WA Works September 2018

SU

Supply Chain and Major Project News

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

Spring 2018

Sustainment Lucrative defence contracts

Construction

Energy

Infrastructure

New Georgiou CEO’s flying start

Building a lithium processing hub

The cloud comes to Perth’s suburbs

News, Profiles, Major Projects List, Opinion and more

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FABRICATION & ASSEMBLY 2 WA WORKS Spring 2018

MARINE

DEFENCE

DECOMMISSIONING

LOGISTICS MAINTENANCE

Contents

Cover Story

Front Cover: Royal Australian Navy frigate HMAS Stuart anchored at sunrise during Exercise Kakadu 2018. Photograph — Department of Defence.

44 Cloud Capture

14

Amphibious sustainment

47

Georgiou opportunity

Editor’s Letter

4

CEO’s Desk

6

Economic outlook

8

A day in the life

10

Austal’s high tide

12

BAE System’s defence tips

16

Kalgoorlie worker drought

20

Stem the flow

23

Gorgon stage 2 surfaces

26

Vanadium rebirth

30

Railcar fabrication comeback

35

Major Projects List

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.

Spring 2018

40

Building bridges

50

Going for broke

53

Women in drilling

54

Building a lithium hub

56

Duck season for Ben Wyatt

59

Tapping the hydrogen economy

61

Major Resource Projects Map

62

Done and dusted

64

The Echidna

68

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 3

Welcome

Editor’s Letter The start of something great

W

elcome to the spring edition of WA Works, your window into the growing array of major projects in this great state.

As we head into summer, there is a new sense of optimism on St Georges Terrace about WA’s economic recovery as some of the world’s biggest mining and energy companies resume their investment in major projects.

This surge in new mine spending is welcome news for the supply chain, which has been doing it tough for the last three years.

Slimmed-down construction and engineering contractors, especially, will be eager to get their teeth into the 8000 iron ore construction jobs expected to be generated in the next 2-3 years

by Rio Tinto, BHP and Fortescue in the Pilbara.

And it’s not all about iron ore. We reveal that several major contractors have been appointed to lead development of Chevron’s multi-billion-dollar Gorgon Stage Two venture, while Woodside is poised to begin Front End Engineering Design studies on its $15b Scarborough gas project by the end of the year.

We also could be at the dawn of a major era of collaboration among the Pilbara gas giants, particularly Chevron and Woodside, as they look to maximise the use of about

$200b-worth of infrastructure built during the LNG boom.

It all sounds great on paper, but will we have enough people power to build all these projects? There is a growing concern in government and industry that sought-after skills — from engineers to mechanical trades — will be in short supply once construction approaches peak levels. We offer broad coverage of the potential jobs drought, starting with the acute worker shortage in Kalgoorlie.

The boom in public infrastructure spending is one reason experienced engineers and tradies are harder to find for the new mining jobs. But it spells good news for the likes of Downer EDI, CPB Contractors, Acciona, Georgiou Group, Clough, John Holland and Laing O’Rourke, which are all pitching for competitive alliance roles on Metronet Stage One. There are plenty of other features to enjoy in this issue, including our exclusive interview with one of the key architects behind Matagarup Bridge, analysis of how the cloud arrived on Perth’s doorstep and why its duck season for Energy Minister Ben Wyatt.

And don’t miss the debut of The Echidna, our grouchy new ‘in-the-know’ columnist who weaves the antics of our various tribes into a hilarious parable of contemporary Australia.

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 Spring 2018

Visit cciwa.com/waworks

Published quarterly by Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Western Australia (Inc) 180 Hay Street East Perth WA 6004 (08) 9365 7555 info@cciwa.com www.cciwa.com President Ray Sputore Chief Executive Officer Chris Rodwell Editor Stephen Bell (08) 9365 7445 editor@cciwa.com Production Editor Robyn Molloy (08) 9365 7628 Robyn.Molloy@cciwa.com Graphic Designer Katie Addison (08) 9365 7518 katie.addison@cciwa.com Advertising Ann Brinkamp (08) 9365 7669 advertising@cciwa.com Disclaimer: This information is current at September 2018. CCI has taken all reasonable care in preparing this information, however, it is provided as a guide only. You should seek specific advice from a CCI adviser before acting. CCI does not accept liability for any claim which may arise from any person acting or refraining from acting on this information.

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

CEO’s Desk

Chris Rodwell

Driving procurement from the ground up Business investment is a critical driver of economic prosperity.

No state understands this more than Western Australia

A

ttracting the scale of investment required to underpin new investments is a global game.

So when it comes to imagining a booming WA economy once again, we must imagine a state that is open to the world, our taxes are competitive and business is free from unnecessary red tape to ensure we can remain competitive on a global playing field.

The signs are optimistic for the future, not just as a result of our state’s renowned resources sector, but in key sectors where industry and Government are working to diversify our economy.

One of the critical ways CCI supports stronger growth is through our operation of the Industry Capability Network of WA (ICNWA) as part of an Australia-wide network that connects the country’s supply chain with procurement opportunities.

ICNWA helps save time for project teams.

It alerts suppliers to opportunities and connects suppliers who can undertake the full scope of works with project teams.

Since 2013, the team has helped more than 400 WA companies across the supply chain win work across over 1600 tenders and contracts.

Projects and their proposed procurement

packages are listed on ICN Gateway. Suppliers that believe they can carry out the scope of works can register their interest in the package.

With 93 open procurement packages for WA projects currently listed across oil and gas, iron ore, lithium, aquaculture and defence, the scope of works for WA businesses across the supply chain is significant.

ICNWA also has a unique connection to regional and indigenous companies via its seven business capability directories. With almost 18,500 WA companies registered, these directories are an important link for buyers to understand supplier capability and for registered suppliers to be informed of opportunities.

Through its pipeline of works, ICN provides an important indicator of activity in WA. It’s clear that work is starting to pick up on major projects.

Chevron has approved it multi-billion dollar Gorgon Stage Two project and expects to begin offshore drilling next year. This is one of the world’s largest natural gas projects and the largest single resource development in Australia’s history.

Woodside is due to begin front end engineering design (FEED) late in 2018 for the Scarborough project with the final investment decision set for late 2020.

In iron ore, two big mine replacement projects have recently been approved — BHP’s $4.6 billion South Flank development and Fortescue’s $1.7b Eliwana venture.

The South Flank project is expected to create about 2500 jobs during construction and 600 ongoing operational roles, while Fortescue’s Eliwana Project will also be a significant boost for the state’s economy and job creation, with 1900 jobs expected to be created during construction and 500 full-time positions once operational.

These projects are likely to be followed later this year by Rio Tinto’s $3b Koodaideri project, creating 2000 jobs during construction and 600 permanent operational roles.

In aquaculture, Seafarms’ Project Sea Dragon — a fully integrated production system for black tiger prawns — is in its stage 1 development phase, with plans to produce nominally 12,000 tonnes per annum of prawns in its first full stage of development.

In defence, CCI continues to promote WA’s elite defence capabilities and competitive advantages. Our WA Defence Directory (wadefence.com.au) has also become a central resource for state-wide organisations currently connected to the defence supply chain and those looking to get involved.

We are now taking this role one step further, with ICN working with Naval Ship Management — a joint venture between Babcock and UGL Limited — to connect existing and new suppliers across Australia for their current and future work with the Australian Navy.

ICNWA is also in contract with Germany’s Luerssen and major WA Company Civmec for the supply and processing of the Commonwealth Government’s Offshore Patrol Vessel project.

Businesses can register their interest in projects by visiting gateway.icn.org.au.

WA is primed for a resurgence and so is CCI, with each of our Members as our driving force. CCI encourages all WA Works readers to continue sharing your stories with us and to provide feedback on emerging opportunities in WA by emailing editor@cciwa.com.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 5

The BIG Picture Construction activities at Rio Tinto’s Silvergrass iron ore mine. The $470m mine was opened in August last year after a 12-month construction project employing 500 people.

6 WA WORKS Spring 2018

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 7

Economic Outlook

Rick Newnham

The Pilbara — rising like a phoenix from the ashes The resources sector has been WA’s lifeblood for decades and will continue to be so, says CCI Chief Economist Rick Newnham

T

here is more reason than not to be upbeat about opportunities for the state’s economy — consumer and business confidence are on multi-year highs, job advertisements are on the rise, and businesses across the country are revising up their capital expenditure plans.

For more than four years our domestic economy has been shrinking, driven mainly by declines in business investment from the enormous highs that fuelled the resources construction boom. Fortunately, exports have been strong and have kept our whole economy growing while other indicators have been falling.

So how will WA’s economic recovery gain momentum? Once business investment reaches the bottom of its fall and we return to stability in mining investment, which we anticipate will be this financial year, the whole WA economy will start to pick up.

On the national stage, the Australian economy has entered the longest stretch of expansion in our history: 27 years of continuous economic growth, the longest stretch for any national economy on record. The national economy grew by 0.9 per cent in the June quarter and by 3.4 per cent compared to a year earlier — the fastest annual growth since the end of the mining investment boom in 2012.

In these 27 years, Australia has navigated the 2008 global financial crisis, the 1997 Asian financial crisis, and the collapse of the dotcom bubble — and we’ve done it largely without any major scars. We owe this to the resources sector which has kept our economy strong over almost three decades.

The sentiment as I chat to CCI Members is one of cautious optimism, driven by the emergence of our resources sector from the ashes of the mining boom.

The economic outlook for the country remains positive as firms across all industries revise up their spending plans for 2018-19. The latest estimate for expected capital expenditure for the 2018-19 financial year came in at $102 billion — 16 per cent higher than the previous forecast.

WA businesses spent more than $2.3 billion

8 WA WORKS Spring 2018

on equipment, plant, and machinery in the June 2018 quarter, up 17 per cent since the previous quarter. This suggests that despite the political uncertainty — domestic and international — seen over the last few months, businesses remain broadly confident that conditions are improving enough to warrant expanding capacity.

For the twelfth month in a row, the mining, resources, and energy industry also had the greatest growth in employment opportunities as job vacancies continued to soar, up 32 per cent since last year according, to SEEK’s Insights. WA recorded the largest rise in businesses wanting to hire more labour, up 16 per cent since last year.

In the regions, WA’s mining giants can’t get enough boots on the ground, with the Pilbara and Kimberley (22 per cent) and the Goldfields (16 per cent) regions experiencing the strongest growth in job advertisements in regional areas across the country.

Mineral exploration expenditure in WA is also up $21 million since last year — an early leading indicator signalling that businesses are undertaking significant outlays to find, build or replace mines.

Oil and gas exploration (and exploration more generally) has also been strong this year, alongside sustained higher commodity prices.

In part, the strong recovery reflects the very low levels to which mining job ads fell — ads are not back anywhere near previous boom peaks. However, with the announcement of several new major investments in the resources sector in the second quarter, business investment is set to grow again in 2018-19.

These indicators point to a clear signal — that WA’s big iron ore miners are gearing up for another round of growth and a new wave of construction work.

A return to growing business investment will support stronger wages, stronger household consumption, stronger government finances and a stronger economy.

But for WA to once again be Australia’s economic powerhouse, industry and government must work together to continue to develop this new era of business investment.

This is the business environment CCI wants for our members and our state, and it is the business environment we will continue to advocate for on your behalf.

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TO RECEIVE YOUR FREE CONSULTATION, CONTACT AN ADVISER TODAY ON (08) 9365 7531.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 9

On the ground

A day in the life of...

Melissa Battaglia, Autonomous Controller, Rio Tinto

R

io Tinto’s operations centre at Perth Airport is the epicentre of our autonomous operations with trucks, drills and trains all monitored remotely from the site.

