Exploration Program.

A NASA engineer is based in Perth for nine months of the year and Woodside staff get seconded to the Johnson Space Centre in Houston as part of a five-year program.

Gregory says while the robonaut itself is fascinating, it’s the software where all the smarts are, which is transferred and shared jointly with NASA, with a lot becoming open source.

“We even had the opportunity to send two of our staff, a field technician from Karratha and an engineer from Perth, to the Johnson Space Centre for four to six weeks to assist in the repair and rebuilding of that robonaut before it returns to the

space station, probably early next year,” he said.

“And that is really at the core of where that collaboration is happening. It’s on the people exchange, writing the software, understanding the problems that we have in the industry that we’re trying to tackle to take industry forward and the alignment of those to the space industry.”

“Woodside has access to one of eight of NASA’s robonauts to test and trial ideas” He said robotics is part of Woodside’s intelligent asset programming technology, which is gleaning insights from sensing data to drive business outcomes such as safe and reliable operations and eliminating low value tasks.

It must be tough for the world’s largest manufacturer of construction and mining equipment to forecast shrinkage of some of its best sellers.

Jean Savage, Caterpillar’s Vice President of Surface Mining and Technology, said the mines of the future would use smaller and smarter equipment as managers chased zero injuries to workers, lower greenhouse gas emissions and value chain improvements.

Until recently, the industry had pushed for bigger haulage trucks, due to an upturn in commodity markets and the perceived increase in efficiency, she said.

But analysis by Caterpillar had found that “smaller may be the future”.

Improved logistics, better systems availability, and cost savings from using steeper pit walls were among the benefits of downsizing.

“You may think, ‘Why am I up here talking about this when I sell equipment?’”

Savage said.

“You will need less equipment overall to do this type of work.”

But she said it was the best way, “for us as an industry to continue to show that we are being sustainable”.

Innovation race BHP CEO Mike Henry said the global miner’s Innovation Centre at Eastern Ridge, near Newman in the Pilbara, was proving vital in the race to innovate better and faster than its competitors.

“This is BHP’s testing centre — our proving ground for new technologies that we then export all over the world to BHP’s global operations, from right here in WA,” he said.

The company had created an industrial ‘internet-of-things’ sensor gateway.

“This reliably and securely collects data from sensors on BHP mobile equipment such as trucks and vehicles, and fixed-plant equipment such as drills and conveyors.

“A different team then built a tool to exploit the rich data that comes from this gateway, to make maintenance safer and more efficient. This is done by giving our maintainers live equipment diagnostics via a tablet or smartphone. It keeps them away from running equipment which is dangerous, and takes any guess work out of maintenance.”

Meanwhile, BHP’s Chief Transformation Officer Jonathon Price said that technology would find its way into every role in the company’s mines of the future.

He said in preparing the workforce for the technology that will be embedded across the supply chain, BHP must get two things right: the culture to fail fast and learn quickly, and capability by fostering the skills needed for the future.

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 29

Resources

Fields of gold in remote WA The opening of the state’s first big gold mine in nearly six years has highlighted its positive impact on the supply chain and remote communities

By Stephen Bell

I

t has not been an easy road to riches for the owners of the $621 million Gruyere gold mine, sited in one of the remotest parts of WA — about 200 kilometres east of Laverton and 1000km north-east of Perth.

Operator Gold Fields, which owns 50 per cent of the mine alongside Gold Road Resources, had to build everything from scratch, including an airstrip, roads, water bores, processing mill, power plant and a 648-room accommodation village.

After a two-year project requiring 700 construction workers and 3.35 million man-hours, Gruyere poured its first gold in late June. At the time of writing it was expected to produce as much as 100,000 ounces in 2019, while ramping up to its capacity of 300,000oz per annum.

The mine was officially opened in December by Mines and Petroleum Minister Bill Johnston in an on-site ceremony attended by representatives of the project owners, key contractors and the Yilka people, the owners of the land the mine is built on.

The guests also included Bill Marmion, the former Liberal Coalition Mines Minister who opened the state’s last big gold mine, AngloGold Ashanti’s Tropicana in March 2014.

Stuart Mathews, Gold Fields’ Executive Vice President Australasia, said Gruyere was a good example of a mining operation providing longterm jobs, sustained industry investment and “ongoing support to the local economy”.

“We made the discovery six years ago and today we have opened a greenfield operation that is the first to produce gold in the prospective Yamarna Belt,” he said.

Ongoing investment Gold Fields Chair Cheryl Carolus said the global gold giant was committed to WA, demonstrated by its consistent investment in near-mine exploration at all its local mines — the others are St Ives, Agnew and Granny Smith.

On average, the company had invested $80m a year in the ongoing exploration program, she said.

“This has made us one of the top mining investors in the state and has yielded significant

“The company had invested $80m a year in the ongoing exploration program” Gruyere offered permanent employment to more than 250 employees and Mathews said a key focus had been to work with the Yilka people to provide employment and develop career pathways over the mine’s 12-year life.

At the time of writing, four key contracts had been awarded to indigenous enterprises, focused on major plant, minor plant, labour hire and cleaning services. Gruyere is the first operating mine on Yilka country.

Mathews also paid tribute to Gold Road, the Perth-based company that discovered the orebody, proved up the deposit and then decided to partner with Gold Fields to bring the operation into production.

Gold Road CEO, Duncan Gibbs described the mine’s development as an “amazing journey”.

30 WA WORKS Summer 2019

results — these mines will be around for years to come,” Carolus said.

The company is also investing in renewable power sources at its Agnew and Granny Smith mines, which “highlights our confidence in the future of mining in Australia”, she added.

The joint venture partners have no immediate plans to introduce renewables to complement Gruyere’s gas-fired power station, although WA Works understands planning is underway for a solar installation to power bore fields, some of which are about 50km from the plant.

A new gold road?

Gold Road’s Gibbs, meanwhile, said the company’s exploration team was focused on “unlocking the gold potential of the Yamarna Belt”.

The day after the mine opening, the company reported the first mineral resource for its 100 per cent-owned Yamarna project of 297,600 ounces at the Gilmour and Renegade prospects, about 55km from the Gruyere mine site.

The gold mineralisation is more than twice the average grade of Gruyere but much smaller in volume — Gruyere boasts a mineral reserve of 3.8 million ounces.

Contingent on further discoveries, Yamarna could be developed either as a standalone operation or processed at Gruyere via toll treatment provisions under the Gruyere JV agreement, Gold Road said.

Bling it on WA Works toured the Gruyere operation as part of a contingent of media representatives, major suppliers and mine personnel.

The impressive Gruyere pit is currently 900m by 500m with a depth of 50m deep.

It will eventually extend to 1.8km by 900m and 350m deep at the end of the 12-year mine plan.

Downer has a five-year mining contract and uses Caterpillar MT 4400 diesel/electric hybrid dump trucks to haul the ore to the Gruyere mill, which was built by a joint venture of Civmec and Wood.

The processing plant, dominated by two giant rotating grinding mills and carbon-inleach circuits, has a nominal capacity of 8.8 million tonnes per annum.

Power is provided via underground cabling from APA’s 45MW Yamarna gas-fired power plant, located adjacent to the Gruyere mill.

Resources cobalt, manganese and tantalum.

The company will also explore opportunities for the next stage of processing — upstream solvent extraction — in WA, it says.

Lynas also planned to develop its relationship with Curtin University and the WA School of Mines to create intellectual property in the processing of critical minerals.

Let’s get critical Kalgoorlie is about to become an important player in the geopolitics of critical minerals

By Stephen Bell

W

A’s embryonic rare earths mining industry is headed downstream, with Lynas Corporation confirming that it will start building a $500 million processing plant next year in Kalgoorlie.

The so-called cracking and leaching (C&L) plant will upgrade rare earth concentrates from the company’s Mt Weld mine near Laverton that are currently exported to Malaysia for further processing.

The project is expected to generate about 500 construction and 200 ongoing jobs, while ensuring WA’s central role in moves by the US and Australian governments to diversify supply chains for critical minerals outside of China — the dominant producer.

Refined rare earth products are critical components in robotics, modern weapons systems, smart phones and a host of renewable energy equipment such as wind turbines.

Lynas is the only major rare earth processor outside of China and the second-largest producer of Neodymium/Praseodymium (NdPr) in the world. NdPr’s primary use is magnets in electric motors.

The company’s major customers are Japanese trading house Sojitz and US companies wanting to buy from sources independent of China

Having faced increasingly tough Government regulations for its refining plant in Malaysia, Lynas had flagged the relocation of a C&L plant to WA six months ago.

After “extensive” due diligence, the company signed an option to sublease an industrial-zoned property from the City of Kalgoorlie Boulder, according to Lynas CEO Amanda Lacaze.

She described Kalgoorlie as a “terrific city and an ideal location” for the new plant, which will remove low-level radionucleotides prior to export.

“We are excited to contribute to economic development in Kalgoorlie-Boulder,” she said.

A Lynas spokesperson said the company expects to commence site works in 2020, with the bulk of the construction taking place in 2021.

“We are working to a schedule that will see the plant operational in early 2023,” she told WA Works.

“We are currently in the planning phase and will commence the procurement process as soon as this is complete.”

Construction of the C&L plant will include concentrate handling equipment, high temperature kilns, leach tanks and filters.

Lynas said the investment was a step towards delivering on the Federal Government’s critical minerals strategy, which calls for further investment in processing of minerals such as lithium, rare earths,

“Refined rare earth products are critical components in robotics, modern weapons systems, smart phones and a host of renewable energy equipment” City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder CEO John Walker said the city was looking forward to working with Lynas to see the new C&L facility through to completion and production.

“This is a fantastic step forward in the work we have been doing to diversify our local economy and expand the number of skilled residential jobs available in our city,” he said.

WA’s rare earths industry is expanding from a low base.

In 2018-19 the state produced 29,000 tonnes of rare earth concentrates valued at more than $355m and experienced an increase of three per cent in direct employment, according to the State Government.

The value could grow significantly in future years if junior companies such as Northern Minerals and Hastings Technology Metals proceed with their separate plans to build commercial operations.

Northern already produces rare earths concentrates from its Browns Range pilot plant in the Kimberley, while Hastings has proposed a $512m development at its Yangibana project near Carnarvon.

Premier Mark McGowan said Kalgoorlie had a “long and rich history in mining innovation, so there is no better place for Lynas Corporation, and other multinational businesses, to set up their processing operations”.

“I’m pleased Lynas will continue to work with Curtin University and the WA School of Mines to enhance knowledge and technologies surrounding the processing of critical minerals in Australia and continue to upskill West Australians for these important local roles.”

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 31

Resources

Poised for Pluto take-off Oil and gas suppliers are eagerly anticipating a green light in the next few months for WA’s latest big LNG project

By Stephen Bell

W

oodside has reached key engineering and pricing milestones for its Pluto LNG Train 2 expansion project as it works to secure a go-ahead in the first half of this year.

The Perth-based energy company received a lump sum price in October to build Pluto’s second train from front-end engineering design (FEED) contractor Bechtel.

At a recent CCIWA-hosted supplier information breakfast, Woodside Train 2 project manager Rob MacKinnon also revealed that the construction workforce for the overall $16 billion Scarborough-to-Pluto project would peak at more than 3000.

“We now have a price from Bechtel and the next part is really to go through our assurance processes before we can make a final investment decision (FID),” he told an audience of 200 supply company representatives.

Bechtel won the FEED contract in December 2018 to finalise the technical definition, cost and schedule associated with Pluto Train 2 — a key cog in Woodside’s Burrup Hub proposal to extend the life of key LNG processing assets near Karratha.

32 WA WORKS Summer 2019

Bechtel’s contract includes an option to progress to a lump sum engineering, procurement and construction contract for the execution phase, subject to FID. “We anticipate local supply chain opportunities for construction will increase after we take FID,” MacKinnon said. Woodside is targeting a go-ahead decision in the first half to enable the second train to be ready for start-up in 2024.

The project received a further boost in November when Woodside and BHP agreed on the tolling price for processing gas from the

Scarborough offshore field at the Pluto facility.

Woodside CEO Peter Coleman said the deal provided a “compelling” basis for the two companies to finalise the tolling arrangements by the end of the first quarter.

“It is a key milestone as we target a go-ahead for the development of the high-quality Scarborough gas resource through an expanded Pluto LNG facility. The joint venture is now in a strong position to proceed to FID in the first half of next year,” he said.

Scarborough gas will initially be processed on a deep-water floating production unit and transported through a 430km pipeline to be processed at Pluto. First LNG is targeted in 2024.

MacKinnon said the capacity of Train 2 would be 5.3 million tonnes per annum — nearly 20 per cent more than Train 1, which was built early this decade.