There are more than 400 people based here now and it really is an exciting and dynamic place to work with the industry changing so rapidly and Rio Tinto being at the forefront of a lot of these pioneering innovations.

I started driving a haul truck for Rio Tinto at the Yandicoogina operation in 2009.

Around this time the company had started autonomous trucks at the West Angelas operation which really intrigued me. I saw it as a real opportunity to progress, to get in at the ground floor of something exciting that was clearly going to be a feature of the mining industry of the future given the significant safety and productivity advantages.

The potential to upskill and retrain with Rio Tinto is something that’s really encouraged and I was offered a new role in 2012 at the Hope Downs 4 mine as an operator. From here I became one of the first autonomous controllers at the mine. To become a controller I had to do

10 WA WORKS Spring 2018

three months in-field training as a pit patroller at another site already operating autonomously.

This was critical to my development as pit patrollers are the eyes and ears on the ground for the autonomous controllers back in the operations centre.

I then did my central control training alongside an already qualified controller on site until I was qualified to run and train other controllers at

all of our autonomous sites. The role of an autonomous controller is incredibly dynamic.

No two days are the same, I love the variability and I like to be kept busy.

We work in a large open plan room that includes manned sites, plant controllers, autonomous drill controllers, train controllers, IT support workers, mine care and a number of others.

“The thing I love most about this role is there are so many opportunities to learn more each and every day” Hope Downs 4. All the training I’ve undertaken to become an autonomous controller has been in-house with Rio Tinto. Obviously starting out as a truck driver offered an enormous head start, given I was already familiar with the basics.

The on-site control room was shifted down to Perth two years ago and I’m now part of the autonomous central control team running

A typical day starts at 5.30am with the pre-start meeting with the whole team.

The supervisor talks about what happened in the previous 24 hours and then it’s straight out on the floor for a five-minute handover with the crew.

Then you’re in the hot seat for the day as part of a team of about 30 people. To begin with, it is

On the ground

Ichthys exports first condensate

the start-of-shift checks to ensure the system is set up to run efficiently. I need to make sure all my dig units are where they need to be according to the daily plan. I then confirm I have the right autonomous truck allocation for those dig units.

Then, it’s on to the crushers where I cross-check the production plan to ensure I have enough high-grade feed.

The title of autonomous is a little misleading. While they operate autonomously, our AHS (Autonomous Haulage System) trucks are constantly monitored. I’m liaising with the pit supervisor every 30 minutes to ensure we remain on target to meet our plan for the day.

As events change throughout a shift, I’m regularly making slight improvements to keep all circuits moving as safely as possible.

Any decision I make has to go through the pit supervisor first. They’re accountable for all decisions within the pit so we are in contact with them constantly throughout the day.

Positive two-way radio communication

and a great relationship with on-site personnel is critical in my role. Anyone who wants to enter the pit has to call the control room to request access which is granted only once it’s safe to enter.

Like all mine sites, safety is paramount.

Whenever there is an emergency on site, the control room is the first point of contact for any mayday calls and are the first to respond.

We make sure the site supervisors have the correct information to assist as quickly as possible.

We work very closely with a number of departments including production personnel, site supervisors, plant controllers who we sit side-by-side with.

The thing I love most about this role is there are so many opportunities to learn more each and every day within the systems we work with because they are so advanced.

Every day something different will come at you and you’ve got to think outside the box. It’s a challenge and I’m constantly thinking about innovative ways to help achieve our targets.

Japan’s Inpex has achived another milestone at its $50 billion Ichthys LNG project by shipping the first condensate.

The first cargo of condensate, a type of light oil, departed from the Ichthys Venturer, a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility moored about 220km off the Kimberley coast.

The shipment was destined for the Asian market and signified an “important step forward as we begin to generate revenue from a project we expect will operate for 40 years to come”, said Inpex President Director Australia Seiya Ito. Later this year, the Ichthys project is expected to begin LNG exports, followed by the first liquid petroleum gas (LPG) cargo.

Ichthys’s gas liquefaction plant is based at Bladin Point, near Darwin, and is linked to the project’s massive offshore infrastructure, about 470km north-north east of Broome, by an 890km subsea trunkline.

The 120,000-tonne Central Processing Facility (CPF) and the 336m Ichthys Venturer arrived last year in May and August respectively.

Inpex said production from Ichthys is gathered in the CPF and separated into gases and liquids. Thereafter, the liquids are piped to the nearby FPSO, and the gases to the Darwin LNG plant.

An Inpex spokesperson said WA was one of the biggest economic winners from the project, which is employing more than 12,000 workers in WA and NT combined — onshore and offshore.

Pilbara potash project set for green light Kalium Lakes expects to award major construction contracts for its Beyondie sulphate of potash project before the end of the year after reporting “exceptional” outcomes from a feasibility study.

A final investment decision for the $159 million Stage One project — based on the harvesting and processing of huge salt brine deposits — is due early next year.

It has endorsed the start of early works and final engineering.

“This will allow us to complete the critical path activities associated with the timely construction of the project including, most importantly, the road upgrades and accommodation facility,” Managing Director Brett Hazelden says.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 11

High tide Australia’s biggest shipbuilder is riding the waves of success after celebrating 30 years of operations with an order book that’s the strongest in a decade, writes Robyn Molloy

12 WA WORKS Spring 2018 The first Pacific Patrol Boat is undergoing sea trials before being delivered to Papua New Guinea in November. Photograph – Robyn Molloy.

Defence

I

t’s calm seas on an ordinary day in Henderson, but the activities underway reveal an operation deserving of its global reputation.

As WA Works embarks on a tour of the global shipbuilder’s Henderson site, the depth and breadth of the operations become apparent.

A team of about 150 designers is beavering away in a centre for excellence in maritime design, where up to 30 are assigned to each new vessel, including naval architects, mechanical engineers and electrical engineers.

Then there’s fit out and air conditioning designers and draughts people.

Austal employs about 800 people at Henderson currently on a mix of commercial and defence projects.

At any time Austal’s wharf can have up to five vessels moored. On WA Work’s visit, the first Pacific Patrol Boat in the SEA3036 replacement program was berthed and almost set for sea trials.

Austal CEO David Singleton describes the catamaran as revolutionary, able to operate at speeds of up to 40 knots, featuring a hull that minimises fuel consumption and a ride control system that ensure passenger comfort.

“The technology and efficiency of this vessel truly places it in a class of its own,” he says.

Even this will be small when Austal starts work on one of the two 117-metre trimarans ordered

by Canary Islands cruise company Fred Olsen, worth $190m.

Patrol boat sails out The nation’s first Pacific Patrol Boat made its way from a rented facility in Hope Valley Road at Naval Base to the Australian Marine Complex before docking at Austal’s Henderson shipyard.

It’s the first of 21 — all to be gifted by the Federal Government to Pacific Island nations — to roll out in a production line until 2023. The first will be delivered to Port

“Construction started on the first PPB in February last year, with another four under construction” While exciting to see the Federal Government’s much anticipated Naval Shipbuilding Plan is more than just hype, with 20 vessels worth more than $330m to roll out in the next few years, the 39.5m vessel was dwarfed by the monster catamaran in the construction halls.

The superstructure of the 109-metre $100m Molslinjen of Denmark catamaran was sitting alongside its hull, engines yet to be installed, together taking up almost every inch of the construction halls.

The high-speed ferry — Express 4 — is Molslinjen’s largest and has employed about 300 workers since the first aluminium plate was cut in April last year. It will hold 425 vehicles and transport more than 1000 people.

Prior to completing the ‘vessel sandwich’ all electrics are working, seating and tables are in place, the televisions are installed, kitchens are being fitted out — right down to the appliances.

The vessel rolled out of the construction halls recently with the superstructure lifted onto the hull, bringing the precision operation of fitting the two together to a close.

The accuracy is astounding, but something Austal has mastered having completed 300 vessels in 30 years.

Moresby, Papua New Guinea, by November.

Construction started on the first PPB in February last year, with another four under construction with one set to hit the water every three months.

The biggest obstacle in the schedule of the PPBs is that the powerlines need to be lifted each time one is transported from Hope Valley

Road to the Australian Marine Complex’s Common User Facility.

The Hope Valley facility was not set up for ship construction until 18 months ago but is now a hive of shipbuilding. It will have five PPBs in different stages of construction at any one time.

The PPBs followed Austal’s Cape Class program, which saw the company deliver a boat to Border Force every eight weeks during peak construction, with the delivery of 10 boats completed last year.

More recently, the company has received a $100m order from the Trinidad and Tobago Government for two Cape Class vessels, which will see the program amp up again later in the year. That announcement was sweetened by a subsequent deal, with the government approving the purchase of a 94m high speed ferry in late September.

Final touches were being put on the interior of the first Pacific Patrol Boat when WA Works walked through. It started sea trials on August 9 — 30 years to the day since the company started operating in Henderson.

It’s been a successful ride for Austal and while the PPB signifies a shift to Australia for defence work, it pales in comparison to Austal’s US operations.

Last month the company — which has a shipbuilding facility in Alabama — was awarded a $1.6 billion contract to build two more littoral combat ships for the US navy. It has already delivered nine, including three this year.

In just three decades the Australian shipbuilder that started out on the once empty Henderson strip has become a global designer and manufacturer supplying to governments, navies and ferry operators around the world.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 13

Defence

Lucrative contract for amphibious sustainment WA’s supply chain has a chance to be part of something big as Defence prepares to award a major new warship sustainment job

By Stephen Bell

D

efence suppliers have been asked to put up their hands to help support the Royal Australian Navy’s two huge Landing Helicopter Dock (LHD) amphibious vessels.

Naval Ship Management (NSM), a joint venture between Babcock and CIMIC’s UGL, was recently short-listed for the request for tender stage of the LHD Asset Class Prime Contract.

The successful bidder will provide support and sustainment for the two LHDs, HMAS Adelaide and HMAS Canberra, alongside 12 LHD Landing Craft and associated shore support facilities at Garden Island defence precinct in NSW. Defence anticipates signing a final contract for the delivery of the services by the end of 2018.

General Manager Joe Smith says NSM wants to gain a deeper understanding of the capability and capacity of the local supply chain to support its existing and future programs, such as the LHD contract.

“NSM values its relationship with our supply chain across Australia and we apply significant focus on Australian industry capability as a whole,” Smith told WA Works.

14 WA WORKS Spring 2018

“That means a robust, agile and flexible Australian supply chain, not bound by state borders, that can deliver capability and capacity in support of defence programs.

“We already utilise a number of members of our supply chain that are headquartered in WA to support other programs on the east coast and envisage similar opportunities for this contract if we are successful.

“We have initiated an ICN Gateway listing for this contract and welcome members of our supply chain to register their capabilities,” Smith says.

Many WA businesses would be familiar with NSM via its work at Henderson on the RAN’s Anzac frigates through the Warship Asset Management Agreement (WAMA), or through regular industry engagement events in Perth.

In June NSM — in conjunction with the WA branch of the Australian Industry Defence Network (AIDN) and Defence West — coordinated a ‘Challenge Series’ event in Perth for small to medium enterprises (SMEs). The series highlighted the capability and innovative techniques for solving problems that SMEs have and, through collaboration, their potential to solve other challenges they could not have done alone.

Smith says the next planned industry initiative is to replicate the Challenge Series event in NSW and will be held in conjunction with the NSW branch of AIDN on October 16.

“Thereafter, if we are successful in securing the contract, we will undertake an industry briefing in WA highlighting the opportunities for members of our supply chain headquartered in WA,” Smith says.

The LHDs, also known as Canberra Class Amphibious Assault Ships, provide defence with a sophisticated air-land-sea amphibious deployment system.

Defence says the 27,000-tonne ships can land a force of over a thousand personnel by helicopter and water craft, along with all their weapons, ammunition, vehicles and stores.

It says the successful prime contractor will be engaged as a long-term partner to the Federal Government for an initial period of up to 15 years.

Suppliers interested in the role can register by searching for ‘NSM’ at gateway.icn.org.au.

Frigates gang up at Henderson Meanwhile, NSM continues to play a role in the $1.2b Mid Life Capability Assurance Program (AMCAP) at Henderson, which is

Defence

Artist’s impression of a 27,000t Royal Australian Navy Landing Helicopter Dock warship, with landing vessels visible on the lower deck.

designed to keep the fleet of eight ageing Anzac warships in service until they are replaced by BAE System’s Hunter class anti-submarine frigates starting late next decade.

And the Australian Marine Complex is now brimming with warships after a third Anzac class frigate recently docked for critical upgrades at BAE’s yard.

HMAS Anzac will be the second ship to receive the AMCAP upgrade which includes: • Upgraded ventilation systems • New sewage systems • Improvements to the diesel engines • Replacement of the air search radar capability with the Australian CEA L-Band radar • Replacement of the full communications suite.

“The 27,000-tonne ships can land a force of over a thousand personnel by helicopter and water craft” HMAS Anzac joins sister ships Perth and Arunta. It is the first time three warships have been on the hardstand at the Henderson facility.

UK-based BAE Systems is prime contractor for AMCAP, which is being undertaken by WAMA — a strategic partnership between BAE, the Federal Government, SAAB Australia and NSM to deliver total asset management of the frigates.

HMAS Arunta, the first to undergo upgrades under the program, most recently had her mast removed to make way for the installation of a newly developed Air Search Radar System.

BAE says the mast, currently being manufactured, will be installed at the end of October.

Arunta will undock before the end of the year after having spent more than 12 months on the

hard stand. The warship will then undertake sea trials ahead of a planned return to service in 2019.

The remaining seven ships will be back in service by 2023.

BAE Systems Australia CEO Gabby Costigan says the upgrade of the fleet demonstrates the “breadth and depth of work” the company has done in the sustainment of the frigates over more than two decades.

“We are very proud of the skilled workforce capacity that we have grown to meet the technical challenges of maritime sustainment,” she says.

BAE is now playing an even broader role in Australia’s transition to a new generation of warships, having been selected by the Federal Government in June as the preferred tenderer to deliver nine new Hunter class frigates.

The $35b SEA 5000 design and build program is located in South Australia, but Henderson will be the key sustainment base for both the Anzac and the new Hunter frigates once they come into service.

The Federal Government plans a $670m infrastructure upgrade at HMAS Stirling and Henderson to support the new frigates.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 15

Prime’s Memo

Sharon Wilson

Collaborate your way to growth Businesses looking to secure defence contracts could fast track their growth through much wider and deeper collaboration

A

rguably, there has never been a better time to be involved in the defence industry.

So it’s important that, with so many programs of national endeavour underway or expected to start in the next few years, as many Western Australian companies as possible get involved.

Government recognises that industry is a fundamental input to capability. And this is driving greater Australian industry participation in major defence projects.

And while for many this can mean the simple provision of bespoke services and products, the real key to long-term success can be found much further up the supply chain.

So what does this mean? Think collaboration.

What does it look like in practice?

To move higher up the supply chain, companies must look to collaborate to build on their strengths, and open up new opportunities.

It’s something that I find many businesses reluctant to do and the major stumbling blocks are about the risk, who owns the intellectual property and structuring the investment.

I speak a lot about companies moving from being commodity focused to looking at higher assembly opportunities.

However, it can be done. And very successfully.

Maritime Pumps Australia is a great example.

It’s a new WA business that brings together three companies that had previously operated as single entities.

Each company has brought its own strength whether it’s engineering, manufacturing or design to the table.

As a collective, they now provide much more for their customers — an ‘end to end’ solution that each individual company couldn’t achieve on its own.

Maritime Defence Solutions Managing Director Terry Gropp explains: “Using an independent consultant to facilitate, the three Australian companies Watmarine, Dobbie and 7D Team, came together with a united vision to offer sovereign manufactured maritime pumps.

“The focus was to utilise each company’s strengths to provide a complete solution to defence and industry. This was paramount

16 WA WORKS Spring 2018

to ensuring ongoing success for Maritime Pumps Australia.”

The Indigenous Defence Infrastructure Consortium is a different but another really successful model.

Its membership comprises a diverse range of indigenous businesses and it works as an industry advocate, pitching members’ products and services to a variety of potential customers, including Defence.

Competitive Australian industry will win work and be successful. The key word here is ‘competitive’.

People in business can no longer expect to keep doing the same things and get different results.

There are three key things that can help companies be more competitive and significantly grow their business and provide greater value for their customers.

Firstly, it’s important to really know your market. Understand the gaps. Talk to original equipment manufacturers, Centre for Defence Industry Capability, industry associations.

Understand what customers really need.

Secondly, do as much as you can to understand the environment and the

end customer. In the Defence industry for example, the policies and enablers to doing business. Talk to overseas companies about establishing an Australian capability.

Finally, be open minded and look to working outside your ‘own space’, select partners wisely and look for mutual benefit.

I believe, more businesses in Australia could fast track their growth through much wider and deeper collaboration.

Through the Australian Government’s commitment to Defence, and the development of guiding policies such as the Defence Export Strategy and the Naval Shipbuilding Plan, it has laid an important foundation for the nation to build upon.

Western Australia is not only well placed to leverage the investment in its defence industries infrastructure but it also has a strategic geographical advantage.

Now is the time to focus on our strengths and work together.

Sharon Wilson is BAE Systems’ Australia Hunter Class Australian Capability Director.

She is also a member of the advisory board for the Centre for Defence Industry Capability.

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Resources

Bridging the

skills gap On the cusp of another surge in big projects, WA is at increasing risk of skills shortages if a significant decline in apprenticeships and traineeships isn’t resolved as a priority

18 WA WORKS Spring 2018

Resources

T

he National Centre for Vocational Education Research recently highlighted that the number of WA trainees and apprentices in training continues to fall, down 7.4 per cent in the year to March 2018 — more than six times the national change.

“The construction industry is feeling the brunt of this decline, with apprenticeship and traineeship commencements down 12.4 per cent in that sector,” CCI CEO Chris Rodwell said.

The looming skills gap has rung alarm bells in industry, with Engineers Australia WA General Manager Susan Kreemer Pickford (see page 23) warning we need to start properly investing in graduates to avoid the shortages of old.

And leading WA contractor Georgiou Group, which recently started tendering for major iron ore and Metronet projects, has echoed those concerns.

“Whether it’s a $100m job or a $50m job, you’ll need one project manager, but as you go up in size in those projects … you need multiple engineers and supervisors,” says Georgiou CEO Rob Monaci.

“That’s where the biggest skills gap is. And in the mining area, the electrical and mechanical trades would be very hard to get also.”

Since the boom, some of our best engineering and trade talent has gravitated east to work on big public infrastructure projects in NSW and Queensland.

Sometimes that plays to a company’s strengths if it has a national presence, as Georgiou does after opening a Sydney office in 2015.

Due to the NSW boom, several of Georgiou’s WA engineers with specific construction knowledge were recently relocated to the east coast.

Some have moved onto the Windsor Bridge job in Sydney, which is “very similar” to Georgiou’s recently completed Mandurah Traffic Bridge project in WA, Monaci says.

“Why would you reinvent the wheel if you can take those guys over? They will go there for a year or six months, help us to start that job and then come back.

“The idea in NSW and Queensland is to not try and start a project with a completely new team, as that’s a recipe for disaster.

“You need to bring your culture in there, but also make sure your financial controls and systems have been implemented in the way you want it done.

“So, in those states we are fairly stretched.

“In the west we have good, long-term teams but we’ll have to employ people as we grow our business.

“Going up to the North West will cause different challenges because we get back into FIFO, which we haven’t done for quite a while. That’s a different challenge and it increases the numbers a bit that you need because of the rosters such as two on, one off and so forth,” he says.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 19

Resources

The worker drought

The FIFO phenomenon has taken its toll on Kalgoorlie, with the need for skilled labour in the city now critical

By Carrie Cox

T

hough its ‘super pit’ can reportedly be seen from space, Kalgoorlie the city is in a desperate struggle to make itself visible on the nation’s job market.

As skilled workers sign up for duty on the re-energised resource industry front, they are bypassing Kalgoorlie in droves, returning instead to FIFO jobs in the Pilbara and joining the construction boom on the east coast.

About 1000 jobs in Kalgoorlie-Boulder — most of them for skilled labour — are now vacant and many have been for months, a situation Mayor John Bowler describes as “the worst it’s ever been”.

Speaking exclusively to WA Works, Bowler said he knew of one engineering firm in the Goldfields city that had foregone more than 1000 hours of contracting work in the previous month because it simply couldn’t find the suitable manpower.

“The media talk about mining booms and busts; they say we’re in a bust and we’re not,” Bowler says. “Not a single mine in our area has closed in the past three years as far as I know. But as long as people think there’s a bust going on, they certainly don’t want to move to a mining town, whereas the

20 WA WORKS Spring 2018

fact is Kal is always stable when it comes to work.

“And the other fact is it wasn’t a mining boom we just had in this state; it was a construction boom. At the end of any construction boom, you need workers for those new projects.

Here in Kal, we need miners and engineers and tradespeople right now. We need to get that message out there and fast.”

in the city,” de Been says, “and a great proportion of those require degree, diploma or trade certification.

“Unfortunately over the last number of years a lot of skilled labour has returned to NSW, Victoria and New Zealand due to upturns being experienced in those economies.”

Local recruitment manager Robyn Steenbach, of DFP Recruitment’s Kalgoorlie office, agrees that an element of unfortunate timing is partly to blame for the city’s acute labour shortage.

“When things got a little quiet in recent

“We need to invest in training our youth and the unemployed in the positions we have shortages in” On that task is CEO of the Kalgoorlie-Boulder chapter of the WA Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KBCCI) Simone de Been, who has spearheaded a number of recent projects to promote the economic sustainability and liveability of Kalgoorlie. A jobs expo held in Perth in March at CCI resulted in 30 families relocating to Kal to take up full-time employment opportunities, but the job vacancy rate still far eclipses the number of suitable CVs being lodged.

“There are still about 1000 job vacancies

years a lot of people left town and headed back to Perth or the eastern states,” Steenbach explains. “Now that the eastern states are picking up at the same time as WA, we’re probably not going to get those people back as quick as we did last time, if at all.

“When I first moved to Kal back in 2007, the shortage of skilled labour was really bad and unfortunately I think we’re back to that situation again but it’s probably worse this time.

Back then the demand for people was very high

Resources

KBCCI CEO Simone de Been

Kalgoorlie Mayor John Bowler

but there were a lot of people coming through the door as well. This time we’re not getting the people back into town and so it’s much harder to fill those jobs.”

Steenbach says one local boilermaking company, not a user of recruitment services, had been advertising a trade position for the past six weeks and not had a single bite. “That’s not an uncommon story,” she says. “Businesses are just waiting for people to come back to town.”

While it’s not only tradespeople that Kal is crying out for, they’re the most worrying group at present, according to Steenbach. “If I had 20 heavy-duty diesel fitters right now, I would have them all jobs within two weeks,” she says.

“At the moment I have none. With the mining industry now picking up, there’s more heavy duty machinery operating and more maintenance required. Drilling work has also really grown and those companies need fitters on their books.”

Ironically, many of the would-be skilled workers living in town are apprentices who were laid off during the last downturn. “Hopefully those companies that had to put off apprentices when things got quiet will start to put them on again and also look favourably upon those who have been out of their trade for several years through no fault of their own,” Steenbach says. “At the moment, though, businesses are still being wary; people don’t want to be back in a situation where they’re over-exposed.”