“On Pluto Train 2, we are strongly committed to maximising local content and services, where possible,” he said. “At peak, on both Scarborough and Pluto, the construction workforce will be about 3200 in 2022.”

Get on board Contractor Bechtel urged suppliers seeking work

Resources

Woodside’s Pluto LNG plant near Karratha

on Pluto Train 2 to express their interest via the ICN gateway project site gateway.icn.org.au.

Packages already listed include electrical, pipe supports, spool fabrication and transport and logistics.

“As we work towards FID our focus will shift to more localised materials and service packages so we’re ready to push the button on technical services and purchase orders to support the long lead items,” Case said “While we’re advertising for expressions of interest, we’re also taking advantage of this time … to work out who our best delivery partners are for the project.

“And these packages will not be re-bid when the project moves forward. So if something we’re advertising fits what you can do now, we encourage you to express your interest.”

Case emphasised Pluto Train 2 would be a lump sum job.

“This means every nut and bolt, right through to the amount of toilet paper we need in the accommodation village, is included in our price.

“This gives Woodside certainty of outcome on the project and also means we are looking for companies to deliver on our commitment to Woodside to build Pluto on time and on budget,” she said.

Bechtel was looking for suppliers that could: • Reinforce Bechtel’s commitment to support local and indigenous businesses • Work to identify cost and schedule savings, without compromising quality, safety, environment and community • Demonstrate innovation to help Bechtel problem solve, be collaborative and responsive “If you see a problem and have a solution, we definitely want to know about it, as that’s how we build our best projects in partnership with our supply chain. We’re happy to work with you to work out how you might fit into the project,” she said.

Race on for Burrup Hub Meanwhile, at the recent Pilbara 2019 conference in Perth, Woodside senior vice president North West Shelf and Burrup Niall Myles said the combined Burrup Hub projects — which also include Browse to North West Shelf, NWS Karratha Gas Plant (KGP) life extension and the Pluto to KGP interconnector — were forecast to inject $1.3 billion of direct expenditure into Karratha and Broome over the life of the project until the mid-2060s.

“Businesses in Karratha should expect to see

about $80 million of benefit each year as we operate these projects,” he said.

A study last June by Acil Allen also showed 460 direct jobs and 2000 supporting jobs in the Karratha area associated with sustaining the plants, he said.

“However, this is by no means an easy road ahead,” he said.

“The Burrup Hub faces some really stiff competition. New LNG projects in Canada, Qatar, Mozambique, Russia and the Gulf of Mexico are all targeting the same markets.

We’re competing on market, also on cost and timing — it’s a truly international race.

“To realise the Burrup Hub opportunity, choices are going to need to be made, and decisions taken, and time for those is now.”

Myles said Woodside and its joint venture partners needed to “work together, as partners, to make the Burrup Hub a reality — to face off the national competition that we see”.

Responding to questions, Myles declined to estimate the likelihood of all the Burrup Hub projects proceeding but insisted there was a “huge logic” to their development, given the forecast economic returns and the strong alignment between governments, regulators and the various joint venture interests.

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 33

Pilbara 2019

Boom waves to crash in The next wave of construction projects is descending on the Pilbara. And while the region welcomes the next mini boom, avoiding the mistakes of the past was a hot topic at the Pilbara 2019 summit. Robyn Molloy and Stephen Bell found out how the region is gearing up for the next lot of projects Commercial confidence up

Facing up to threats Pilbara Development Commission Director, Economic Development, Land and Infrastructure Justin Fromm said while the region welcomed the next mini boom, which will create 25,000 construction and 8500 operational jobs, the region needed to tackle the risks.

These include accommodation and skills shortages, pressure on health and education services, the increasing amount of heavy haulage on public roads used by tourists, insufficient childcare services and high airfare costs.

Fromm said housing the expected number of workers was a “significant” issue with Karratha already showing signs of being under pressure, despite 6000 properties being built in the last boom, with vacancies now at similar levels to 2011.

The population is forecast to hit up to 80,000 by 2026 if all projects go ahead, up from more than 61,000.

“We are starting to hear stories of the private and government sectors having difficulty finding appropriate housing for workers and the length of time it takes to find that house is starting to push out,” Fromm said.

DevelopmentWA General Manager Regional Stuart Nahajski told the summit that commercial investment confidence was positive with several projects either underway or planned.

Commercial ventures include the Hilton Garden Inn hotel in Karratha, the Tambrey Shopping Precinct, the Port Hedland marina and the Pilbara Motor Group’s new showroom and service centre.

He said the authority was monitoring land supply and housing prices but with it $150,000 cheaper to buy an existing house than a block and new build, it was not attracting investors.

DevelopmentWA was now seeking equity partners to deliver fresh housing stock.

“We have a terrific future. We have sufficient land supplies, we’re refreshing the planning across the Pilbara to make sure we are ready to go and, in the meantime, we’re engaging with

some of the resource sector,” he said.

“When they (mining companies) drive employment growth and they need houses they need to be responsible for addressing some of the supply shortages and that will continue to provide building blocks for shaping the growth of the Pilbara to encourage a resilient residential workforce.”

Iron ore hub for Perth?

Australia China Business Council WA Investment Committee Chair Philip Kirchlechner told the conference that Australia should look to Singapore’s example of being able to attract foreign investors.

He said Singapore had nudged out Hong Kong to become the centre of shipping over Hong Kong this decade, as well as becoming an iron ore trading hub.

“I really think it (iron ore hub) should be in Perth,” he said.

“We are the world’s mining iron ore resources, oil and gas technical hub. Why not be a commercial hub as well. But some of the mining companies moved their operations there and the Singapore government has done very well attracting companies, giving them incentives.

“But we need to learn from that experience.”

Kirchlechner said the Australia had slipped in World Economic Forum ranks from the 20s to 40s because of “regulations, red tape, bureaucracy, policies and stability.”

He said WA needed to be aware of the frustrations of past investments if it was to continue to attract Chinese foreign direct investment at the same levels it had in previous years.

Powerhouse opportunities Republic of Indonesia Consul General Dewi Gustina Tobing said she’d like to secure lithium supplies for Indonesia explore the possibility of a joint investment in a battery factory.

“If you are talking about batteries, we need a lot of resources of lithium. Indonesia has about 100 million motorcycles and I don’t know how many million automotive, so to supply Asia is a big market. We would like to collaborate with WA and explore the possibility of joint investment here in order to secure a supply for Indonesia,” she said.

Tobing said had been in discussions with some of Indonesia’s airlines to try and secure direct flights from Karratha.

34 WA WORKS Summer 2019

Pilbara 2019

Diversifying economy

Beefing up live export plan The State Government’s Pilbara Port Authority is keen to expand cattle exports at Port Hedland after reporting good results last year (2019) from its new double-decker loading ramp.

Port Hedland resumed live cattle exports in 2017 after a hiatus of several years when the port’s management was preoccupied with the ballooning Pilbara iron ore trade generated by the resources boom.

PPA general manager of development and trade Lyle Banks told the conference that the new loading ramp allowed the port to load cattle onto vessels at two levels, “in a much safer and quicker way”.

“It means you don’t have cattle in ports and the trucks being in yards so long, and also means the ships aren’t in the port so long.

“We are continuing to work with the pastoralists, exporters and the regulators to develop this trade and facilitate further shipments from the Pilbara,” he said. “We’ve done benchmarking and our port costs are lower than comparative loading ports.”

“So, it makes a lot of sense both financially and from an animal welfare aspect.

In September, almost 3000 head of cattle were shipped to Panjang, about three-and-a-half sailing days from the Pilbara.

“That saved another two to three sailing days had they been shipped out of one of the southern ports,” Banks said.

Moreover, the temperatures in Indonesia were “on par” with the Pilbara in September of about 30-35 degrees Celsius.

“It means you don’t have cattle in ports and the trucks being in yards so long” It also meant that the cattle didn’t have to be trucked to the southern ports, cutting travel distances and loss of condition on the cattle.

Banks said cattle transported to Fremantle could lose up to 5 per cent of their weight and conditioning, forcing them to be put into agistment prior to export.

“So there were huge benefits both for the pastoralists and the livestock.”

Biosecurity benefits Banks also expanded on the benefits flowing from the new biosecurity certification at Port Hedland, announced by Ports Minister Alannah MacTiernan in November.

The Commonwealth certification followed upgrades to the port’s cargo inspection and fumigation processes, including a wash bay facility, and means that a wider range of cargoes — including container cargo — can now enter Australia through Port Hedland.

Businesses in the Pilbara have traditionally relied on goods being trucked up from Fremantle

or overland from Sydney, which incurs significant logistical cost and limitations to business opportunities.

“Our first target is the direct import of tyres,” he said. “Bridgestone built a tyre distribution centre in Wedgefield at Port Hedland 18 months ago.

“At the moment, all the tyres go into Fremantle, get trucked up to Wedgefield and get distributed.

“We’re trying to break that by getting the tyres straight into the Pilbara — it’s a 10-minute truck drive from the port to Wedgefield.”

Karratha mayor Peter Long said even though resources remained the dominant force in the Pilbara’s economy, it was trying to diversify as a shield against tough times.

Projects include a new tertiary education facility, an oyster farm that will potentially employ 300 people and inject $30m into the economy, mercury treatment plant, galvanising plant, hydrogen and gold.

“We need more diversity and more investment to stop the boom and bust in the economy,” he said.

“Hundreds of people lost everything at the end of the last boom and we don’t want that to happen again so we are doing everything possible to diversify our economy.”

Cruising Meanwhile, the State Government is working on getting the same biosecurity approvals in place for Dampier.

“So, when a direct freight service starts up, it will have the ability to go to Port Hedland or Dampier.”

Banks said the PPA was proceeding with the detailed design for new general cargo, multi-user facilities at the port of Dampier.

The State Government is studying what sectors could be served by the port, whether Perdaman’s proposed urea plant, direct freight services, or cruise ships.

“We see there is a big opportunity for cruise ships to come into Dampier.

“There is a huge opportunity for tourism in and around Dampier, and particularly with the magnificent rock art on the Burrup.”

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 35

Construction

Summer

in the city Perth’s commercial construction market might be be on struggle street but Multiplex has managed to find a few profitable byways, writes Stephen Bell

A

fter a dry spell following the completion of boom time icons such as Optus Stadium, Fiona Stanley Hospital and Crown Towers, Multiplex has regained its mojo in time for the Perth summer.

The construction giant enjoys a firm grip on several key projects, amounting to a small snapshot of which WA sectors are hot … or at least warming up. These range from Perth retail and commercial, data storage, education and aged care, to FIFO accommodation in the Pilbara.

In an exclusive interview, Multiplex Regional Managing Director Chris Palandri says he’s noticed signs of improvement in the “tough” city construction market as the company looks to top up a recent spurt of wins.

And Palandri, the Multiplex veteran who will celebrate his 10th anniversary as the company’s WA chief in April, says a $1.4 billionplus order book is testimony to the contractor’s ability to “stay the course” on long-term projects that may take several years to secure.

“This time last year we had very little work,” he told WA Works from his office in Brookfield Place. “We’d been chasing some of these projects for years — Chevron (tower) for up to eight years, and for Bay Village we’d been working on that for about three-and-a-half years.

“Thankfully these projects seemed to come all at once, so the workbook has expanded significantly in the last 12 months thanks to some of our clients making commitments.”

In a highly competitive city construction space, Multiplex has benefited from an ability to stay the course on projects that have “these long gestation periods”, he reckons.

The latest batch arrived after a gap in activity following the completion of the boom-time mega projects.

It was partly filled in 2016 by the $428 million New WA Museum project, where Multiplex has a $240m construction contract and a $50-odd million fit-out job.

36 WA WORKS Summer 2019

A few years later the new project signings, most of them in Perth, arrived in a flurry: • AMP Capital’s $800m Karrinyup Shopping Centre expansion (Multiplex contract value $525m) • Brookfield’s $800m Chevron tower at Elizabeth Quay ($500m) • NextDC’s $192m P2 Perth Data Centre in East Perth ($85m) • A Multiplex-led consortium’s $400m contract for Woodside’s Bay Village FIFO camp in Karratha • Edith Cowan’s $48m Science Building at the Joondalup campus • Oryx Community’s Queenslea aged care facility in Claremont.

Palandri attributes this recent run to the company’s “better long-term relationships” with its subcontractors, compared to some competitors.

“And we haven’t had any big problems with our projects. We haven’t delivered anything late in the last 15 years and there is nobody else who can say that.”

Lift in inner-city tendering Palandri regards the Perth construction market as “relatively quiet” compared with its long-term average.

However, he has noticed signs of a small increase in inner-city project tendering activity of late. “It does feel a little bit better to me.”