Steenbach says governments could do

much more to reward companies that take on apprentices, a sentiment echoed by both Mayor Bowler and Simone de Been.

“We need to look at investing more in the TAFE system to support training and apprenticeships during the upturns and the downturns,” de Been says. “And we need to invest in training our youth and the unemployed in the positions we have shortages in — electricians, mechanical fitters, diesel mechanics and the like.”

Bowler adds: “Parents need to stop dissuading kids about doing an apprenticeship — the jobs are there.”

The FIFO phenomenon may have forever changed the landscape of the resources labour market, luring workers into a “have it all” mentality with the candy of inflated wages, but that won’t stop Kalgoorlie pitching its

long-established alternative. Perceptions, says Bowler, can always be altered.

“From an industry perspective, companies need to look more closely at FIFO and what it really costs them,” he says. “Besides the extra financial cost, there’s the cost of high turnover.

FIFO workers leave jobs more readily, whereas those who live in a town like Kal are stable, contented workers.

“And from a liveability perspective, this town has everything going for it. People who stay here a week want to move here for good.

There are lots of great schools, wonderful facilities and lots of quality jobs.

“In terms of income, the Pilbara jobs used to pay more but their wages have come down and Kal’s have gone up, so there’s more of an equilibrium now.”

Overseas workers?

A special agreement to fast-track the hiring of overseas workers is on the table for Kalgoorlie-Boulder.

A Designated Area Migration Agreement (DAMA), similar to one employed in the Northern Territory, would provide employers with concessions to the criteria for the mainstream Temporary Skill Shortage Visa, which replaced the abolished 457 visa.

Discussing the proposal in Kalgoorlie in April, Federal Minister for Citizenship Alan Tudge said while Australians should always be prioritised for Australian jobs, “if there aren’t any Australians available, we do want to be able to assist businesses to get skilled migrants into the company to support the operation of their business.”

The DAMA initiative has the support of KBCCI, the WA Chamber of Minerals and Energy and the local government.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 21

Minister’s Memo

Bill Johnson

Attracting the right skillsets is crucial While mining is becoming more about technology it still needs people trained in the right skills

W

estern Australia’s mining industry is a technology story, not a quarry story.

I’m incredibly proud of the innovation and entrepreneurial spirit here in WA, and I’m very pleased to advocate for our Mining, Equipment, Technology and Services (METS) sector.

Companies such as Ausdrill, Primero, IMDEX and HiSeis are global leaders and demonstrate the expertise that WA constantly applies in finding innovative solutions to challenging problems.

Our mining sector would not succeed without our METS sector.

The McGowan Government has a range of policies to capitalise on the strengths of our state, like the LNG Jobs Taskforce, the Renewable Hydrogen Council and our commitment to a stable energy policy.

I’m pleased to chair the Lithium and Energy Materials Industry Taskforce, established by the Premier, to capitalise on the growing demand for battery minerals used in next generation technologies.

The shift to electric vehicles, home battery storage and renewable technologies across the world has resulted in a huge demand for WA’s resources.

I believe the election of the McGowan Government in March last year has provided stability and a sense of optimism for WA and in no industry is this more apparent than in mining.

Last year, record production in iron ore, gold, LNG, lithium and many more materials, as well as record employment in the sector — more than 110,000 people.

Gold exploration had its most successful year ever, $550 million was spent, which is a new record and demonstrates the strength of the sector.

We need to continually explore new regions with different geology, which is why I was happy to secure the very successful Exploration Incentive Scheme, which is now funded by the Department of Mines, Industry Regulation and Safety.

This year is also looking to be a very

22 WA WORKS Spring 2018

successful year with more Program of Works applications submitted in the first six months than at any similar period in the state’s history.

Our challenge in the global market is to increase the cost competitive production coming from WA. The potential for long-term jobs, research and development and the growth of new industries from this initiative is significant.

“Our challenge in the global market is to increase the cost competitive production coming from WA” To benefit from the expansion and diversification of our state’s economy, it’s essential we attract people with the right skill set.

The mining sector has noted the past lack of investment in training and skills

development, particularly since 2013.

Once again, there are talks of skill shortages within the industry.

This was a consistent theme at the Diggers and Dealers conference this year, and is constantly raised with me.

The Chamber of Minerals and Energy identified the shortage of skilled labour as the number one challenge in its 2018-28 Western Australian Resource Sector Outlook.

That’s why we’re including the resources sector to take part in the Building and Construction Industry Training Fund, this will help generate the resources needed to invest in training the workforce for our expanding sector.

The first 15 months of the McGowan Government has seen the strongest outcomes for WA’s resources sector.

It’s easy to complain, but the real test of political leadership is to support the resources sector’s strengths to benefit everyone in our state.

On that test, the McGowan Government is performing strongly.

Bill Johnston is the Minister for Mines and Petroleum; Commerce and Industrial Relations; Electoral Affairs; and Asian Engagement.

Resources

Stem the flow of exiting engineers Engineers need nurturing if WA is to avoid another skills shortage, writes Susan Kreemer Pickford

W

estern Australia is again on the upward track of the economic rollercoaster, driven by a renewed resources sector and major public infrastructure projects.

While the upward swing is familiar territory to us and while we handle the ride with more poise each time, it remains our prerogative to scan the horizon for problems and learn from past experience.

Engineers Australia is the voice of the engineering profession, representing about 100,000 members across the globe, collecting, collating and communicating experience to advance the cause of engineering.

In WA, we have a chance to avoid the skills shortages of old, but only if we properly invest in graduates now.

Already we are seeing effects from the downturn: in response to the drop in jobs for graduates since the mining boom, the number of school leavers opting for engineering degree courses is at its lowest since 2010, and this has started to show in graduate numbers.

The recruitment freeze of the past several years also means there is likely to be a shortage of engineers with five-plus years of experience.

The boom-and-bust cycle make us susceptible to significant fluctuation in vacancies while the shift towards part-time, casual, and contract type work is contributing to an increase in underemployment and less stability in engineering jobs.

These factors are deceptively dangerous

to the state’s engineering capability as they are pushing engineers out of the profession, often to never return.

The issue is twofold. STEM (Science Technology Engineering Mathematics) skillsets are valuable across the world; problem solving and analytical ability are a source of competitive advantage to employers. Secondly, underemployed engineers may be forced to enter non-engineering roles that offer greater stability and remuneration. Both scenarios diminish the state’s engineering capability.

Underemployment and contract work hamper career advancement because it lowers exposure to career-enhancing work compared with fullyemployed peers and lowers their visibility due to being outside of the organisational structure.

Engineers exiting the engineering sector don’t tend to re-enter in a technical capacity.

Reasons include atrophy of technical skills, the rapid pace of change or they find other more stable or fulfilling non-technical roles.

Engineers Australia’s report ‘Engineers Make Things Happen’ shows that maths and science participation in schools are falling across the country.

In WA, the number of applications to engineering courses is declining, offers made by universities are falling and acceptance of those offers is also trending downwards.

It is noted that, although there is a reduced number of applications from women, there is a higher rate of offer and acceptance. Enrolment numbers for women are therefore steady.

Worryingly, we still find instances where participation in STEM is discouraged due to a reputation for being difficult or unstable.

Retaining women to complete their engineering courses and then enter and remain in the engineering workforce is an ongoing issue and does impact on the attractiveness for women to take up engineering in the first place.

Engineers Australia strongly encourages industry participation in educating our future engineers through outreach to schools and providing mentoring and work experience to engineering undergraduates.

To increase exposure to engineering careers, Engineers Australia’s EngTALK schools program matches volunteers with requests from schools in the metropolitan and regional areas to engage in a range of activities aimed at increasing awareness of engineering roles.

Engineers Australia recently published guidelines for industry to encourage more organisations to provide work experience to engineering students.

Employers can help by investing in more graduates and providing more secure employment prospects. More information can be found on the engineersaustralia.org.au website.

Susan Kreemer Pickford is the General Manager of the WA branch of Engineers Australia.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 23

C

hevron says its undeveloped Clio-Acme gas fields off the Pilbara coast could be ready for production early next decade as the company looks to share infrastructure with other gas owners, including Woodside.

In his latest comments on collaboration with commercial competitors, Chevron Australia Managing Director Nigel Hearne said the US energy giant was targeting Clio-Acme to be ready for start-up in 2023 to address “early ullage” (capacity depletion) of the North West Shelf (NWS) joint venture fields.

“We have a team, a relatively small team today, working on how we monetise that resource (Clio-Acme),” he told the WA Petroleum Day Conference.

The company had begun pre-Front End Engineering Design (FEED) work and geotechnical surveys.

“The proposed development of Clio-Acme

24 WA WORKS Spring 2018

using existing LNG infrastructure would represent a compelling demonstration of an interconnected, flexible, collaborative basin,” he said.

“The company looks to share infrastructure with other gas owners, including Woodside” “In real terms, its monetisation could equate to about 50 LNG cargoes per annum and around 70 terajoules of domestic gas for WA.”

Clio and Acme, about 150km offshore from Onslow, were discovered by Chevron in 2006-10. Combined, they are estimated to contain more than four trillion cubic feet of gas, Hearne said.

“Without access to some shared infrastructure and collaboration, that resource probably will not get developed by Chevron,” he said.

Clio-Acme is just to the west of the company’s Gorgon field, which feeds into an LNG plant on Barrow Island.

Chevron is also one-sixth owner of the NWS joint venture, operated by Woodside, which is seeking to reach agreement with the NWS partners on processing its huge Browse gas field, offshore from Broome, through the Karratha gas plant.

In July, Woodside CEO Peter Coleman revealed that “alignment” was reached between the NWS participants on non-binding key commercial terms and a preliminary tolling agreement

Chevron builds case for

asset sharing Sharing infrastructure may be the only way to unlock a vital LNG field, writes Stephen Bell

Woodside’s Pluto LNG plant could feature in Chevron’s plans for its Clio-Acme gas fields.

was expected before the end of the year.

Woodside also has a $15 billion plan to develop its Scarborough field by piping the gas more than 400km to an expanded Pluto LNG plant on the Burrup Peninsula.

And the company is progressing confidentiality agreements to facilitate “third-party data exchange for the technical evaluation of future upstream tie-ins” on the Scarborough pipeline, it said.

Chevron, meanwhile, espoused a Trans Carnarvon Basin trunkline in May as a more efficient “gas gathering system” than existing go-it-alone systems built during the recent $200b LNG construction boom.

The era of “bespoke”, integrated LNG projects was coming to an end and collaboration was necessary to ensure a dozen or so LNG trains were kept at full capacity in the next three decades, Hearne told the WA Petroleum Day. “This is what will improve our international

competiveness and attract ongoing investment,” he said.

It would also bring extra volumes of domestic gas to shore, to “power local industries and homes, boost revenues, which will in turn be invested back into communities, public infrastructure such as roads, hospitals and schools”, he added.

“It guards against resources remaining stranded and value being left in the ground.”

For Chevron, it would lower the risk of major capital investments undertaken with a degree of uncertainty around price, resource and costs.

Keeping the infrastructure full would require “anchor tenants” — the big resource developments mooted by Woodside and others — underpinned by the smaller and potentially more flexible developments such as Clio-Acme.

While some of the large infrastructure development proposed for the Woodside-operated

Browse and Scarborough gas fields would come ashore, “our role is how do we complement them as a smaller, more flexible resource,” Hearne said.

“How do we fit around the Browse development and the NWS?” “How do we use the infrastructure that is available, or yet to be constructed, to ensure collectively we lower our development costs?”

Meanwhile, Hearne said the latest economic analysis by ACIL Consulting showed that Gorgon and Wheatstone were expected to spend $1b per year on Australian goods and services between 2016 and 2036.

Chevron’s operations were also forecast to generate more than 2600 direct and indirect jobs each year out to 2050, with 90 per cent of the jobs in WA. And the company would have the capacity to supply 50 per cent of the state’s domestic gas, Hearne said.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 25

Resources

Diving into Stage 2 Subsea work needed for Chevron’s Gorgon project is starting to flow

By Stephen Bell

W

ork opportunities are starting to flow again at the giant Gorgon gas project after operator Chevron appointed several big contractors for the multibillion dollar Gorgon Stage 2 development.

Offshore piping specialist Allseas recently joined a growing list of Tier 1 contractors working on Stage 2, including TechnipFMC, Transocean, Baker Hughes, Halliburton, Schlumberger and Weatherford.

This followed Chevron’s approval of the multibillion dollar Stage 2 project in April.

Needed to maintain gas supply to Gorgon’s LNG and domestic gas plants on Barrow Island over several decades, the project is expected to generate hundreds of jobs from drilling and installation activities.

Chevron and its joint venture partners plan to sink 11 new wells into the Gorgon and

26 WA WORKS Spring 2018

Jansz-Io fields and build offshore pipelines and subsea structures to pipe gas to the 15.6 million tonnes per annum LNG plant on Barrow Island.

It will be Chevron’s first construction activity on Gorgon since 2016 when the $75 billion foundation project started production.

Chevron Australia managing director Nigel Hearne says Stage 2 is part of Gorgon’s original development plan and fits within Chevron’s previously announced annual investment range of $18-20 billion through 2020.

“Benefits are expected to flow through to Australian industry, arising from local project management, drilling and completion activities and subsea infrastructure installation,” Hearne says.

The current project will eventually be followed by a further investment to compress the remaining reservoir gas at the Jansz and Io fields, Hearne told the WA Petroleum Day conference.

“The next phase, on Jansz-Io compression, isn’t too far away as we think of entering FEED (Front End Engineering Design),” he says.

The compression is required to ensure the slowly depleting reservoirs maintain enough internal pressure to push the remaining gas into the undersea pipelines and keep Gorgon at full production.

Premier Mark McGowan says the State Government will work with Chevron to ensure that local content is maximised on the project under Chevron’s policies in areas such as manufacturing, and that apprenticeship and traineeship opportunities are created.

Major contracts for the project started rolling out mid-year and included a key drilling job for Transocean. The giant US offshore rig provider says its ultra deep water semisubmersible GSF Development Driller I won an 11-well contract of about 955 days with Chevron. Drilling is scheduled to begin in the first half of next year.

Transocean estimates the job’s value, excluding integrated services, at $219m, with the contract also including four one-well options.

Resources

Celebrating Gorgon’s first LNG production in 2016.

LNG tanker at Chevron’s Gorgon export jetty at Barrow Island.

Swiss-based Allseas, meanwhile, advertised three work packages on ICN Gateway involving subsea fabrication and testing.

Allseas, which operates a fleet of six specialised pipelay and support vessels, says it needs contractors to fabricate several subsea structures starting next year, including active pipe supports, buckle initiator sleepers and various installation aids.

The fabrication facility will need to handle and build structures of up to about 75 tonnes with footprints up to 25 metres by 8 metres.

Allseas is also seeking expressions of interest from contractors to supply services or equipment to flood, clean, pressure test, dewater and dry the various pipelines to be installed for the Gorgon and Jansz gas fields.

EOIs are also sought for the supply of offshore crew for Allseas’ pipelay vessel Audacia and the offshore construction vessel Oceanic that will be working on the project. The two vessels require nautical, catering, technical, construction, survey and remotely operated vehicle crews.

The ships will be positioned for work on the project in late 2020 and early 2021, Allseas says.

Using local capabilities TechnipFMC won the subsea installation contract and says it will leverage local capabilities as well as its state-of-the-art pipelay fleet for the offshore campaign in water depths of 250m to 1340m.

The contract covers project management and engineering, transportation, installation and pre-commissioning of umbilicals and flying leads as well as manifolds.

It also includes fabrication, transportation, installation and testing of rigid spools.

“We value our long-term, collaborative relationship and are committed to bringing the best assets and our solid experience in project execution, fabrication and installation to the field,” says Hallvard Hasselknippe, President of TechnipFMC’s subsea business.

GE-owned company Baker Hughes, meanwhile, won a “substantial” contract from Chevron for the supply of subsea production equipment under a 15-year Master Service Order, with a second contract for well completion equipment.

The scope of supply includes 13 subsea production trees, two manifolds, 13 fatigue-

resistant wellheads and specialty connectors, and 16 subsea control systems and associated equipment.

Baker Hughes (BHGE) is also supplying well completion equipment and services under a separate five-year contract, including coring work, liner hangers, completions and wellbore clean-up technology.

“The expanded Gorgon subsea infrastructure will continue to be supported out of BHGE’s state-of-the-art oil and gas campus in Jandakot, where more than $100m has been invested in significant infrastructure and engineering capabilities to service the latest technologies deployed in the development,” says Visal Leng, Asia Pacific President for BHGE. “An in-country team will also support testing, installation and commissioning activities and, once the second stage is brought online, will provide operational support to maintain equipment availability, along with storage and maintenance of spare parts and tooling.”

Suppliers interested in finding work on Gorgon Stage 2 should visit ICN Gateway at gateway.icn.org.au.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 27

Resources to enable us to build the smartest, safest and most efficient mine we’ve ever constructed.

The project is about 110km from Newman.

Job listings starting to flow

Iron-clad jobs boom The last of a trio of new Pilbara iron ore mines is off the starting blocks

By Stephen Bell

I

t was a sweet moment for the supply chain on August 1 when Rio Tinto, the Pilbara’s biggest iron ore exporter, approved initial funding for its long-anticipated Koodaideri development. The global miner said it would spend about $200 million on initial works, ahead of a final investment decision (FID) expected by the end of the year.

The FID for Koodaideri will confirm the beginnings of the biggest surge in WA resource construction jobs since the boom petered out in 2015. In total, nearly 8000 jobs are forecast for the next couple of years, spread across five projects for Rio, BHP and Fortescue.

Some of these new roles are already underway, mostly at BHP, which approved its $4.6 billion South Flank iron ore project in June after factoring in a $600m cost increase from earlier estimates.

BHP started an expansion of the Mulla Mulla accommodation village last year using contractor Decmil. This was followed by several contract awards this year, including Clough for nonprocess infrastructure; CPB Contractors $260m for bulk earthworks, concrete and underground services; and NRW’s for $176m bulk earthworks.

Rio Tinto said its initial funding for Koodaideri would be invested in detailed engineering, the development of a rail construction camp and

28 WA WORKS Spring 2018

the first stage of the accommodation camp.

Based on a prefeasibility study from late 2016, Koodaideri is forecast to cost about $3b in total, but this will likely be revised in light of recent changes in Pilbara labour, fuel and construction material costs.

Koodaideri is also being touted as Rio’s first “intelligent” mine, incorporating an increased level of automation and robotics. Construction is scheduled to begin next year with first

BHP may have taken the lead in awarding contracts, but Rio Tinto and Fortescue won’t be far behind, based on their recently listed work opportunities on the ICN Gateway site at gateway.icn.org.au.

In total, five iron ore projects will soon be on the go in the Pilbara, adding up to 7600 new construction jobs as the majors look to sustain their long-term production levels.

Rio Tinto will be operating three separate construction projects over the next two-to-three years: Koodaideri, West Angelas Deposits C&D, and Robe Valley Mesa B, C and H. Alongside 2000 construction jobs created for Koodaideri, the company is tipping 1200 roles at Robe Valley and West Angelas after recently approving a $2.1b investment in the two sustainment projects.

For Koodaideri, Rio appointed WorleyParsons as Engineering, Procurement, Construction Manager (EPCM). The first ICN listing sought expressions of interest (EOIs) from suppliers to design, supply, mobilise, install, test, commission and demobilise the 400-room Crossing Rail Construction camp. The concept design is based on a rapid deployment facility, which will be hired for 18 months, Rio says.

EOIs — which close on October 31 — are invited from suppliers able to provide the camp and supporting services such as power, refuelling and waste water treatment. A contract award is expected in December.

At West Angelas Deposits C&D, Rio Tinto appointed Jacobs as the EPCM. For Robe Valley, Calibre was appointed as EPCM to manage the upgrade and expansion of the Mesa B, C and H iron ore deposits.

“Five projects will soon be on the go in the Pilbara, adding up to 7600 new construction jobs” production in 2021. The mine will create 2000 jobs during construction and 600 permanent operational roles.

“This is an important step for our Koodaideri project, which will be a significant leap forward for the global mining industry and Rio Tinto,” Iron Ore chief executive Chris Salisbury said.

“We’ve been building mines in the Pilbara for over 50 years, and, subject to final approvals, Koodaideri will incorporate all of that knowledge

Fortescue, meanwhile, says earthworks for its Eliwana project would likely start in February, with main mine and process facility construction works scheduled to begin in December 2019.

Fortescue is seeking EOIs for Eliwana bulk earthworks and roads, railway ballast supply and delivery, alongside the supply of gyratory crushers, radial stackers and hybrid feeders.

Expected to generate 1900 construction jobs, Eliwana was approved by Fortescue in May.

Resources

MinRes’ light line to save stranded ores

A company has come up with an ambitious plan to move iron ore via light rail

By Stephen Bell

I

f Chris Ellison has his way, ‘stranded’ Pilbara iron ore deposits — those languishing without a viable export route — will soon be freed for development.

The Perth rich lister and Mineral Resources Managing Director has outlined a vision for the company’s $1.6 billion Pilbara Infrastructure Project that includes a new 320km light railway running from the undeveloped Marillana project to Port Hedland.

And Ellison’s vision includes a plan to sell MinRes’ yet to be field-tested, mine-to-port solution to stranded deposit owners world-wide.

“The bigger picture for this is that it goes in our toolkit of mining service offerings that we can provide right across the market,” Ellison said after the company’s annual profit result.

“Obviously if we are going to be railing ore, we’d want to be crushing it, providing camps, all of those things. We’ve patented this in as many countries as we think worthwhile across the world, which is most. There are a lot of stranded iron ore deposits, not just in Australia.”

But the immediate focus for MinRes and its new joint venture partner Brockman Mining is to develop the Marillana deposit near Newman. The deposit, with a resource of 1.5 billion tonnes of iron ore, would feed into the Pilbara Infrastructure project alongside MinRes’ existing Iron Valley mine, which currently uses truck haulage.

Marillana could supply up to 30 million tonnes per year of upgraded iron ore which, combined with Iron Valley, would establish a new 50mtpa export operation, the two partners said. Ore from both would be shipped out of a new Cape-size berth proposed for Port Hedland’s South West Creek area.

Putting ore on a road trains is a costly option for companies without rail access, according to Ellison. “What defines a major from a junior generally is that the majors have a railway line and a Cape-size carrier berth. That’s how they can grow their business, because they’ve got high barrier to entry, low-cost systems.”

Compared to haulage from Iron Valley, the new Pilbara Infrastructure project would probably save MinRes “in excess of $20 a tonne”, he said.

MinRes estimates it would cost $1.4-1.6 billion to build its non-mine infrastructure, including a railway, rolling stock, automated stockyard and one berth.

The venture, employing a narrow-gauge

rail system with an elevated below rail structure, may become a step-change for Pilbara iron ore development costs if the system is proved commercially.

At a forecast $1.9b for Marillana plus transport infrastructure, the project would cost a fraction of other Pilbara mine-to-port ventures using conventional rolling stock and a heavy gauge railway.