Palandri nominated several new projects of interest to Multiplex: • Murdoch University’s new academic building, construction potentially starting early next year • Far East’s tender for the Perth Hub development at CityLink • The proposed $200m redevelopment of Carillon Arcade by Dexus, potentially starting early next year • Central Park re-cladding — replacement of the silver panels lining the outside of the 51-storey office complex, Perth’s tallest building • Malaysia’s Victor Goh “getting on” with proposals at Capital Square and Elizabeth Quay > p44

Construction

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 37 Artist’s impression of Brookfield’s Chevron tower, featuring the proposed three-level podium

Construction Tapping into data

> Multiplex’s WA bid team was busy in the last quarter of 2019. “It’s a little bit unclear again this year, but that’s how the market works,” he says.

Other positive signs are Curtin’s recent goaheads for $410m of development on stage one of the Exchange Precinct, with plans to spend more.

“With the Murdoch project as well, it feels as though these two big universities are starting to progress in terms of revitalising their facilities.

“It certainly feels better than it did a year ago.”

Karrinyup milestone Hopes of an extended shopping centre building boom haven’t panned out, with long-mooted big projects such as Vicinity’s $365m Galleria expansion in Morley, AMP Capital’s $500m Garden City upgrade and Scentre Group’s “lifestyle hub” expansion of Westfield Innaloo all stalling.

But AMP Capital’s Karrinyup Shopping Centre expansion in the north coastal suburb of the same name did manage to launch.

Multiplex was appointed builder in July 2016 and then worked through a long Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) process to ensure the project — the shopping centre remains trading throughout the development — runs smoothly.

Major construction kicked off in November 2018, much to the relief of the supply chain, with AMP Capital — manager of the venture on behalf of UniSuper — estimating the $800m development will generate 2500 construction jobs over three years.

A year later and the project is gaining ahead of steam, with Multiplex completing the opening of the first retail stage, anchored by fashion store H&M, in November 2019.

“It’s a relatively small retail stage, but we hand over a whole lot of car parking spaces as well,” Palandri says.

“Then we move, effectively, from the east to the west side of the development in January.

We’re handing over the multi deck car parking space, which is on the east side of the building and then move on.”

The final stage is due to be completed in late 2021. We’ve really gone through year one of three. But it’s going well, all on track.”

38 WA WORKS Summer 2019

A towering prospect In the CBD, meanwhile, Multiplex is about to start construction of the city’s next iconic office building: the $800m Chevron Tower on Elizabeth Quay Lot 7.

Canadian asset manager Brookfield agreed to buy the vacant block, on the corner of The Esplanade and Barrack Street, from Chevron last May. Chevron will lease back most of the 29-storey tower once it is complete in 2023.

The development will have a gross floor area of 86,000 square metres across two basement levels, the tower and a three-level podium.

The project is a fillip for Perth’s inner-city construction sector which has struggled to regain momentum following years of high commercial vacancy rates after the end of the resources boom.

About 1000 people will be employed onsite during construction, Brookfield says.

Multiplex called for expressions of interest (EOI) from the supply chain in September-October for subcontracting services and received a “massive amount of interest from the subcontract market,” Palandri says.

“It is the next biggest game in town. The biggest commercial building project in WA at present is Karrinyup Shopping Centre — that and the Chevron Tower will be the two biggest commercial building projects in the state.”

Multiplex will be tendering well into this year (2020), “but progressively, so we’ll go through structure, concrete, internal, and internal fit out”, he says.

“We expect to be fully let in May or June, then we’ll have a three-year build to get on with the delivery, starting in February.”

Palandri expects a smooth transition into construction, as the design is well advanced.

“By the time the project starts, we will have been head long into design for more than 12 months, so the documentation will be in really good shape.

“It’s quite appetising for us and for subcontractors, as what we all love and what makes projects work best is good design.”

The number of Australian data centres — giant warehouses set up to store, manage and safeguard organisations’ valuable digital information and equipment off premises — continues to balloon.

One of the latest is NextDC’s P2 in East Perth, where Multiplex was appointed in August to deliver stage one, including six levels of data halls and two levels of electrical infrastructure and back-up generators.

Multiplex is also building the perimeter security, basement services, car parking and office facilities.

Set to be WA’s first “Tier IV” certified data centre, P2 will deliver 10,000 sq m of technical space and 20MW of power.

“It’s also the first one we’ve done in Western Australia,” Palandri says. “We’re hopeful that NextDC will want to get on with Stages 2 and 3 concurrently, or shortly after the first stage.

“Effectively, what we’re building at the moment is half a building.

“We’re building the core number of data halls, and we can come back and add the other half of the building relatively easily because the lift cores and the like are all sitting there. All we need to do is add the floor plates for the balance of the building.

“We’d like to think if that is successful for NextDC and they get leasing pretty quickly, they’d ask us to get on with the balance of the development,” he says.

P2 will be the highest specification data centre yet built in WA. “Tier IV is the highest level of data centre you can create — it is a crucial piece of digital infrastructure for WA and we’re very proud to bring this complex building to life,” he says.

To meet the Tier IV certification, every piece of critical infrastructure must be designed and constructed in accordance with the stringent redundancy considerations set by the US-based Uptime Institute.

“The power supply and the consistency of supply into those data halls is much greater than you’d find in any office building in Australia, as a comparison,” he says.

Construction

Lowering the roof a new high Perth-based engineer Clough has used a novel construction method at two major projects to reduce working at height dangers for its workers

By Stephen Bell

C

lough turned tradition upside down to build a major structure at Beenyup for Water Corporation and believes the award-winning innovation may help the broader construction industry achieve better safety and cost outcomes.

It involves assembling roof components at ground level then crane lifting them into place, reducing the amount of time spent working at heights.

In October, the technique won the best invention category at the State Government’s 2019 work health and safety excellence awards for minimising working at height risks on the ultra-filtration reverse osmosis (UF/RO) building.

The 12-metre building is a critical component of Water Corporation’s stage two advanced water recycling plant expansion at Beenyup.

The $262 million project will double the plant’s underground aquifer recharge to 28 billion litres of recycled water each year.

Because of the height, it was important to work out the safest and most efficient way to build it, says Roberta Selleck, Clough’s head of health, safety, security and environment.

“From a health and safety perspective, one of the things we do is innovate to identify and eliminate any of our high risks that we can,” Selleck told WA Works.

“One of the biggest killers currently in the construction industry is working at heights or issues with dropped objects — hence this project, with the big warehouse-style shed really did provide us with a great opportunity to eliminate working at heights,” she says.

Traditionally a big warehouse is ‘stick built’ in-situ, followed by the cladding of framework with metal sheeting.

The method normally involves a considerable amount of high work, including cladding of the sides and main roof with teams required to work off elevated working platforms, and from temporary scaffolding to install the individual sheets.

So how to reduce these risks?

“The engineering team got together early in the project and asked themselves: ‘Well, we do modularisation at other projects, so why wouldn’t we do it and use that same approach and concept, and how can we apply it to the Beenyup project, and particularly this large UF/RO warehouse?’”

Selleck says the idea they settled on was to build the roof on the ground and then lift it

into place with cranes, thus eliminating about 45 per cent of working at heights on the project.

This allowed most of the roof structure to be assembled on the ground, with multiple activities completed before the lift.

These included bolt checking and verification, roof assembly and sheeting and quality control inspections.

It means Clough was able to progress the overall construction of the facility in a shorter time frame than using conventional methods.

“So, there are efficiency gains that provide a better time solution for the clients, usually with more cost savings as well. That’s because you are not having as much labour in the field doing the work, as you would is if you had it on the ground in the first place.”

However, the technique needs to be tweaked for individual projects and adopted at the design stage.

“Any later in the process and it is not cost effective, as it is a retro-fit and you don’t get the efficiencies, much less the savings,” Selleck says.

Modular adaptations Clough believes the technique could be applied to many other big structures, which often arrive on the construction site in modules.

Following the success of the Beenyup project, “we also did something similar on BHP’s non process infrastructure up at South Flank,” Selleck says.

“Again, it’s a big workshop that we’re designing and installing — in this instance, it’s not just the roof structures, but also the side panels, because it’s a big enclosed shed.

“We put some jigs together, did it on the ground, and then lifted them up in one piece,

again eliminating on that project about 70 per cent of working at heights.

“So, it was the same concept applied in a slightly different manner, with its own engineering challenges, but very successful and it achieved similar outcomes,” she says. “It is an approach that we will evaluate and use on future projects.”

And Selleck believes the technique will be useful to other companies and projects wherever a “warehouse-type” structure is needed.

“In this instance, modularisation isn’t new, but typically say in the oil and gas sector or mining, the individual modules are fabricated overseas, transported to site and installed.

“Using it for sheds, warehouses and large building structures, it is easy to adapt the methodology.

“So there is no reason why the industry wouldn’t pick it up, particularly given the other efficiencies that come with it, both in cost and schedule savings,” Selleck says.

Raising the roof numbers • Each roof section of the UF/RO building took about three hours to set up and lift • Each section weighed 32 tonnes • Two mobile cranes, one 300t and the other 200t, were needed • Following the roof lift, project completion went from about 35 per cent to 46 per cent • Erection was completed on schedule with zero safety incidents • The UF/RO building is 12m at its peak and 78m long.

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 39

Major Projects List

Iron ore back in form

Rare earth processing and energy also feature in $3b of new listings, writes Stephen Bell

T

he market has heated up in time for summer, with more than $3 billion of new projects identified for the latest edition of WA Works’ Major Projects list, produced exclusively for subscribers.

After a rare lull last quarter, iron ore has bounced back following the approval of Rio Tinto’s $1.1b Western Turner Syncline Phase Two project that will start construction early this year.

The other notable feature is the debut of two downstream mineral projects: Lynas Corporation’s $500 million Kalgoorlie Cracking and Leaching plant and FYI Resources’ $260m High Purity Alumina (HPA) plant.

The plant, which will upgrade concentrates from Lynas’ Mt Weld mine near Laverton, is likely to require up to 500 construction workers once works begin later this year.

Meanwhile, FYI has completed successful pilot trials of its HPA plant and hopes to complete a definitive feasibility study in the second quarter. The State Government believes a commercial-scale project has the potential to expand the State’s future battery industry and create hundreds of new jobs.

The supply chain will be eagerly monitoring the progress of the two projects, which will broaden WA’s battery minerals processing sector

“In the case of Lynas Corp’s plant, it will propel an industrial site in Kalgoorlie into the global spotlight” Both are driven by the rising demand for purified mineral products suitable for high-tech applications such as robotics, weapons systems, smart phones, LED lighting, electric vehicle batteries and wind turbines.

In the case of Lynas Corp’s plant, it will propel an industrial site in Kalgoorlie into the global spotlight as the US and Australian Governments collaborate on diversifying supply chains for critical minerals outside of China — the dominant producer.

40 WA WORKS Summer 2019

beyond lithium — the former wonder metal that has cooled significantly this year.

But if you are more old school, the arrival of yet another Pilbara iron ore project is just the ticket for your summer celebrations.

Rio Tinto says Western Turner Stage Two will enable the mining of existing and new deposits and includes construction of a new crusher as well as a 13km conveyor.

The project is about 35km north-west of Rio’s original Tom Price mine from where its

ore is ultimately processed and loaded onto rail.

Construction is expected to start in the first quarter, with first ore from the crusher in 2021.

“Our iron ore business continues to deliver industry-leading margins as we drive performance from our mines,” Rio Tinto Iron Ore chief executive Chris Salisbury says.

At its peak, the construction workforce is expected to number more than 1000 people.

Energy is also prominent in the new list, with big two Pilbara power projects expected to point the way toward a future involving less diesel and more gas/renewable generation for the region’s massive mining and processing industry.

Alinta’s $200 million Chichester solar project is expected to displace about 100 million litres annually of diesel at Fortescue’s Chichester mines near Newman, while the remaining electricity requirements will be met from integrated battery storage and gas power station facilities.

Fortescue describes the solar deal as a milestone in its plan to link all if it Pilbara mines — including the giant Iron Bridge magnetite mine now under construction — into one giant 220kV transmission network via its $365m Pilbara Energy Connect project.

The Alinta and Fortescue projects are both listed on the CCIWA-managed ICN Gateway platform at gateway.icn.org.au The other new entries are a mixed bag, headed by a $510m proposal from Australian Biome Project to build five giant 50m-high domes at Perth Airport that would showcase WA’s Aboriginal culture and biodiversity to international tourists.

Perth Airport has agreed to ring fence land for the venture, which is seeking financial backers.

Meanwhile, another major Perth accommodation project looks like kicking off in the second quarter, with Blackburne reporting strong pre-sales of luxury apartments for its $280m One Subiaco development.

The new list is rounded off by Calidus Resources, which is seeking environmental clearances to build its $95 million Warrawoona gold mine in the Pilbara.

Subject to all relevant approvals and financing, construction could begin early next year.

More gas in the tank The expansion of Mitsui’s Mid West gas infrastructure begins this month after the go-ahead for its Waitsia stage one expansion near Dongara

T

he Japanese conglomerate started site works this month to double the capacity of the ageing Xyris production facility to 20 terajoules (TJ) per day.

Xyris — which currently ships gas through the Parmelia pipeline — will also be connected to the Dampier to Bunbury pipeline (DBNGP) via a 4km lateral pipe.

The six-month project will also see the Waitsia-02 well, drilled in 2015, connected to the plant and start producing gas.

“It’s an exciting time for the company,” says Alex Mata, Project Manager for Mitsui E&P Australia. “After two years of concept designs, front-end designs and all the work involved in bringing a project like this to fruition, it’s really satisfying to see it finally happening.”

Mitsui, alongside equal joint venture partner Beach Energy, plans to install a new compressor as well as replacing pressure vessels and exchangers.

“The DBNGP operates at a higher pressure than the Parmelia Pipeline, so we need to

compress the gas before we feed it in,” Mata says.

For the new pipeline, about 220 segments 18m long were manufactured by Mitsui Steel in China and shipped to Fremantle, for road transport to site.

Mitsui has a 4.5-year sales contract with Alinta and plans to deliver the first gas down the DBNGP this year.

“The Xyris production facility was built in 2004 with an expected lifespan of 10 years, but we’ve managed to extend the life of that plant to the point where it will probably run for another 10 years,” Mata says.

Enscope is the lead contractor and about 50 contracting jobs will be created during construction.

“All site construction packages have been competitively bid and to date regional contractors have been awarded the civil construction and electrical and instrumentation construction contract packages,” a Mitsui spokesperson told WA Works.

“Also additional site support labour, goods and services will be sourced from both Dongara and Geraldton regional areas, as required,” he says.

Mitsui says about 65 per cent of the project’s content will be sourced from WA. From a supply chain perspective, however, much bigger opportunities will be generated by the company’s proposed $500 million-plus Waitsia stage two project to build a new gas plant with a maximum export capacity of 250TJ per day.

Mitsui and Beach aim to make a final investment decision on stage two — the project is tipped to generate at least 150 construction jobs — in the first half of this year.

Less waste, more power Burning rubbish to generate electricity has become a growth industry, with construction of WA’s second waste-to-energy plant now underway in Perth

T

he East Rockingham plant begins construction this month after joint developers New Energy Corporation, Hitachi Zosen Inova Australia (HZI) and Tribe Infrastructure Group recently finalised funding for the $511 million venture.

The backers include the Federal Government’s Australian Renewable Energy Agency ($18m recoupable grant) and Clean Energy Finance Corporation (up to $57.5m commitment).

It will be the nation’s second large scale waste-to-energy plant — Macquarie Capital, Phoenix Energy and Dutch Infrastructure Fund started building their $700m Kwinana facility early last year.

Infrastructure giant Acciona has key construction roles on both ventures. For East Rockingham it is teamed with Swiss group HZI in the EPC role.

HZI says 300 people will be employed on site during construction. After start-up in late 2022, the plant will be run by HZI and waste management group Suez, generating 40 permanent operating roles.

The facility will aim to process about 300,000 tonnes per year of residual waste from nonrecyclable materials in the Perth metropolitan area to deliver 29 MW of baseload electricity capacity, enough to power more than 36,000 homes.

By comparison, the Kwinana plant will process 400,000t of waste to generate up to 36MW of power starting late 2021.

HZI says it will be delivering everything at East Rockingham, from the waste crane to a rubbish ‘stack’ in the form of its proprietary combustion technology.

Acciona, meanwhile, will manage civil construction, the water and steam cycle plant, the installation and erection of HZI’s equipment and the balance of the plant.

Marc Stammbach, Managing Director of HZI Australia, says the project introduces HZI’s technology to Australia, “something we’ve been working on for a long time”.

“For the Perth area this project marks a major step towards sustainability and renewable energy from waste,” he said.

Long term waste supply agreements have been struck with local councils in the area, including the Eastern Metropolitan Regional Council and the City of Cockburn.

According to ARENA, the facility will also recover 70,000t of ‘bottom ash’ which can be processed and used in road bases.

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 41

Construction

Shipping steel One of Perth’s biggest steel fabricators is ready to take on more work after expanding its Naval Base facilities, writes Stephen Bell

P

acific Industrial Company forecasts a relatively strong market in 2020 as the local steel company seeks out new work in resources and the State Government’s Metronet program.

Fresh from celebrating its 50th birthday, privately-owned PIC has also added an extra 4000 sq m to its workshop south of Perth to cater for bigger jobs.

The Bay Five extension increases total capacity to about 40,000 sq m across PIC’s two sites at Naval Base.

Managing Director Marco Mosole says the upgrade will enable PIC to “bid for bigger work and deliver bigger volume” to its resource, commercial and infrastructure clients.

“The extension took approximately six months to complete and we’ve been operating in it

42 WA WORKS Summer 2019

now for a short while,” he told WA Works in an interview at the official opening of the expansion.

“And we’ve already filled it with work for the resource sector.”

PIC’s current mining contracts include a job for Thyssenkrupp, which is building BHP’s big iron ore stackers at South Flank, and Fortescue’s Eliwana rail and road bridges.

“The market for us has been quite positive for 2019 and we see it being quite strong for 2020 as well,” Mosole said. “There’s a reasonable amount of resource development going on which we believe will deliver more opportunities for our business.”

Mosole didn’t name any specific work targets.

However, there is plenty happening in mining with Rio Tinto (iron ore) and Lynas Corporation (rare earths) both expected to

kick off new construction projects in 2020.

And Woodside is due to make a final investment decision on its $16 billion Pluto to Scarborough LNG project in the first half of this year.

PIC is already active in public infrastructure, currently working for Salini Impregilo/NRW on the State Government’s Forrestfield-Airport Link project.

“On the FAL project, we are doing the three rail stations, the one at Airport Central, Forrestfield and Redcliffe. And we’re also doing the emergency egress shafts along the underground rail line,” Mosole said.

“We’re performing the work for Salini-NRW and it’s going quite well. And progress on site — if you drive past, you’ll see the stations going up, particularly at Forrestfield at the moment.

“And ACS (Airport Central Station) will be starting shortly in the new year,” Mosole said.

But it was WA’s buoyant iron ore sector on display at the official opening of bay five

by Federal Finance Minister Senator Mathias Cormann, with large girders built for FMG’s Eliwana bridges project clearly visible.

The opening coincided with the 50th birthday of PIC, which was founded in 1969

by Marco’s father, Erasmo Mosole, and his two business partners.

Cormann, State Government Corrective

Construction

(Above) Father and son: Marco Mosole with his dad Erasmo mark 50 years in business. (Below) Senator Mathias Corman. Photographs — Grazjyna Prinsloo

Pacific Industrial Company’s workshop in Naval Base

Services Minister Fran Logan and City of Kwinana Mayor Carol Adams praised the company’s ability to survive as a family-owned business in a tough industry.

Logan said that prior to entering parliament he visited PIC’s facilities regularly as a union official negotiating enterprise bargaining agreements for the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union (AMWU).

Acknowledging the work of the Mosole family in building the business, Logan said that jobbing fabrication was the “hardest and toughest” industry in Australia.

“Bidding for work on the size of the projects that PIC bids for is tough work, because you are not just up against fabricators in Western Australia, you’re not up against fabricators in the other states — you are up against fabricators in Thailand, Vietnam the Philippines, South Korea and China,” he said.

From a vacant block in Frederic Street, PIC expanded to its Hope Valley Road headquarters in the late 1980s and has since grown to be one of WA’s biggest fabrication companies, currently employing 344 people.

Recent growth initiatives include the acquisition of shareholdings in Como Engineers and fluid handling and storage specialist DTE Pacific.

Aside from more resources work,

Mosole is also hopeful of new opportunities in public infrastructure.

“Metronet should deliver a lot of opportunities,” he said. “We hope to be able to progress from the FAL (Forrestfield AirportLink) rail stations that we’re currently doing, onto the Metronet stations when they become available,” Mosole said.

The State Government is planning to build about a dozen new Metronet railway stations, most of them on the Yanchep and ThornlieCockburn rail extensions and the proposed Morley Ellenbrook line.

strike a deal with Wool Corporation to store bales of wool for a few years in its new workshop.

“We’ve remained a very resilient family business,” he said.

In the modern era, the company has been involved in the construction of several landmark projects including Multiplex’s WA Museum (2018), Tianqi’s Lithium Hydroxide plant at Kwinana (2017) and Laing O’Rourke’s Perth Stadium Railway Station (2016).

Despite strong competition and upheavals in technology, Mosole is confident the business can survive another half century.

“The upgrade will enable PIC to bid for bigger work and deliver bigger volume to our resource clients” Mosole said PIC had ridden the ups and downs of the WA economy over its 50-year life, with its biggest early win a mid-1970s contract with Cockburn Cement to fabricate and construct a clinker storage shed. This was followed by several significant resources jobs in the 1980s.

However, by the early 1990s recession, work was so scarce that the company had to

“I think we’ve ridden the highs and lows of the first 50 years, so we’ve got a lot of experience behind us in in how to deal with the troughs in the cycle and ramping up when demand is required.

“That experience is inhouse and we just need to be able to manage that going forward for the next 50 years,” he said.

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 43

The Big Picture Australian Gas Infrastructure Group began commercial operations in 2017 at its $74m Tubridgi project, WA’s biggest gas storage facility with a capacity of up to 52 petajoules.

In early 2019 AGIG committed to expand Tubridgi in response to “strong demand in the WA domestic gas market”.

44 WA WORKS Summer 2019

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 45

Defence

In the navy The head of the biggest submarine build in Australia’s history has given an update on the new Attack class and state of the Collins fleets

By Robyn Molloy

T

ests on Australian steel are going so well that it is likely they will meet the stringent requirements for the new $50 billion Attack class submarines, according to Head of the Future Submarine project Rear Admiral Greg Sammut.

French defence giant Naval Group won the lucrative contract in 2016 to design and build Australia’s Attack submarines and it is partnering with Australia’s ASC to deliver the 12 vessels from the 2030s. Lockheed Martin is developing the combat system.

Sammut said 12 tonnes of steel products were undergoing weldability and ductility testing in France, with trials expected to be completed in the middle of this year.

“I am very pleased to be able to tell you

that all of the testing that we have done on the trial batches of steel products by Bisalloy and BlueScope have met or exceeded the specification in terms of testing,” Sammut told the recent Submarine Institute of Australia’s biennial conference in Fremantle.

“There were doubts as to whether we had the capability to produce steel of the grade that is necessary for the Attack class. We certainly took that challenge on with an understanding of what the capabilities of Australian industry are.”

Sammut said it was a good case study of how the program was working with Australian industry to develop capability on the SEA 1000 future submarine project, with engagement with Australian industry set to ramp up as it starts to deep dive into the design of the new vessels, He countered criticisms of the program’s timeline and level of engagement with Australian

industry, saying it was on track to deliver what was planned for 2020. Moreover, meeting the 16 years from the awarding of the first contract in 2016 to delivery of the first sub in 2032 remained a realistic schedule.

The timeline is comparable to the Collins Class program (1987-2003) and Sweden’s A26 program (2010-2024), even though the Attack class is a larger vessel.

Sammut said the program had progressed to preliminary design, having completed the concept design, which was not a conversion of the Barracuda model as had been initially reported, and had now moved into the definition phase.

“I’ve made the point before. We’re not converting a Barracuda class submarine into a conventional submarine for Australia. When we commenced our design work in September 2016, we started with concept studies,” he said.

“We started with the concept design of the boat that is going to be capable of meeting Australia’s requirement for its submarine capability.”

He said, “work was happening on many fronts” and it was in a particular stage of the program

Attack class progress in the last 12 months

2018

Early groundworks commence at new Submarine construction yard in Osborne, South Australia December 13

November Conducted system definition review of combat system

46 WA WORKS Summer 2019

2019

Submarine design contract signed with Naval Group March 1

February 11 Strategic partnering agreement signed with Naval Group

Early works start on combat system physical integration facility and propulsion land base test facility November

October 3 System definition review conducted and successful for combat system

December System requirements review scheduled for platform system

Defence

Personnel from Port Services at HMAS Stirling lower the gangway onto HMAS Farncomb as the Collins Class Submarine arrives alongside Diamantina Pier at Fleet Base West, Western Australia. © Commonwealth of Australia

Artist’s impression of the $50b Attack class submarine. © Commonwealth of Australia, Department of Defence

“where we planned to be and that is designing a boat”, with the project currently achieving 39 per cent of its spend in Australia.