“The $1.6 billion Pilbara Infrastructure Project that includes a new 320km light railway” MinRes hopes to begin construction of a 5km trial track late this year and, after receiving feedback from investors, will target construction of the Pilbara main line in the second quarter of next year.

Brockman Chairman Kwai Sze Hoi, meanwhile, said the MinRes deal on Marillana was a “logical and welcome outcome” for the company.

“Our respective projects will use the same rail and port infrastructure and we will share equally ownership of the Marillana resources,” he said.

Koolyanobbing ready to resume Meanwhile, about 1200km to the south, MinRes was preparing to begin a new era of iron ore mining in the Yilgarn and its regional port — Esperance.

Iron ore exports out of Esperance were expected to resume by November after MinRes recently completed its acquisition of Cleveland Cliff’s Koolyanobbing operations.

Long-term operator Cliffs closed the mine in June, blaming the move on declining profits.

In August, MinRes finalised Esperance Port access arrangements with the State Government, which was the final outstanding matter to wrap up the acquisition.

Ellison said the move would preserve “hundreds” of jobs. “We are extremely pleased to have resumed iron ore operations in the Yilgarn and look forward to shortly beginning to export our iron ore from Esperance.”

Previously, MinRes operated the Carina mine, now closed, and railed the iron ore to Kwinana Bulk Terminal in the Port of Fremantle.

MinRes said its owned and operated rolling stock would enable 6-6.25mtpa of iron ore to be railed from Koolyanobbing to Esperance.

The final product would then be loaded onto Cape size carriers for delivery to China.

Prior to Cliff’s exit, iron ore from Koolyanobbing had been exported continuously through Esperance since 1994 and recently made up more than 70 per cent of the port’s trade.

The facility is operated by the State Government-owned Southern Ports, which employs about 220 people across three ports — most of them at Esperance.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 29

Vanadium rebirth A better outlook for vanadium has cleared the way for a reboot of a major mining and processing operation

By Rueben Hale

T

he shuttered Windimurra project — Australia’s only vanadium production facility — is set to rise from the ashes with a $127 million rebuild ready to kick off next year.

The construction project will enable production to resume at the Mid West operation, which has been in mothballs since early 2015 when a fire caused major damage to the processing plant.

Depending on which experts you believe, there is a deficit of vanadium in the global market of between 2000 and 10,000 tonnes per annum, painting a rosy outlook for the project. It could deliver owner Atlantic Vanadium annual revenues of $180m based

30 WA WORKS Spring 2018

on a vanadium price of $US8 a pound.

The project has been assisted by a recent surge in the price of vanadium, which is mostly used as a steel hardener.

The metal is also gaining speculative interest from its increased usage in more high-tech applications such as large vanadium batteries for grid power storage.

Atlantic executive director Tony Veitch told WA Works the first metal output from Windimurra is scheduled for mid-2020.

“Vanadium prices are strong at over US$18/ lb at the moment, but more particularly what is really positive news for Windimurra is that the demand-supply picture not only says there is a deficit today, but that current demand growth is likely to add significant amounts of further

demand in the coming years,” he says.

Atlantic recently completed a project feasibility study, and its outcomes enabled the company to commence a Front-End Engineering and Design (FEED) study aimed to address the historical operating issues in the milling and beneficiation plant.

Veitch says the refurbished plant could ramp up to 7750tpa of vanadium pentoxide. This would represent about a fifth of China’s annual output — the world’s biggest producer.

The company plans to “leverage” lower project capital costs by utilising the existing infrastructure from previous operations at Windimurra over the last 20 years, with a total investment of more than $700m since 1999.

“To start construction, all we need to do is amend our existing approvals to enable us to get boots on the ground. This distinguishes us quite significantly from not just other vanadium projects in Australia, but also around the world,” Veitch says.

Resources do require specialist input, which would typically come from overseas or some of the big vendors.

For example, the roasting kiln at Windimurra was initially installed by FL Schmidt,” he says.

“So, our preference is to work with an experienced contractor that can manage the diverse aspects of this project.”

“The major construction packages are expected to inject $127m into the local economy”

“Our current timeline is that we will complete the FEED study and seek outstanding approvals through the balance of this calendar year. We will then make a final investment decision (FID) early next year.

“We will go to tender on the significant construction packages for the project late this year, with the intention to review tenders and award major contracts shortly after we make an FID.” Prior to its closure, Windimurra had been plagued with operating issues in the milling and beneficiation section of the plant, which Atlantic believes were a result of a misunderstanding of the metallurgy of the orebody.

Indonesia’s Salim Group recapitalised the project after the previous, ASX-listed Atlantic called in administrators in early 2015. The latest incarnation of the company has gone back to the drawing board, re-emerging in 2016 as a private entity under the control of Indonesian business mogul Anthoni Salim, who was a major shareholder and creditor of the former entity.

Atlantic completed a metallurgical test work program on the orebody, including a diamond drilling program in 2017. The results delivered

a new process flow sheet for the crushing, milling and beneficiation section of the plant.

Veitch says Atlantic favours the appointment of one overarching contractor to manage the construction, particularly given many specialist contractors will be needed for “debottlenecking” work in the vanadium refinery and roasting kiln.

“Some of the work packages are small, but

The major construction packages are expected to inject $127m into the local economy, creating about 100 jobs during construction and about 125 to 130 permanent positions at Windimurra in operations.

“The site-based team will be involved in the mining and processing plant operations, and then we will also have a small corporate team of about 12 people based in Perth,” he says.

“We plan to use suppliers in the Mt Magnet and Mid West region wherever we can, and we’re already engaged with local businesses for the provision of the care and maintenance program and early-stage development work.

“Atlantic is keen to engage as many local employees and businesses as possible and become a key member of the Mid West community. We have a mine life of over 50 years at Windimurra, and we see ourselves being a major contributor to the region for many years to come.”

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 31

Resources

Mining for more women As more women infiltrate one of the last traditional male bastions — mining — some WA-based companies are leading the charge in ensuring that the gender balance continues to even out

By Deborah Kennedy

T

here’s little argument that most men are physically stronger than most women but should that exclude women from attempting to undertake hard yakka in a historically male-dominated industry?

Not according to West Australian-based global mining giant South32, which modified one of its drilling rigs to make it less reliant upon brute force.

South32’s Chief People and Legal Officer Nicole Duncan says the drilling equipment at its Worsley Alumina Boddington bauxite mine was reengineered to use hydraulic power, which made drill crew rosters more flexible to accommodate women and more lithe men.

“I am incredibly proud to say that, at one point, we had an all-female drill crew at Boddington.

However, the teams have now opted for an even more diverse approach and we currently have a mix of male and female crews,” Duncan says.

“It’s a great example of seeing an opportunity for change and making it happen.

“It also illustrates how diversity adds

32 WA WORKS Spring 2018

value, because we are now seeing increased productivity from our drill teams.”

National Association of Women in Operations Chair Megan McCracken says all businesses need to re-examine their structures, to increase productivity and women are a vital part of all change.

“It can only benefit your workplace if you can ensure that your workplace doesn’t exclude an entire section of the population,” McCracken says.

“I think it’s a no brainer for business — this is not about gender, this is about a broader range of people.”

Attracting a diverse workplace South32 — which demerged from BHP in 2015 — isn’t the only forward thinker on gender in mining.

Fortescue Metals Group holds open consultation sessions with its workforce to determine its diversity strategy and calls upon key contract partners to share success stories in overcoming challenges in building female employment in the industry.

“Through programs such as Trade Up and the Vocational Training and Employment Centres, we are providing female team members with practical measures to gain trade qualifications,” Group Manager Fortescue People Linda O’Farrell says.

Fortescue opened a 24/7 family room in Perth in April last year, providing parents with short-term childcare services. The room has been used 700 times since it opened.

The iron ore exporter offers primary carers, regardless of gender, up to 16 weeks paid parental leave and secondary carers up to two weeks’ partner paid leave. During this time, their annual leave, long service leave and superannuation contributions continue to accrue.

Upon return to work, parents can access flexible working arrangements, including job share, parttime and flexible start and finish times.

“This applies not just to our office-based workforce but to those on shift work or working from our operating sites on a FIFO roster,” O’Farrell says.

Recently, South32 introduced new paid parental leave provisions for its full-time

Resources

FMG has several programs and has made a number of changes to recognise and encourage women in its workforce.

employees in Australia, enabling primary care givers — regardless of gender — to take up to six months leave at full pay, or 12 months at half pay. This marked an increase from 18 weeks at full pay.

Award winners The Women in Industry Awards began in 2014 and recognise the achievements of women working in mining, engineering, manufacturing and process control industries.

The awards aim to raise the profiles of women and promote excellence.

In the Northern Territory last year, three employees from South32 were recognised at the Women in Resources Awards for their efforts to break down barriers for women at the Groote Eylandt Mining Company (GEMCO), which mines manganese over 84 sq km of the Arnhem Land Aboriginal Reserve on Groot Eylandt, in the Gulf of Carpentaria.

Brooke Naughton manages eight people across two remote mine sites in the Territory and mentors several women. Her manager, Natalie Bruce, received the Exceptional Woman

in Resources Award for her advocacy in keeping after-school childcare facilities open on Groote Eylandt and ensuring a $3.2 million GEMCO grant to provide a new facility.

GEMCO Operations Manager Andrew Bigg was named Gender Diversity Champion. He employed the company’s first female mining superintendent in its 53-year history and hired three female supervisors, in a team of 13.

Bigg says the women have brought a different perspective to the job, where previously issues were viewed through a narrow lens.

“We’re approaching problems differently… we actually afford a bit more of an empathetic view to the table and a broader understanding of circumstances,” Bigg says.

“The award meant a lot. It was for myself and the team.”

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 33

34 WA WORKS Spring 2018 The underground station box for Redcliffe station.

Photograph — Public Transport Authority

The underground station box for Redcliffe station. Photograph — Public Transport Authority

Infrastructure

Railcar manufacturing back on track It’s all aboard for railcar and construction opportunities as the State Government’s Metronet vision choofs along, writes Stephen Bell

N

ext year — if Premier Mark McGowan has his way — one of three international bidding consortiums will help WA break a 25year drought in local railcar manufacturing.

And it will be a case of back to the future for Perth’s eastern suburbs after the State Government chose Bellevue to host a new Metronet manufacturing facility.

It will be located just a kilometre from the historic Midland workshops, which for nearly a century provided hundreds of railway careers for workers and apprentices.

The jobs ran dry in 1994 when the Midland complex made way for modern electric trains imported from interstate and offshore.

Over the next decade the new Bellevue factory will forge a new chapter in Midland’s rich railway history. It will be used to assemble much of the extra 246 railcars required to service WA’s growing railway system and replace ageing trains on the Transperth network.

The factory will also be co-located with the PTA’s next railcar depot, where Transperth will carry out maintenance of the broader train fleet.

“It’s exciting we are in a position to bring trains well and truly back into the Midland precinct at a new purpose-built facility in Bellevue,” McGowan says.

The key target of 50 per cent manufacturing or assembly of the railcars in WA will help revitalise the industry, he says.

By 2021, those new workers are expected to deliver the first stage of the $1.6 billion project: 102 new railcars (17 six-car sets) to service new Metronet projects such as the Yanchep and Thornlie expansions as they come online.

A follow-on order for 144 railcars (24 six-car sets), to replace the ageing A-series railcars, is included in the tender. These are expected to be delivered between 2023 and 2028.

Spanish group opts in The global battle for the railcar contract extended to the Basque country of northern Spain after multinational Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles (CAF) made a late play.

The State Government says CAF, founded in 1917 and headquartered in the railway industry town of Beasain, has been shortlisted for the railcar job after teaming up with Cimic-owned UGL to form the ‘Momentum West’ consortium.

The Spaniards are competing against two other shortlisted bidders: French multinational Alstom and a consortium of Australia’s Downer EDI and Canada’s Bombardier.

The McGowan Government launched a prequalification tender for the railcar contract in April as part of its pre-election commitment to revive the industry.

Downer EDI-Bombardier, which owns the current Public Transport Authority maintenance contract, and Alstom have been active in the pre-tendering phase since the second half of last year.

But the Spaniards made a late charge, with talk of CAF’s participation — exclusively reported

by WA Works — only surfacing in May. The winning bidder will be selected early in 2019. Transport Minister Rita Saffioti says the successful proponent will have input into the final design of the Bellevue facilities, where construction work is due to start later next year. >

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 35

Infrastructure > $80m of early rail work up for grabs The call has also gone out to contractors for the McGowan Government’s first stab at major railway construction — the Yanchep extension and the Thornlie-Cockburn link.

An official Request for Proposal (RFP) allows interested consortia to participate in the selection process for the delivery of the two projects — worth a combined $1.1b — under a bundled competitive alliance model.

The RFP from the Public Transport Authority will close on October 31 and a shortlist is expected by late this year.

Major civil construction companies John Holland, Laing O’Rourke the Downer-CPB Contractors alliance, and an alliance between Clough, Acciona and Georgio have all expressed interest in participating in the main works.

The State and Federal Governments say the contract, expected to be awarded in mid-2019, will represent “one of WA's biggest ever package of infrastructure works.”

The alliance model was criticised by some suppliers hoping for two separate contracts that would have increased their chances of getting a slice of the main action.

However smaller suppliers should get their day in the sun early next year when they will be able to pitch for forward and enabling works for both the new rail lines.

Principal Project Director Kevin Guppy told the PTA’s Metronet briefing in July that the early works packages could have a combined value of up to $80 million.

“We have a number of packages — it is between $60m and $80m in those forward works,” Guppy said.

PTA was finalising service relocations and would be “awarding and getting going on with some of those service relocations very early in 2019, and for earthworks and the like,”

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Guppy said. He estimated there would be about 70 packages of works across the two projects, including consultancies, service relocations, civil works, and major construction.

The Yanchep extension is a 14.5km project to extend the Joondalup Line from Butler to Yanchep.

New train stations will be built at Alkimos, Eglinton and Yanchep.

The 17.5km Thornlie-Cockburn Link will provide Perth’s first east-west rail connection, linking Thornlie and Cockburn Central train stations.

The project will involve construction of two new train stations at Ranford Road and Nicholson Road. Yanchep and Thornlie are being delivered through a joint funding arrangement, with the Federal Government tipping in $700m and the State Government $356m.

Meanwhile, Metronet project director Anthony Kannis said the State Government had begun work on a business case for the long-mooted Morley-Ellenbrook line, in partnership with Arup, the engineering and land use consultant.

Arup, in turn, was working with Roberts Day, Coniglio Ainsworth Architects, RPS Group and EY, he said.

ICN Insights

Linus O’Brien

One stop shop links you to the latest projects boom Looking to secure work on new projects? Linus O’Brien offers his tips on how to maximise your chances using the Industry Capability Network of Western Australia

T

here is an increasing number of new major projects underway and ICNWA gives suppliers and services a clear pathway to tender opportunities on these new ventures.

Current major WA project proponents have engaged ICNWA to work with them to ensure: • Australian suppliers of goods and services are knowledgeable of their project opportunities and, • Facilitate the ability of these suppliers to register their interest on their procurement packages.

“There are 227 national projects currently open on ICN Gateway and 119 of these projects have open work packages” Projects include: • Albemarle Lithium Kemerton • BHP South Flank • Chevron Operations • Chevron Gorgon Stage 2 • FMG Eliwana • Metronet Railcars • Rio Tinto — Koodaideri, Robe Valley Sustaining and West Angelas Deposits C&D • Sea Dragon • Shell Prelude • Shell Crux • Defence work — Naval Ship Management and the Offshore Patrol Vessels.

ICNWA’s online platform ICN Gateway

(gateway.icn.org.au) not only has WA projects but also projects Australia-wide.

There are 227 national projects currently open on ICN Gateway and 119 of these projects have open work packages. WA has 19 projects open with 93 open procurement packages.

A very important activity of ICNWA is the connection of partial scope suppliers to the opportunities provided by the bidding contractors of the full scope work advertised on ICN Gateway. ICNWA recognises that it is vital for bidding contractors to have access to subcontractors’ core competencies during tenders as a number of sub-contractors are nominated in their bid submissions.

ICNWA also manages a number of regional business directories and the Aboriginal Business Directory WA. These directories on the ProjectConnect platform at projectconnect.com.au are an important means for ICNWA to connect local companies to contractors.

Whether it is your company profile on ICN Gateway and/or ProjectConnect it is very important for you to keep your company details up to date.

Significant areas of your profile that will ensure your company is known are: • Products and services • Major plant and equipment • Past projects.

ICNWA is part of the WA Works business unit within CCI and its activity is strongly aligned to CCI’s vision of WA as a world-leading place to live and do business.

It is also a member of the Industry Capability Network Australia, an exceptional organisation, whose vision is to connect suppliers to opportunities, leading to the building of capability in the Australian supply chain.

ICNWA looks forward to assisting your company.

New Projects Albermarle Lithium Kemerton The plant will comprise a series of 20,000tpa lithium hydroxide product process trains.

Production will start with operation of a single train at a rate of 20,000tpa, increasing to four more 20,000tpa trains.

BHP South Flank The proposed project will require the establishment of mining operations at South Flank and construction of associated infrastructure with processing capacity up to 80mtpa.

Chevron Gorgon Stage 2 Packages include the operations and maintenance of the subsea, inlet processing, production, utilities and storage/offloading facilities; logistics; well construction and other asset development services.

FMG Eliwana The Eliwana Project will extend Fortescue’s existing iron ore mine sites of Cloudbreak, Christmas Creek and Solomon and sustain production of existing deposits with production to start in December 2020.

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 icn.org.au/wa_home

Contact Linus O’Brien, Principal Supply Chain Consultant ICNWA for more information on (08) 9365 7556 or Linus.OBrien@icnwa.org.au

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 37

Infrastructure

Lights, cameras,

action

‘Cut’ called on Perth’s cinema hiatus as Palace throws open its doors in Raine Square

By Rueben Hale

M

ore people than ever are passing through Raine Square after Stage One of the $200 million redevelopment was opened to the public last month.

Charter Hall’s development of the retail hub has transformed the CBD site into seven days a week entertainment, dining and retail precinct, headlined by Perth’s first and only new cinema.

Construction is continuing on Stage Two, with around 100 people on site working to have a fashion precinct ready for fit-out by retailers in early 2019, with upper-level office tenant fit outs starting before Christmas.

On completion, the redevelopment will increase Raine Square from 9000 to 18,0000 sq m.

38 WA WORKS Spring 2018

One of Australia’s largest private construction groups Built has been appointed primary contractor for the development and will remember the project as one of excitement and challenges by the time it is completed in early 2020.

Taylor Robinson Architects and Cox Architects worked with the Built project team to take responsibility for a large part of in-situ design development on the busy inner-city site, with the 50-storey Bankwest office tower directly above maintaining a 4000-strong occupancy throughout every stage of the project.

A peak workforce of about 40 contractors and 250 workers navigated tight logistics, heavy public interface and sensitive work protocols delivering the new three-storey structure within a heritage listed building. It was interfaced with

the Wentworth Hotel, Gylde Chambers and The Royal Hotel, which were also preserved.

“This project has provided many designs, construction and logistical challenges across the different heritage, retail and entertainment spaces which the whole project team have managed to a very high standard,” Built managing director Brett Mason said.

Developer Charter Hall said that with so much activity happening around Raine Square — including the neighbouring Yagan Square — there were more people than ever passing through the precinct.

Charter Hall head development officer Andrew Borger told WA Works it became clear that site accessibility and connectivity, both internally and into neighbouring precincts, would be critical to ensuring Raine Square was relevant and somewhere people wanted to visit and stay.

“Raine Square is ideally located on the corner of Wellington, William, Murray and Queen streets and with direct tunnel access from Perth Underground Station,” he said.

Infrastructure

Raine Square Dining Precinct. Above: Raine Square Laneway. Left: Wellington Street elevation

“The new Palace Raine Square cinemas are an anchor tenant in revitalising Perth’s CBD and Charter Hall, along with Built have played a key role in delivering an outstanding built form product that appeals to tenants and customers, which will make this once underutilised area a seven-day a week late-night, retail, dining and entertainment precinct.”

He said Perth has fundamentally changed demographically, as well as geographically, and would appeal to a broad group of people who enjoy going to the movies.

Palace has aggressively expanded its “sophisticated premium cinema experience” to 134 screens across Australia, after starting out in a rented suburban town hall

“This once underutilised area is now a seven-day a week late-night, retail, dining and entertainment precinct” Palace Cinemas’ chief executive Benjamin Zeccola told WA Works Palace Raine Square would become a vibrant entertainment hub in the CBD, filling the void left by the closing of the Piccadilly Theatre 2013 and two multiplexes between 2000 and 2007.

in the 1960s, screening films to small but enthusiastic audiences," he said.

“The easiest way to describe that shift is the kid in the 1980s who would get on the bus with his friends — with $10 in their pocket — and go to the movies, then Timezone and

then have McDonald’s,” Zeccola said.

He said the hiatus of Perth offering cinema entertainment had been on Palace’s radar, and Raine Square offered the opportunity to open a flagship under its brand in the city.

“This person is a little bit less interested in movies as he was and a little bit more interested in Netflix. However, that kid is now all grown up and attending our cinemas as an adult.”

Zeccola said Raine Square was geared towards the cinemas’ mainstay market of Generation X, who enjoyed a bit of sentimentality, luxury and comfort, as part of their cinema experience.

“The average age of our moviegoer is about 44-years-old,” he said.

“We’re happy families, and young and older people like to come and enjoy our cinema experience, and I think that it’s now appealing for people in their early to mid-20s and up.

“However, a shift to an ageing population is a fact, and this demographic has shown to have a higher expectation of moviegoing experience.”

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 39

Major Projects List

Pilbara comeback gains momentum A major revival in iron ore and gas construction projects is brewing in the North West

By Stephen Bell

I

ron ore’s solid comeback has continued in WA Works’ latest Major Projects List as the state’s biggest mining companies get set for the next decade of Pilbara production.

Of the nine new projects identified for this issue, a third are iron ore-related, with oil and gas, transport, Perth accommodation, fertiliser and wind power making up the remainder.

The value of the new projects tops $6 billion, boosted by Rio Tinto’s recent approval of its two biggest new sustainment projects: Robe Valley Mesa B, C and H and West Angelas Deposits C&D. The two projects had remained in the shadows of Koodaideri, Rio’s new high-tech replacement mine, which has secured $200 million of initial funding ahead of the final investment decision (FID) expected by the end of the year.

But Rio Tinto and its Robe River joint venture partners Mitsui and Nippon Steel & Sumitomo Metal approved the $2.1b investment needed to develop the Robe Valley and West Angelas projects early this month.

“The development of West Angelas will help sustain production of the Pilbara Blend, the industry’s benchmark premium iron ore product, while the additional Robe Valley deposits will enable us to continue to provide a highly-valued

40 WA WORKS Spring 2018

product to our long-term customers across Asia,” Rio Tinto Iron Ore Chief Executive Chris Salisbury said.

Rio is tipping that 1200 construction workers will be needed at Robe Valley and West Angelas over

progressing its multibillion dollar Gorgon Stage Two development and discussing infrastructure sharing for its Clio-Acme field; and Western Gas is pushing ahead with engineering studies on the $2.7b Equus project.