“I think it’s notable that even though a lot of the design work is happening in France, a lot of combat system design work is happening in Australia,” he said.

“We expect that (39 per cent) to increase as soon as we identify suitable suppliers of equipment to go into the boat as we move detailed design activities into Australia.

“Once we complete basic design and particularly as we begin to ramp up the production of multiple submarines in Australia, it’s going to increase considerably.”

Sammut said procurement of the four major systems had already occurred, with contracts for the main motor, diesel engines, main DC switchboard and weapon discharge systems already signed.

“It’s been necessary to identify those to ensure that key requirements of the boat can be met. Those are the major equipments that have a large bearing on the balance of the boat which you need to understand at the concept phase.”

“Having decided on those systems, and they are systems we don’t produce in Australia, Naval Group Australia will now be approaching Australian industry to identify suitable suppliers of all the remaining equipment in the boat. And all of us know there are more things on a boat than a diesel engine, main motor etc.”

He said Naval Group Australia and Lockheed Martin would approach Australian industry with opportunities so supply equipment in tranches to 2021.

Life extension for Collins class

S

ammut, who also oversees the Collins class fleet, said the maintenance program, including full cycle docking of the six vessels, was geared to extending the life of each submarine by 10 years.

Plans for life of type extension (LOTE) would occur as part of full cycle docking from 2026, if approved by the Federal Government.

He said suppliers of equipment for LOTE could be used as part of the Attack class supply chain.

LOTE would include: • updates to the main motor, diesel generator, mast and sensors • upkeep to the hull, tank, pressure vessel and casing • power conversion and distribution update • combat system obsolescence updates.

It would include integrating new diesel engines into the subs rather than rebuilding the old ones, as is done as part of full cycle docking.

Sammut said the full cycle docking program — where submarines are out of service for two years to receive major overhauls — were running so well that they had found efficiencies with each docking including reducing the number of work hours each time.

The program is now well into its third submarine, after starting in 2014.

He said they had delivered on capability “which is what our government expects us to do”.

“We do spend a sizable proportion of navy’s sustainment budget on submarine maintenance, submarine upkeep and submarine update and upgrade. I think that’s recognition of the work that is necessary to deliver a capable platform,” he said.

The three major upgrades during full cycle docking include: • Modernised communications system: progressively fitting the fleet with internal communications centre but capacity to utilise high data rate communications, protecting communications, so subs can operate into the future as part of the network.

• Sonar systems fitted onto the submarine: a substantial upgrade that includes a new flank array and new cylindrical array.

• Tactical and weapon control systems in conjunction with US: aim is to roll out ahead of lifetime extension work, which is scheduled to commence installation in 2026.

“It’s important to consider that the upgrade work we do now is already an investment in the future of the Collins class and an investment of the life of the class beyond what its original plan withdrawal dates were, noting that the government hasn’t decided how many boats it is likely to extend,” Sammut said.

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 47

Life in her yet Federal Governmentowned shipbuilder ASC has started planning how it will extend the life of the Collins submarine fleet well into the 2030s, writes Stephen Bell

48 WA WORKS Summer Royal Australian Navy Collins Class 2019 Submarines, HMAS Collins, HMAS Farncomb, HMAS Dechaineux and HMAS Sheean sail in formation while transiting through Cockburn Sound, Western Australia, in February 2019. Š Commonwealth of Australia

Defence

F

ollowing the McGowan Government’s campaign to move full cycle docking of Australia’s six Collins submarines from South Australia to the west coast, FCD is a familiar acronym to most of us.

At the time of writing, it seemed likely the Federal Government would decide it is in the nation’s interest to send at least part of the lucrative FCD overhauls to WA, where the Collins fleet is based.

This would ensure SA’s shipyards aren’t swamped as they embark on the new Hunter frigate and Attack submarine build programs.

It’s potentially great news for local defence industry suppliers, with FCD expected to generate about $560 million per annum for WA and thousands of jobs.

However, those suppliers will soon need to get up to speed with a new Defence acronym: LOTE. Rod Brown, Collins Chief Engineer for ASC, provided insight into the challenges of undertaking Life of Type Extension (LOTE) work on the submarines at the recent STEC 5 Submarine Institute of Australia conference in Fremantle.

Brown said the LOTE upgrades of the Collins vessels would be undertaken under the dual pressures of cost containment and engineering challenges.

“Integrating today’s technology into an 80s boat … that is our biggest challenge,” he said.

Updating the technology on the ageing Collins platform was “probably more challenging” than doing the new Attack class submarine, he added.

Speaking exclusively to WA Works on the sidelines of the conference, Brown explained that the Attack class would be simpler from an engineering perspective as it would be “all current technology talking to itself”.

“Whereas we’ve got 20-year-old technology talking with current technology, and they’re different,” he said.

Going through the wringer To illustrate the difficulties, Brown used the analogy of trying to integrate his grandmother’s old manual wringer washing machine with a modern washer.

“Now there’s a push button with all this

“LOTE will extend the operational life of the submarines until they are replaced by the Attack submarines” Brown reminded the audience that the Collins fleet was built in the 1980s and 1990s, when common consumer items such as cars and washing machines might have lacked some of today’s push button technology, but were much more robust, with expected lives of 15 years or more.

The first Collins submarine, HMAS Collins has lasted 27 years — it was launched in 1993 and commissioned in July 1996.

Fast forward to 2020, and ASC is planning to integrate new technology into the old Collins platform — via the LOTE program.

Starting later this decade, LOTE will extend the operational life of the submarines until they are replaced by the Attack submarines, starting in the mid-2030s.

Earlier this year, Defence said at least five of the Collins submarines would likely require life extensions to ensure their availability until their Attack replacements come into service.

The current schedule has the Attack builder Naval Group delivering the first of 12 new submarines in 2032. However, the first boat will then undergo up to three years of sea trials. The second submarine is due in 2038, with subsequent vessels delivered in two-year intervals.

automation. If I was trying to integrate those two things, it’s not whether the clothes get washed or don’t get washed. It’s how they integrate and talk to each other.”

In that vein, getting the old and new technology chatting happily with each other is one of the key tasks ahead for the upcoming LOTE program. The other is integrating it snugly into the FCD program.

“You might hear the term ‘LOTE FCD’,” Brown said. “That’s where, because it’s a two-year

opportunity, we will fit some of the major upgrades from LOTE into an FCD. “We also do one-year mid cycle dockings and that’s another significant opportunity where we would be able to fit some upgrades.

“It’ll be a staged activity to maintain the Collins class availability … that’s very important to the Navy.”

Under current Royal Australian Navy planning, and subject to Federal Government approval, HMAS Farncomb will be the first submarine to combine FCD and LOTE, with the work starting in mid-2026 and finishing 2028.

Prior to then, FCD would be carried out on HMAS Waller (due to come out of FCD in mid- 2020), followed by Dechaineux (2020-22), Sheean (2022-24) and Rankin (2024-26).

Replacing the current diesel engines with new versions is one example of the work planned for the LOTE upgrades.

“We would look at, instead of maintaining the current diesel (engine), pulling it out, put in the new diesel and then obviously there’s the integration piece,” he said.

“And that’s what we’re doing between now and that FCD — we’ve got to make sure that we’ve thought about all the integration issues.

“There’s a bit of work there. And it’s going to be a bit more focused about making sure that we’ve tested the integration properly, that the crew know how that bit of new technology operates within the boat and how it operates differently.

As for the location of FCD, Brown said he has “feet in both camps”.

“As the Chief Engineer I look after both sites,” he said. “We have worked, probably over the past two or three years to be far more site agnostic in our work,” he said.

ASC had tried to ensure that its engineers worked across both sites.

“Irrespective of what decision is made, we as engineers are setting ourselves up so that decision is pretty much immaterial to us.”

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 49

Defence Parkers said of the 10 identified star shots “candidates”, some may not go ahead at all, while others might be developed at a later stage, depending on priorities and resources.

“Some, such as high-speed weapons, are fairly well developed while others such as next generation command and control are very early with only a few pages description rather than a program description,” Parker said.

Defence wants partners for its shot at ‘Stars’

Defence Science and Technology (DST) Group have identified 10 high impact ‘Star shots’ programs for major funding and partnerships to develop between now and 2030, writes Robyn Molloy

T

he Department of Defence will aim to invest in fewer science and technology (S&T) projects but on a larger scale to boost Australia’s capability as part of a mission-driven approach.

Ten potential projects have been identified including enhanced undersea surveillance, real time chemical, biological, forced project in a contested environment, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) situational awareness and a space technology intelligence cloud, with the list to be whittled down as part of a strategy to be finalised early this year.

In Perth as part of a national roadshow to get input from SMEs, Defence Science and Technology’s (DST) Gareth Parker told WA SMEs that Defence was seeking to better focus its investments while nurturing the nation’s science and technology talent pool.

DST, part of the Department of Defence, is the second biggest public funded R&D organisation in Australia.

“In the past, we’ve probably tended to structure a lot of that longer-term research around themes but the problem with research themes is they don’t really provide any strategic

50 WA WORKS Summer 2019

guidance around prioritisation,” Parker said.

“So, what we are doing is identifying a concept and a number of candidate investments that we’re calling science, technology and research (star) shots — it’s a bit of an analogy there of the moon shot kind of concept.

“The idea is to identify high impact objectives that are going to be able to provide high impact for defence through S&T and to focus our effort against those Star shots.”

Parker says the project will be designed from the outset to be successful with “the next Nulka capability”.

Nulka, the world’s most effective anti-ship missile defence, was designed and developed

by Australian scientists and defence prime contractor BAE Systems.

It is Australia’s most successful defence export with sales to allies including the US topping more than $1 billion since it went into full production in 1999. However, Nulka took two decades to introduce after research began in the late 70s.

“We actually want to avoid that, we want to shorten that timeframe now by getting the industry partners involved from the outset,” Parker said.

“The idea is to identify high impact objectives that are going to be able to provide high impact for defence” Once the list is finalised, timeframes and an implementation strategy will be developed for each star shot.

DST will also consider co-locating with partners to develop star shots where there is a concentration of capability. While no discussions were underway for a WA research hub, the state could potentially be considered for a space star shot, for example.

Parker said the star shots would involve Australian and global partners.

“International partners are also realising the value of large-scale mission driven research initiatives we are talking about here. UK and US call it something different but we’re looking to align and complement what our other partners are doing,” he said.

Parker acknowledged that Defence needed to address the ‘valley of death’ with a more flexible approach to the Integrated Investment program so great ideas were not left on the shelf.

For more information visit dst.devence.gov.au/star-shots

Strategic Science

Tanya Monro

Masters of war: star roles for research, industry Defence Science and Technology Group is embarking on a 10-year science and technology strategy to ensure that the Australian Defence Force is supported by cutting-edge Australian research, writes Tanya Monro

T

he strategy, in partnership with government, industry and academia, will be launched early this year and Western Australia is playing a key role.

It will focus on several key missions where it is vital that Australia prevails — including remote undersea surveillance, battle-ready platforms, space and navigation technologies and cyber research.

We’ve named these our star shots (Science, Technology and Research missions).

The Indian Ocean, one of our major trading routes, is a contested region.

To protect our trade and economy we must have greater situational awareness of the maritime environment.

The remote undersea surveillance STaR Shot will develop advanced sensors, processing, communication, information and data fusion systems to provide Australia with a capability edge.

The battle-ready star shot initiative builds on DST’s history and has advanced through life support and life extension of our ships and aircraft.

HMAS Stirling is home to DST’s major research facility in Western Australia.

This work is vital to supporting Navy’s role in protecting Australia’s coastline, offshore assets and our extensive Indian Ocean trade routes.

The facility at HMAS Stirling opened in 1996 in response to the transfer of Navy’s submarine fleet from Sydney.

This move coincided with the entry into service of the Collins Class submarines. The DST facility at HMAS Stirling provides highly valuable training, support and engagements with the Navy.

Supporting the submarine capability in Western Australia would not be possible without the assistance of local industry and academia.

DST collaborates with academia through the Defence Science Partnerships Program (DSP), a national mechanism for engagement with universities.

DST has 532 research agreements with Australian universities and 33 universities

currently participate in the program including the University of Western Australia, Curtin, Edith Cowan and Murdoch.

The Australian Defence Science University Network (ADSUN), another mechanism for collaboration, brings together Australian universities to cooperate on Defence research.

In WA, the universities together with DST form the Defence Science Centre.

One of the major projects being researched by the Defence Science Centre network is the development of models for complex warfighting.

This research program is seeking to revolutionise how Defence undertakes operations analysis and the impact of complex geopolitical, social, technological, economic and cultural factors on the capability of Australia’s warfighting, now and in the future.

These research networks and mechanisms seek to harness Australia’s world-class research, grow the scale of research that aligns with Defence priorities, enhance collaboration and promote careers in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).

We are increasingly dependent on spacebased systems to provide information and communication to support Defence operations and national security.

Recognising WA universities as leaders in Australian space research, DST co-hosted the Emerging and Disruptive Technology Assessment Symposium in Perth in March 2019 to focus on space technologies.

The symposium strengthened our relationships with WA universities and gave local industry an opportunity to share expertise with other international and Australian researchers.

Recently we announced a new four-year contract with a Western Australian company in Bibra Lake, which will support the Attack Class Submarine and create jobs.

JFD Australia was awarded the $7.2 million contract to build and pressure test a number of ring-stiffened cylinders modelling submarinelike hulls.

JFD Australia will partner with other leading WA defence firms.

This project demonstrates the significant capability of Australian companies to assist Defence’s capabilities.

It is also an excellent example of Australian defence companies working together to develop a world-class service while providing more Australian jobs, particularly in regional areas.

Our expertise and strong partnerships with West Australian industry and academia will be vital in delivering our strategy — and are helping to build Defence capability and a sovereign Defence industry.

Professor Tanya Monro is Australia’s Chief Defence Scientist

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 51

Infrastructure

Alstom Australia Managing Director Mark Coxon signs the $1.25 billion railcars contract with Premier Mark McGowan and Transport Minister Rita Saffioti

All down the line The Metronet rail spending spree is about to hit top gear after two key contracts were awarded, writes Stephen Bell

T

he McGowan Government was elected in a landslide in 2017 after campaigning heavily on a platform of creating local jobs and building its Metronet rail projects.

Up until recently, most of this multibillion dollar program was still in the land of government promises, rather than reality.

However, after a couple of years of design, procurement and tendering, the fun is about to start.

Late last year, the Government awarded contracts for its two biggest Metronet promises: the $1.25 billion railcars project and the $1.25b Yanchep and Thornlie Cockburn railway project.

With construction on both to begin this year, the State Government is now entering unfamiliar territory: managing three giant rail projects simultaneously.

52 WA WORKS Summer 2019

Construction of the third, the $1.9b Forrestfield-Airport Link approved by the former Liberal National Coalition Government, is already running a year behind schedule due to safety and flooding issues when a giant sinkhole developed alongside a public road.

So a lot is riding on the performance of the two contractors appointed by the McGowan Government: French Multinational Alstom to design and build the railcars, while a consortium of Downer and CPB Contractors will build the combined Yanchep-Thornlie Cockburn project.

Step up for railcars Alstom has told suppliers to “put their best foot” forward to pitch for work on the decades-long railcar manufacturing and maintenance project.

The giant transport company told a Perth

information session it would begin selecting suppliers “early” in the project.

“It won’t be in 2021 … so it is really important that you put your best foot forward now,” said Dominic Clark, Alstom’s customer director Australia.

Alstom is contracted to build and maintain a fleet of 246 new C-series electric railcars for the Public Transport Authority’s metro network, an additional six diesel cars to replace ageing railcars on the Australind route and a new manufacturing and assembly plant in Bellevue.

The State Government has insisted that half of the project be “made in WA”.

Clark said the 50 per cent target for construction and maintenance would apply to both Alstom and its suppliers.

“It’s real value-adding content,” he said, in response to a question from the audience on how the percentage would be determined.

“Just to place an order here doesn’t give you local content … it has to be true value-added in Western Australia to contribute to that target.”

And, to help re-establish railway

Infrastructure manufacturing in WA, Alstom would work with the PTA to develop a state-of-the-art facility at Bellevue, which is due to begin construction this year.

The trains will be manufactured in the facility and delivered over seven years from 2022.

“It will be the leading manufacturing site for technology in Australia,” Clark said.

“Our experts and engineers across the globe will be here to support suppliers and our local workforce in terms of transferring the latest manufacturing technology and railway technologies in the building of the rail cars and also the maintenance.”

The overall project is expected to create more than 120 WA jobs, including 15 per cent apprentices and Aboriginal workers.

separate rail ventures that have been bundled into one alliance contract.

Downer said construction would start in May and be completed in 2023.

“We are pleased that our expertise in the design and construction of heavy rail, tracks, stations and rail bridges has been recognised,” said Downer CEO Grant Fenn.

The company’s scope of work includes railway construction, relocation of freight lines, station platform extensions, station construction and other station modifications, construction of new road-over-rail bridges and other associated work.

The $531.7m Yanchep extension, which will add 14.5km to the existing Joondalup Line along with stations at Alkimos, Eglinton and Yanchep, is first off the block after Premier Mark McGowan,

“The trains will be manufactured in the facility and delivered over seven years from 2022” “We want to use that to train the next generation of railway professionals,” he said.

Meanwhile, North Metropolitan TAFE was nominated as the preferred supplier of training, said Executive Director Peter Ebell.

Following the completion of the training programs, “it is intended that Alstom will provide paid employment to these people who come through the selection process after their preemployment program”, he said.

“The end goal is that in 2021, when the C-series build commences, the best of these people will be progressing into engineering apprenticeships.

“These are generally of four years duration.

“In 2021 the intent is to have a really good group of Aboriginal candidates moving through to an apprenticeship.

“These individuals will then complete their apprenticeship in 2025, roughly, and that’s right in the middle of the build.”

Mark Coxon, Alstom’s Australian Managing Director, said the project would provide a “unique opportunity for WA to manage Perth’s projected future growth while re-establishing its railway manufacturing industry, creating jobs, investing in infrastructure and supporting local manufacturing and supply chains”.

Alstom also has a 20-year maintenance contract that will see the new C-series trains maintained at PTA’s Nowergup depot, in Perth’s far north suburbs.

Attorney General and Federal Member for Pearce Christian Porter and Transport Minister Rita Saffioti turned the first sods.

The final cost of the Thornlie-Cockburn Link (TCL), meanwhile, is now put at $716m — a $180m cost blowout on the original estimate.

The Federal contribution for TCL is $350m and the State $366m.

Last month, the McGowan Government attributed the increase to relocating third party infrastructure ($82.7m), improved wages for workers ($20.2m), minimising network disruption

and meeting environmental requirements.

The TCL will close a 14.5km gap in the eastern rail corridor by linking communities between the Mandurah and Armadale lines.

Stations will be built at Ranford Road and Nicholson Road in Canning Vale, and significant upgrades made to both Thornlie and Cockburn Central stations.

Morley-Ellenbrook goes to market Separately, the State Government will issue a request for proposals this month to build the $1b Morley-Ellenbrook railway line, key Metronet officials confirmed at a recent industry briefing.

Nigel Hunt, the PTA’s project director for the Morley-Ellenbrook Line, said the RFP would open this month (January) and close in March.

Three proponents would then be short-listed to provide presentations to the PTA, he said.

Of these, two contractors would progress to the “alliance development stage”, which would start in mid-2020, followed by a contract award by late 2020.

The alliance contract will be managed by the PTA and include the design, construction and commissioning of 21km of dual track, systems and five new stations at Ellenbrook, Whiteman Park, Malaga, Noranda and Morley.

The scope also includes bulk earthwork and retaining, structure, grade separations, roads and drainage.

There was also potential to transform a bus interchange at Henley Brook into a bus depot, Hunt said.

The briefing was also told that a large section of the rail route — from Malaga to Ellenbrook — was environmentally sensitive, with approvals on that part not expected until early 2022.

Rail line fever Back on the railways, more than 3000 jobs are expected to be created over the life of the Yanchep-Thornlie Cockburn project, two

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 53

Infrastructure

A swift and fearless approach The man charged with providing expert advice to the State Government on infrastructure projects is singing the praises of a more rational spending approach

By Stephen Bell

I

naugural Infrastructure WA Chairman John Langoulant says the new statutory body aims to provide “frank and fearless” advice to the State Government on major projects as it plots its first strategic plan.

A fearless strategy is likely to be a big hit with the wider community, though perhaps not as big as Taylor Swift’s “Fearless” album, which has sold more than 7.2 million copies in the US alone since its release in 2008.

Funnily enough, the Federal Government’s Infrastructure Australia was formed in the same year.

These are hard acts for Langoulant and deputy chairperson Nicole Lockwood to follow.

But, given the State Government forks out $6-7 billion on public infrastructure each year, the supply chain would welcome greater clarity on where and when those dollars will be spent.

In theory, Infrastructure WA’s remit to produce a 20-year strategic plan should result in more sensible project planning decisions, independent of the shifting sands of State and Federal politics.

The body’s creation last year by the State Government was partly in response to what Premier Mark McGowan described as a “build

54 WA WORKS Summer 2019

it on the run” approach from the former Liberal-National coalition government during the mining boom.

After sweeping to power in March 2017, McGowan’s Labor Government certainly went big on infrastructure.

Along with investing heavily in Metronet rail programs, it launched the Lockwood-chaired Westport Taskforce that, in August 2019, short-listed five options for Perth’s future freight needs — all featuring a container port being built in Kwinana.

Langoulant told CCIWA’s recent WA Freight

and Logistics Conference that the Westport study would help guide Infrastructure WA’s journey in its formative years.

“We’re going to start taking planning really seriously around major pieces of infrastructure across the state and the Westport Study — it will actually form a blueprint for us as we go forward,” he said A prominent Perth business leader and former CEO of CCIWA, Langoulant was appointed chairman of the new agency in July after the Infrastructure WA Bill 2019 passed through State Parliament.

He joined nine others on the board: Lockwood, former RAC chief Terry Agnew, Microsoft executive Kerryl Bradshaw, ex-Energy Resources of Australia CEO Andrea Sutton and banking executive Wayne Zekulich.

The remaining four seats were taken up by senior public servants.

‘Sort of independent’ “We are sort of independent,” Langoulant said.

“The legislation gives us enough to be able to stand and provide what I call frank and fearless advice to the government on major infrastructure projects.”

During question time at the conference,

When the ship comes in. Fremantle Port

Western Roads Federation Chairman Craig Smith-Gander asked how Langoulant could protect long-planned freight infrastructure projects, such as the cancelled Roe 8 freight link, from “short-term political expediency”.

Langoulant responded: “If we do our job well enough we’ll improve that level of information and then the politicians will have their role.

Somewhere along the line, the politicians are going to come out and say, ‘Let’s build a canal’.

I don’t have a problem with that at all,” he said.

However, it would then be up to the politicians to justify why they weren’t building a different project recommended by Infrastructure WA. “I think that’s the important part,” he said.

Lockwood, meanwhile, noted the nation’s infrastructure debate had matured in recent years because of Infrastructure Australia’s regular publication of priority project lists.

It meant journalists could look at government announcements about new projects and check if they were on the list.

“That politician has to justify their project if it hasn’t made that list or, if it has, they then have to go through the process of having it ticked off,” she said.

In that context, the first task of the State’s new infrastructure body is to develop a strategic plan.

“Anything that impacts the State’s balance sheet, we’re going to look at,” Langoulant said. “The State spends about $6b a year on infrastructure across many projects and we are going to bring all of that into our 20-year plan.

“And in time … we will then be given the task of looking at major projects with a value over $100 million to make sure they stack up.”

Lifting the veil The new body would also work with Infrastructure Australia to ensure that the Commonwealth Government “brings money to the table”, he said, adding that it would probably take a “couple of years” to do the first 20-year plan well.

After its completion the State Government by law, “then has to tell all of you about what the 10-year program of that actual expenditure is going to be”.

“So it’s going to lift the veil, if you like beyond the forward estimates of the budget for four years and take it across 10 years.”

Langoulant aims to release a discussion paper early this year (2020) to outline the approach.

He identified transport — including freight logistics and public transport — as a key area, representing about one-third of the projects to be examined. Other priorities are power and

water utilities, along with health and education — new hospitals and schools.

“And then you have the infamous ‘other’ (category),” he said. “It will include culture, things like footy stadiums — we’ve already got one but you never know what might happen down the track.

“The way we go about the delivery of public infrastructure — roads, transport, freight lines, hospitals — is critically important for the whole development of the economy.

“You get that wrong, you slow economic development down. Get it right and you actually facilitate economic development, so it’s critically important,” Langoulant said.

It also was important to understand how the public infrastructure spend would be delivered in the context of the much larger investment by private sector companies.

“The resources sector is critically important to us now and it will be for the next 20 years at least, if not for the next 100 years,” he said.

And, singing from a very popular song sheet, Langoulant said it was important to understand how Infrastructure WA could help diversify the state’s economic base in coming decades, while grappling with the impact of technological change and environmental challenges.

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 55

The Big Picture Classic Pilbara: Red dirt as far as the eye can see, giant haul trucks and a worker in high vis and hard hat. This is Rio Tinto’s Western Turner Syncline mine — the company is set to launch into phase two, which will feed into its greater Tom Price operation.

56 WA WORKS Summer 2019

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 57

North West Shelf Perseus North Rankin Goodwyn Rankin Dockrell

Chandon

Jansz/lo

Pluto

Scarborough

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

Reindeer

Chrysaor/Dionysus Julimar See West Tryal Rocks Barrow Island Achilles Clio enlargement Gorgon Satyr

Wandoo Stag

Mineral projects under care and maintenance and petroleum projects that are shut-in are shown in purple

Yara Pilbara Fertilisers NWSV LNG Pluto LNG Yara Pilbara Nitrates Anketell Dampier

Halyard

2019

Project labels:

Pemberton

Iago

Xena Brunello

Major Resource Projects

Hermes Lambert Angel Cossack Wanaea

Athena

Dampier Salt

Cape Preston

Cape Preston East Cape Lambert Devil Creek Gas Eramurra Salt Maitland River Radio Hill Plant Sino Iron Whundo Zn Cu Balmoral South

Torosa Brecknock

Prelude Ichthys

Blacktip

Cape Bougainville

Calliance

Mardie Salt K Novara

Coniston

Vincent Stickle Moondyne Enfield Laverda Macedon Ravensworth Crosby

Ashburton North

0

50

Onslow Salt Wheatstone LNG Macedon Gas

Ashburton Salt

Exmouth

Cape Range Lst

100

14 Dorado

SOD

Oil

PROPOSED -19.0336 118.7338WA-437-P Quadrant

Dorado 1

Excellent

Quadrant

R Bruce 23/8/18

Middle Robe Mesas Mesa J Bambra Wonnich Wonnich Deep Linda Lee Bungaroo CreekRose Harriet BungarooMonty South Josephine Baker Ginger Agincourt Simpson West Pilbara Barrow I South Plato Little Sandy Pedirka Gorgon LNG Victoria Barrow Island West Cycad Eliwana

Announced 7/2018

Kilometres

Ord Stage 1 !

KUNUNURRA

Cockatoo Island Irvine Island Koolan Island

10 km

Onslow

Tubridgi Gas Storage

Sorby Hills Pb Zn Cu Ord Stage 2

Wyndham

Barrow Island Mesa A - Warramboo

Ord River Hydro Energy Speewah V Ti Fe Speewah Fl Smoke Creek Matsu Argyle

Derby

Browse LNG Precinct

Thunderbird

Broome

L Channel – India Bore

Ungani

Duchess–Paradise

Paulsens

Savannah North Savannah McIntosh Gr Copernicus Panton Pt Pd

Koongie Park Zn Cu Pb Lamboo

!

Kapok West Pb Zn Ag Dorado

Commodities Ag........... Silver Au........... Gold Co........... Cobalt Cu........... Copper 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 Mn.......... Manganese Nb........... Niobium Ni............ Nickel Pb........... Lead Pd........... Palladium PGE........ Platinum group elements Pt............ Platinum REE........ Rare earth elements Ta............ Tantalum Ti............ Titanium V............. Vanadium W............ Tungsten Zn........... Zinc Zr............ Zirconium

Browns Range REE

Admiral Bay Zn Pb

Port Hedland

HALLS CREEK Brockman REE Nb Zr

Cummins Range REE

Asian Renewable Energy Hub wind & solar Citadel Au Cu 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

See North West Shelf enlargement

Lake Disappointment K See Pilbara enlargement

Yangibana REE Cape Cuvier

Mineral symbols

Precious mineral

Lake MacLeod Gp Lake MacLeod Salt

CARNARVON !

Shark Bay Salt

Dmd

Coburn

Precious metal

Au (or as shown)

Steel alloy metal

Ni (or as shown)

Speciality metal

Ti–Zr (or as shown)

Base metal Iron Alumina

Port Gregory Grt

All sites are bauxite

Balline Grt

Geraldton

Butcherbird Mn

Ilgarari Cu

Abra Pb Cu Zn

Beyondie K Beyondie Plutonic Dome Horseshoe Lights Cu Au Ag Plutonic Fortnum Hermes Glenburgh Thaduna Cu Ag Telecom Hill Yalbra Gr DeGrussa Monty Cu Au Cu Au Jack Hills Wiluna Jundee–Nimary Paroo Station Pb Meekatharra Wiluna/Toro Matilda Parks Reef PGE Au Gabanintha/TM V Ti Wiluna Lake Way K Weld Range Honeymoon Well West Yeelirrie Mt Keith Gabanintha/AV Gidgee Cue JV – Hollandaire Cu Au Ag Kathleen Valley Li Ta V Ti Cliffs Big Bell Barrambie Bronzewing Yakabindie South Fingall V Ti Fe Comet Dalgaranga Mt Magnet Yogi Mag Windimurra V Fe Youanmi V Ti Kirkalocka

Coal and lignite Uranium Industrial mineral Processing plant

Succoth Cu PGE West Musgrave

Wingellina Tollu Cu

Lake Wells K / Salt Lake Potash Lake Wells K / Australian Potash

Gruyere

Cyclone Tropicana

Mulga Rock

Petroleum symbols

Gas Oil Oil and gas Processing plant Oil / gas pipeline, operating Oil / gas pipeline, proposed

Infrastructure

Power plant Irrigation / water / desalination Port

Edna May

PERTH Fremantle

Silver Knight Nova–Bollinger

Collgar wind !

Wickepin Kln

Bunbury

See Goldfields enlargement Cosmic Boy Concentrator Salmon Gums

Katanning Mt Cattlin Li Ta

Ravensthorpe

Great Southern Au Cu See South West / Mid West Coastal enlargement Southdown

Enquiries for latest information for Commonwealth controlled waters is available from the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator (NOPTA) at <info@nopta.gov.au>

58 WA WORKS Summer 2019

EUCLA !

Tampia

Albany & Grasmere wind

Albany

Munglinup Gr

Esperance

Scaddan

0

100

200

Kilometres

300

400

Major Resource Projects 2019

Reindeer Port Hedland Salt

Wandoo

Port Hedland

Stag Yara Pilbara Fertilisers NWSV LNG Pluto LNG Yara Pilbara Nitrates

Dampier

Dampier Salt

Cape Preston

Ridley Mag

Cape Lambert Anketell Cape Lambert Sherlock Bay

Cape Preston East Devil Creek Gas Eramurra Salt Radio Hill Plant Maitland River Whundo Zn Cu Sino Iron Balmoral South

Precious metal

Whim Creek Cu Pilgangoora Li Ta Li Ta

Spinifex Ridge Mo Cu

Miralga Creek

Speciality metal

PIOP/Flinders

Serenity

Mulga Downs

Kings

Beasley River Rocklea CID

Koodaideri

Infrastructure

100

Kilometres

Prairie Downs Zn Pb Ag

Narngulu synthetic rutile Alinta–Walkaway wind Mumbida wind

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

Deflector Au Cu Ag Golden Grove Cu Zn Pb

Shine Golden Dragon

Greenough River solar

Mineral Projects under care and maintenance and petroleum fields that are shut-in are shown in purple

Mungada East Extension

Irwin River

Mt Mulgine W

Karara Mag

Oxley K

Rothsay

See Dongara enlargement Cliff Head

Enquiries for latest information for Commonwealth controlled waters is available from the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator (NOPTA) at <info@nopta.gov.au>

Karlawinda

Project labels:

South West / Mid West Coastal Mineral separation Geraldton brick

Power plant Irrigation / water / desalination Port

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

Oakajee

Oil / gas pipeline, operating Oil / gas pipeline, proposed

Roy Hill Marillana

Extension Nyidinghu Yandi/BHPB Iron Valley Yandicoogina/HI Hope Downs 1 Mining Area C Jinidi South Flank Rhodes Ridge

Marandoo

Hardey

Geraldton

Christmas Creek

Cloud Break

Western Turner Syncline !

TOM PRICE Tom Price

Gas field Oil field Oil and gas field Processing plant

Mesa – Ant Hill Mn

Silvergrass

Brockman 4

50

Petroleum symbols

Nullagine

Eliwana

0

Coal and lignite Industrial mineral Processing plant

Nullagine CID

Investigator

Weelumurra Firetail

Nammuldi

Pilbara

Base metal Iron Alumina

Big Hill W

!

Paulsens

Ti–Zr (or as shown)

All sites are bauxite

McPhee Creek

PANNAWONICA

Homestead

Ni (or as shown)

Corunna Downs

Mt Webber

West Pilbara

Steel alloy metal

Sulphur Springs Zn Cu Pb !

MARBLE BAR Iron Bridge Mag Warrawoona

Wodgina Li

Caliwingina

Magnetite Range

Three Springs Tlc

0

Goldfields 50

Extension Hill Mag

Odysseus Bellevue

Lawlers Agnew–Emu

Darlot

Vivien

Waitsia Centauri 1

Dongara

Warradarge wind

Xyris South JURIEN BAY !

Badgingarra wind

Dandaragan K Phos

Emu Downs wind and solar Atlas Cooljarloo/Tronox

Moora Silica Waddi wind

Dongara 5 km

Kilometres

Mt Bevan

Burtville Mt Weld Phos Mt Weld REE

Wallaby

Murrin Murrin

Mt Mason

Sunrise Dam Red October

Ulysses

Mt Ida

Lake Carey

Second Fortune

Calingiri Cu Mo Ag Au

Jump Up Dam

Chandala mineral separation and synthetic rutile NORTHAM Felicitas !

Dana Kln Fortuna

Malaga brick !

Lake Giles

Deception Windarling

Meckering Kln

Caversham tile Middle Swan brick Midland brick Airport brick

Mt Jackson

Highway Davyhurst

Marda

Armadale brick Cardup brick Koolyanobbing

Keysbrook Huntly

Athena

Pinjarra Alumina Boddington Au Cu Marradong Willowdale

!

Saddleback

Kemerton Sisd Titanium pigment Worsley Alumina Bunbury ! Bluewaters 1–2 Collie Premier Ewington Cristal mineral separation Muja Doral mineral separation Capel North synthetic rutile Yoganup Extended Wonnerup Wonnerup North Wonnerup South Tutunup Yoongarillup 100 Ta Greenbushes Li Ta Sn

Comet Vale Goongarrie Scotia Siberia

Sandy Ridge Kln

Fremantle

G

NiWest

!

Sons of Gwalia

Tarantula Cadoux Kln Dongara Redback Beharra Springs

Southern Seawater desalination Lithium hydroxide Silicon smelter Chlor alkali

50

Murrin North Mt Morgans

Darling Range

Neerabup/Newgen

Wagerup Alumina

Leonora/Kin LEONORA

Mt Alexander

Windarra

Deep South

Boonanarring

0

King of the Hills

Mt Forrest Cashmere Downs

Yandin wind

PERTH

Ben Hur – Epsilon

Bentley Zn Pb Cu

Mondarra Gas Storage

Jingemia

Yerecoin

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

Garden Well & Rosemont

Thunderbox

Eneabba/Iluka

Kwinana–Rockingham

Moolart Well

Rosie

Leinster

100

Kilometres

Eneabba/Sheffield

Cataby

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............. Vanadium W............ Tungsten Zn........... Zinc Zr............ Zirconium

Au (or as shown)

Mardie Salt K

Middle Robe Mesas Mesa J Mesa A – Warramboo Bungaroo Creek Bungaroo South

Commodities

Mineral symbols

Balla Balla Salt Creek Zn Cu Pb Balla Balla Fe V Ti

SOUTHERN CROSS Marvel Loch

Karari

Bardoc

Ora Banda

Lindsays

Pinnacles

Silver Swan

Paddington Kanowna Belle Castle Hill Millennium KALGOORLIE–BOULDER Bombora – Lake Roe Kundana Superpit !

Frogs Leg Nimbus–Boorara Ag Au Zn White Foil Geko Nickel smelter Lithium Refinery Blair COOLGARDIE !

Coolgardie South Kal Bullabulling Mt Monger Aldiss Burbanks Randalls Carnilya Hill Mt Marion Li Ta Nepean Long–Victor Nickel concentrator St Ives Widgiemooltha

Nevoria

Lanfranchi Miitel Mariners

Bald Hill Li Ta

Polar Bear

Earl Grey Li

Mt Thirsty Lake Johnston

Flat Rock wind New Morning

Flying Fox Spotted Quoll Cosmic Boy Concentrator

!

NORSEMAN Mt Henry

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 59

News Bites

Digging in We unearth the best tender awards, project progress and significant announcements over the last quarter.

September Piping work for Barossa

Australian first

The big Barossa gas and condensate project offshore from Darwin has taken another step towards a go-ahead early in 2020 after the award of a gas export pipeline contract.

Operator ConocoPhillips said it awarded an Engineering, Procurement, Construction and Installation contract for a 260km pipeline to the Allseas Group.

Back to the shops Doric has started work on the $63m Ellenbrook Shopping Centre stage three project for Vicinity Centres.

The WA construction company, which was celebrating 30 years of operations, previously delivered stage one of the shopping centre in 2005.

Construction of Australia’s first Aboriginal-owned and operated iron ore mine was enabled after the $45m First Iron project near Newman won backing from commercial and government lenders.

Australian Aboriginal Mining Corporation secured debt funding, including a $12.5m loan from the Federal Government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility.

Tide comes in

Towering prospect Multiplex is seeking interest from subcontractors to participate in its $500 million Chevron Tower contract which is expected to begin site works in February.

The construction giant opened expressions of interest for the supply and subcontracting services for works on the development at Elizabeth Quay Lot 7.

60 WA WORKS Summer 2019

The developer of a $110m floating wharf at Broome expects to begin construction in 2020 after gaining a tick of approval from the State Government.

Kimberley Marine Support Base (KMSB) says the project will require about 250 workers at peak construction and could begin operations in early 2022.

Ring road progress The biggest transport infrastructure project ever planned for the South-West has moved into the procurement phase.

Main Roads, which closed expressions of interest from contractors to build the $852m Bunbury Outer Ring Road in late October, says it hopes to begin a three-year construction phase early in 2021.

News Bites

October

Fertiliser go ahead Perth-based Kalium Lakes will accelerate construction of its $216m Beyondie sulphate of potash project after making a final investment decision.

The company, which aims to become Australia’s first producer of the high-end fertiliser by processing brines from salt lakes in the Pilbara, is targeting first SOP production by late 2020.

Home for domes A big tourism project is brewing at Perth Airport, which has agreed to ring fence land for five domes that would showcase WA’s biodiversity and Aboriginal culture to international visitors.

The 50m high structures, expected to cost about $510m in total, will be similar to the popular Eden visitor attraction in Cornwall, England, says Australian Biome Project spokesman Adam Barnard.

Kerman’s at Kemerton More for Pindan WA builder Pindan is the latest winner from the start of works on Rio Tinto’s Koodaideri iron ore project, courtesy of a $90m operations village construction contract.

The company will design and build the accommodation for the project’s main village featuring 470 rooms, eight laundries, a 1200-person kitchen/ dining hall, gymnasium, recreation building with café and alfresco space, administration office and shop.

Kerman engaged with suppliers after winning a civils contract at Albemarle’s Kemerton lithium project near Bunbury.

The Perth-based contractor says about 50 construction workers are needed for the job, which involves building several buildings and warehouses at the $1.75b lithium hydroxide venture.

Home for domes A big tourism project is brewing at Perth Airport, which has agreed to ring fence land for five domes that would showcase WA’s biodiversity and Aboriginal culture to international visitors.

The 50m high structures, expected to cost about $510m in total, will be similar to the popular Eden visitor attraction in Cornwall, England, says Australian Biome Project spokesman Adam Barnard.

Green light

Bridge for MACA Welshpool-based MACA has won a roadworks job at Fortescue’s huge Iron Bridge magnetite project in the Pilbara.

The $26m contract, involving bulk earthworks for access roads and infrastructure at the site, about 145km south of Port Hedland, has already commenced.

Woodside has approved the development of its offshore Pyxis Hub project, designed to shore up the long-term gas supply of the Pluto onshore LNG plant at Karratha.

The green light for the development, which comprises the subsea tieback of the Pyxis, Pluto North and Xena 2 infill wells, triggered the award of a contract worth up to $365m to TechnipFMC.

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 61

News Bites

November Downstream plan Australian Vanadium has grown its battery metal ambitions by proposing a downstream facility to process concentrates from its yet-to-be approved Gabanintha project.

The Perth-based junior has acquired an option over land near Mullewa, inland from Geraldton, for building the downstream plant, which would take concentrates trucked from its proposed $516m mine near Meekatharra.

Ichthys milestone

Floating vessel The Barossa gas and condensate venture off northern Australia looks certain to get the nod early this year after operator ConocoPhillips awarded a contract to MODEC international for a giant floating production vessel.

MODEC will construct and install the Barossa floating production, storage and offloading facility, to be permanently located in the offshore development area 300km north of Darwin.

The new contract comes as the US energy giant works on finalising arrangements for the $2.1b sale of its Australia-West assets, including Bayu-Undan and Darwin LNG, to Australia’s Santos.

Japan’s Inpex celebrated the 100th shipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) from its Ichthys project, which pipes gas produced from fields off the Kimberley coast to Darwin for processing and export.

Inpex President Director Australia Hitoshi Okawa said the milestone came 13 months after the maiden LNG cargo in October 2018. Along with 100 LNG cargoes, the project exported 24 liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and 46 condensate cargoes, he said.

Plan emerges Calidus Resources is seeking environmental approval to build a $95m gold mine in the Pilbara and aims to begin construction in early 2021.

Sited about 20km south of Marble Bar, the Warrawoona project will involve an open pit and underground mine at the Klondyke deposit, as well as a processing facility and other infrastructure to produce about 100,000oz per year.

More iron ore Goldfields deal GR Engineering will play the key role in upgrading Saracen Mineral’s Carosue Dam gold mine near Kalgoorlie after winning a $24.5m deal.

The Perth-based engineer won the engineering design, procurement and construction contract for Saracen’s $34m project to expand Carosue’s mill throughput to 3.2mtpa, up from 2.4mtpa.

62 WA WORKS Summer 2019

Engineering contractor Monadelphous says it will provide fixed plant maintenance services to Rio Tinto’s Pilbara iron ore operations for another five years after winning jobs valued at more than $100m.

The mechanical and electrical maintenance services contract includes the provision of shutdowns and scaffolding.

One Subiaco to roll Construction of the $280m One Subiaco project is expected to kick off in April following strong pre-sales of the luxury apartments, developer Blackburne says.

The development of the old Pavilion Market site on the corner of Rokeby and Roberts Roads is forecast to generate about 900 jobs in total, with a peak construction workforce of 300 in mid-2021.

News Bites Nickel mill on Gateway A major BHP operation was among two new projects — one in nickel and the other solar power — seeking interest from suppliers on the ICN Gateway website: gateway.icn.org.au.

BHP Nickel West’s Mount Keith debottlenecking project and Alinta Energy’s Chichester transmission and solar farm listed separately on the procurement site, offering suppliers a window into two key growth sectors: battery minerals and renewable power.

Workers needed Australian Gas Infrastructure Group says its new contract to build Woodside’s Pluto-North West Shelf interconnector gas pipeline will provide employment for about 100 construction workers.

A new 30-inch diameter pipeline will run 3.2km, connecting the Woodsideoperated Pluto LNG Plant to the NWS Project’s Karratha Gas Plant, and is the first component of the infrastructure needed to transport gas between the two facilities.

University power

Freeway builders Perth’s next major road project has begun a year-long procurement process, with Main Roads WA calling for expressions of interest to design and build the latest Mitchell Freeway extension.

The State and Federal governments hope to begin construction of the two-year, $215m extension from Hester Avenue to Romeo Road late this year, subject to the receipt of all heritage and environmental approvals.

Accelerating projects A new southern railway station and another freeway upgrade are the two key Perth infrastructure projects emerging from the $940m boost in Federal and State funding.

Most of the extra cash ($868m) will flow from Canberra, with total Federal infrastructure spending in WA rising from about $4.5b to $5.4b over the next four years.

Learning institutions are becoming a growing source of urban infrastructure projects, capped off by Murdoch University’s new 5.7MW solar power project.

Murdoch called for expressions of interest for an industry partner to develop the District Energy Project, which will include the installation of solar panels across all available roof space at the South Street campus in addition to a solar car park on unused land.

Big mine shuts The fate of about a hundred workers was up in the air after joint venture partners Albemarle and Mineral Resources mothballed WA’s second biggest lithium mine because of soft demand for the battery metal.

The Wodgina mine, south of Port Hedland in the Pilbara, will idle production of spodumene concentrates until demand for lithium supports bringing it back into production, US-based Albemarle says.

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 63

News Bites

December Greener hook up

APA Group’s energy precinct in the Mid West has grown greener with the opening of its $40m Badgingarra solar farm, which is co-located with APA’s $315m Badgingarra Wind Farm.

The older Emu Downs wind and solar installations round out APA’s broader precinct, which has a total combined capacity of 250MW from 85 wind turbines and nearly 140,000 solar panels.

Magnetic separation

Dorado $2.2b Santos says it wants to develop its offshore Dorado field initially as a liquids operation using a floating vessel tied to a wellhead platform, with total spending to first oil forecast at between $1.9-2.2b.

The energy company is targeting the start of front end engineering design (FEED) for Dorado, about 250km north of Port Hedland, in the second quarter of 2020.

Bridge begins A consortium led by Laing O’Rourke has started work on the $237m Armadale Road to North Lake Road Bridge.

The new bridge over Kwinana Freeway will connect the recently upgraded Armadale Road with North Lake Road, with completion late this year (2020).

The new structure is expected to relieve traffic pressure on the existing Armadale Road to Beeliar Drive Bridge, while improving access to the freeway and train station car park.

Compiled from WA Works digital fortnightly newsletter. Your subscription entitles you to nominate 10 email address to receive the newsletter.

Contact waworks@cciwa.com.au to add or update emails.

64 WA WORKS Summer 2019

Fortescue is edging closer to starting construction of its latest Solomon Hub add-on — a wet high intensity magnetic separation plant at Christmas Creek.

Chief Operating Officer Greg Lilleyman says the company hasn’t released a capital cost for WHIMS, one of several projects included in Fortescue’s budgeted $295m spending on “operational development” in 2019-20.

Syncline kicks off The first work packages have been advertised for Rio Tinto’s latest big iron ore project after the approval of the $1b Western Turner Syncline Phase 2.

Rio Tinto says WTS2 is an extension of the Tom Price operation and will include a new crusher and 13km conveyor, with construction to start in the first quarter of 2020.

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

New decade, new outlook

W

e animals have had our end of year wrap-up for

workers are feeling less secure in their job and many others are

2019. It was something the media Rabbits insisted

struggling to get a job. People feel let down by politicians, banks

on. If only that Rabbit proof fence had worked. We

and even the churches. The sly Dingo says some of the behaviour

only agreed on the condition of no opinion polls, no

is even worse than us.

focus groups and no stakeholder consultation.

Most of us thought 2019 was a dull year. The Eagle did say the

This lack of public confidence hits SMEs as sales fall while overhead costs continue to rise. For them the cost and risk of

stadium was good, but he could not think of anything else. After

employing someone is a real disincentive. And big business is

the election, Canberra went back

shifting more toward contracting out, labour hire and sending

to tedious arguments over religious freedom, climate change, freedom of

work overseas.

What we need is a period of stability. If consumers are

the press and Chinese spies.

feeling more secure then they will start to spend more. The

Meanwhile, the bush animals

Turtle says just a bit of steady as she goes will work.

had to cope with floods,

Politicians can help by getting back to the real economic and

drought and fires. Fish in the Murray- Darling are dying

business issues. And business leaders can help by ensuring ethical behaviour at the corporate level. The Emu says less

in their thousands as the river

focus on high executive salaries and board fees would be

dries up.

a good idea.

It hasn’t been any better here.

Perth City has been limping along

This year is also the start of a new decade. The Giraffe says even we can’t see that far ahead. However, the wise

with empty shops, people sleeping rough

Owl says there is every reason to be optimistic for the

and a spike in inner city crime. The old

years to come, but it won’t be as dramatic as the 2010s.

Mare says you haven’t even got a Lord

For WA, the past decade has been the ‘China decade’ with

Mayor, but I’m available. The local politicians

iron-ore production doubling and liquified natural gas

spent the year arguing over social issues

(LNG) production trebling. We won’t see that again as China’s growth slows and as the mining

while small and medium sized businesses

industry heads toward a long-term mature

struggled with cash flow and were not in

level of production.

the mood to employ anyone.

That does make way for other parts of our

But we do think 2020 will be a better year.

economy to do better. Agriculture and science along

The money-minded Emu points out that interest rates are low, the share market is

with the service sector industries of tourism, education and

up, inflation is low and wage costs are flat. For WA mining is

health are the obvious opportunities. Success will depend on good

back to more normal times and most farmers have had a

policy and a good reputation both in Australia and overseas. Why

reasonable few years.

is it that we are willing to settle for second best when we should

So, what is going wrong? The simple answer is that people are feeling worse off and aren’t spending. Their house is worth less and the new necessities of mobile phones, internet access and day care are eating into the family budget. At the same time

aim to lead in business and social responsibility? WA does need to lift its game.

THE ECHIDNA, January 2020

Summer 2019 WA WORKS 65

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