A major new oil project could soon be in the mix, with Adelaide-based Santos recently agreeing to buy Quadrant Energy, majority owner of the offshore Dorado discovery, about 250km north of Port Hedland.

Quadrant and minority partner Carnarvon Petroleum announced the discovery mid-July and calculated Dorado’s “gross contingent resource” at 171 million barrels of crude oil and 552 billion cubic feet of gas.

New owner Santos, which is due to complete the acquisition late this year, says Dorado provides “near-term development opportunity and unlocks material exploration potential” in the Bedout Basin.

Carnarvon CEO Adrian Cook says oil fields of this scale are “not often found”, with the last large field discovery on the North West Shelf being about three decades ago.

Back on shore, the Pilbara could soon be exporting a high-end fertiliser — sulphate of potash — with junior company Kalium Lakes proposing to approve its $159m Beyondie project in the first quarter of next year. The company aims to award major construction contracts for Beyondie by the end of the year after reporting “exceptional” outcomes from a feasibility study.

Out in the wheatbelt, meanwhile, a new power generation hopeful has emerged with Perthbased Lacour Energy seeking approvals for its $250m Kondinin wind and solar project.

Lacour says it is targeting a construction start for the project in 2020.

Back in Perth, nation-building infrastructure

“The value of the new projects tops $6 billion, boosted by Rio Tinto's recent sustainment investments" the next two years.

The FID for Koodaideri, meanwhile, will add to the biggest surge in WA resource construction jobs since the boom petered out in 2015. In total, nearly 8000 iron ore jobs are forecast for the next couple of years, spread across five sustainment projects for Rio, BHP and Fortescue.

While iron ore is dominating most current Pilbara activity, there is plenty more brewing in oil and gas.

Woodside is proposing to spend about $30 billion in the early years of next decade developing the Scarborough and Browse fields and piping their gas to Karratha; Chevron is

remains a strong theme, with the Public Transport Authority requesting proposals from contractors to design and build its Yanchep extension and the Thornlie Cockburn link rail projects.

The State Government has rolled the two projects into one huge “competitive alliance” venture valued at $1.1b. Initial proposals must be lodged by the end of October, while the winning consortium may be announced by year-end.

Also in the city, Perth Airport hopes to begin construction of a new $520m runway next year, while in the CBD Far East Consortium has development approval for its $158m Perth Hub high-rise hotel and apartments.

Powered by

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 41

Infrastructure

Hidden depths Keeping our underground assets safe is all in a day’s work for a sub-surface detection company

By Stephen Bell

On the roads, the Federal Government also recently committed $581m for the southern extension of the Tonkin Highway and $108m for a northern extension of Mitchell Freeway to Romeo Road.

A

s a publicly-funded $5 billion infrastructure boom gathers a head of steam, the visible signs — new road and rail projects to help reduce Perth congestion — will be clear for all to see.

But in trying to bust congestion, the State and Federal governments will need to be careful not to bust existing infrastructure hidden from us surface dwellers.

Those “do not disturb” categories include underground conduits and pipes for water, power, communications and gas.

The consequences of excavation tools damaging any of these can range from power or water outages, to major accident risks.

Those hazards have created a niche market for businesses dedicated to the sub-surface detection of infrastructure — a sector likely to grow in the next few years as the major rail and road projects roll out.

“The Federal Government has given large handouts in lieu of WA not receiving their fair share of GST that must be spent on certain projects as opposed to the State Government choosing where it goes,” explains Michael Warr, Sales Director of Abaxa, which ranks as WA’s biggest dedicated sub-surface detection company.

42 WA WORKS Spring 2018

No fireballs, please

“It has increased the amount of project work going on,” he says. “And there is a lot of older infrastructure that needs updating, such as all the water pipes you are seeing in the metro area being replaced for Water Corp.

These works will continue for us for the next couple of years.”

Abaxa is likely to be deeply involved in protecting utilities affected by the Federal and State-funded Metronet rail projects, which include the $1.1 billion construction of the Yanchep extension and Thornlie-Cockburn link.

These will be followed by the Ellendale and Byford line extensions.

“Be it Western Power, gas or telco lines, Water Corporation, that’s what we are there for — to keep the asset safe so there is no damage and no risk to human life,” Warr says.

“The risk is nothing to be sneezed at. If you hit a high-pressure gas main (and there is a spark), the fireball from that would potentially kill everyone in a 500m radius. This work can be exceptionally dangerous, and these assets must be protected. And they are underground so can’t be seen. That’s why there is an industry for locating.”

Warr joined Abaxa in October 2017 after selling a family business. “Until then, like most people. I didn’t even know this industry existed,” he says. “We’ll walk around blindly and not have a clue about the amazing, vast infrastructure that’s right underneath our feet.

Then, when you are shown it, you can’t help but see it.”

Abaxa has more than 25 field technicians and is still growing. “We have 11 internal

Infrastructure

staff as well. It is a small industry, but we are a large company within that.”

Many people would be familiar with the Dial Before You Dig company, which provides a map showing what services are present.

Abaxa’s job is to pinpoint them.

“We use a couple of technologies including ground penetrating radar, or GPR. It is basically like an echo sounder on a boat — it is the same technology and image. And if you’ve been fishing you know how difficult it is to pick out the difference between a rock and a fish or a piece of seaweed,” Warr says.

can pothole down, physically sight the asset and, based on the size and colour of the service, identify it,” Warr says. “That’s called a Quality Level ‘A’, and it is critical to ensure accuracy for planning, design and construction.”

Power and panels Warr’s role takes him to some intriguing infrastructure projects in the metropolitan area, including a job for Western Power, which recently had to replace a couple of old units at the Forrest Avenue substation in East Perth that were emitting excessive noise.

“Be it Western Power, gas or telco lines, Water Corporation, that’s what we are there for — to keep the asset safe" If the sub-surface assets can’t be traced electronically, a GPR survey is normally carried out. The result is a so-called ‘B’ location, which is accurate to plus or minus 300mm, vertically and horizontally.

“Once we know where the asset is, we

But the two replacement units won’t produce as much power, so Western Power needs to get more current down to the substation to feed the city.

“We have to find a route from Joel Terrace substation up in East Perth, over the Graham

Farmer Freeway and down for about 7km to the other substation. They need to fit conduits that add up to 1.3m in width — we’ve got to get them into the ground.”

Abaxa also detects underground voids on the Public Transport Authority’s ForrestfieldAirport Link rail project. If the two tunnel boring machines hit a void, it can react like a bubble and rise to the top, causing the ground to drop away at the surface.

“That’s important as people could potentially lose a car or a house, and they are bored under the airport runways as well.”

Warr says the industry is now recognising it makes sense to spend a bit more time and investment to locate services as part of the design phase, rather than leaving it to the start of excavation.

And some are moving toward having a pool of pre-approved service location providers on tap.

Main Roads, for instance, is for the first time putting together a panel for the provision of underground services location and survey.

“It has never been done in the past and they’re doing that now to make sure they get a more even level of service — they want to build relationships with suppliers to get better outcomes,” Warr says.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 43

Infrastructure

Loading fibre optic cable for ASC aboard the Ile De Batz cable ship.

Cloud washes up on Perth shores Perth’s coastline has become Australia’s data gateway to Asia following the completion of a critical infrastructure project

By Robyn Molloy

W

ith the Australian Submarine Cable between Perth and Singapore now complete, Perth is well and truly on the map when it comes to interconnectivity with Asia.

Construction of the 4600km cable, which is owned by Vocus Communications, started with the manufacture of the four-pair fibre network cables by French company Alcatel Submarine Networks (ASN) in November last year.

It reached Perth’s shores in July, with testing carried out before going live in early September, a week earlier than expected after five years of planning.

The $240m project — designed for speeds of 40Tbps — brings better connectivity to the fastgrowing regions of Asia offering more reliability,

44 WA WORKS Spring 2018

speed and latency improvements between the two continents and is the most important entry point in Australia for communications with Asia.

The latest piece of critical infrastructure stretches from Singapore to Perth via Indonesia and Christmas Island, before landing near Cottesloe then connecting into a data centre in Shenton Park owned by Equinix.

It will become the gateway to Australia for interconnectivity with Asia, increasing capacity 10-fold.

ASC has come at the right time as the ageing Sea-Me-We3 (SMW-3) submarine cable between Perth and Singapore has been plagued by problems. The most recent outages were in August and September, with customers facing increased latency, or delays, to Asian destinations.

SMW-3, which stands for South East Asia-

Middle East-Western Europe, spans 39,000km and is the longest telecom cable in the world.

Vocus acquired a 10 per cent interest in the cable (Singapore to Perth) in 2014.

Launched in 2000, the ageing infrastructure’s days are numbered as demand for higher speeds, more users and increased data requirements outgrows its capacity.

Vocus Senior Marketing Manager Leigh Bollen says the company has learned the lessons from the troubled SMW-3.

“Any time your Apple updates take forever or your email takes a bit longer to deliver from Google, they have to route in through Sydney, then up around through Asia or into the US which adds a lot more to the journey. So, we’ve learnt a lot from that cable and some of the other cables we’ve laid,” he says.

“Asia is a significant opportunity, not only for business in Australia but also for businesses in Asia to deal with Australian companies. It’s a very direct route, whereas if you have to go out through Sydney you end up going through Guam and you go through a very big loop.

“This cable will give us capacity for a number of years. It has a 25-year plus life. In effect, there will still be a lot of life left on this one.”

The new cable has 47 repeaters installed along it to ensure signals don’t deplete over the distance and power can be redirected from another location if there is an outage.

“There’s no guarantee they won’t go down.

Infrastructure The only real step we can do to minimise the risk is to have a second cable and that’s just not feasible economically,” Bollen says.

Complicated installation Completing the cable lay either on, through or under the sea floor, came as a relief after years of planning fraught with engineering and technological challenges, he says.

Contractor ASN supplied the two ships to lay the cables concurrently, with one taking the 3000km route from Christmas Island to Singapore via Jakarta while the other went 1600km from Christmas Island to Perth.

The most challenging areas were around Indonesia, which is prone to earthquakes, and Singapore which is one of the busiest global shipping areas.

them or around them so we don’t just lob a cable on the top so it falls off.

“If there are any caverns or areas of seismic risk, we have to make sure those areas are what the maps tell us. We sail the area with sonar to ensure the region is well known to us before we actually lay the cable.

“The sea floor changes all the time given all the seismic shifts that go on. Because of the nature of the cable there is a lot of risk that goes into managing the design and the installation.”

Better connected Equinix Managing Director Jeremy Deutsch was in Perth recently to announce the expansion of its International business exchange data centre in Shenton Park — known as PE2 — on the back of the ASC’s completion.

“It stretches from Singapore to Perth via Indonesia and Christmas Island, before landing near Cottesloe” “There are all sorts of obstacles that can threaten the integrity of the cable including fishing nets and dragged anchors,” Bollen says.

“Armoured cable was used in the high traffic areas and buried up to 10m under the sea floor in some areas, including 10km from Singapore, which is one of the biggest shipping lanes in the world.

“We do quite a lot of research beforehand, including a significant undersea survey, so we actually sail the proposed route to understand what is there. For example, there are undersea caverns and mountains along the way.

“We have to make sure if there are any mountains in the way that we go through

The $15.5m expansion will add 225 cabinets to the centre with completion scheduled by March.

Equinix, a Nasdaq-listed company headquartered in the US, has 200 data centres in 52 markets, with Perth one of its newest.

The Shenton Park centre is now one of only two gateways for international connectivity, with the other based in Sydney.

Equinix’s global connection index predicts interconnection bandwidth will quadruple across the Asian Pacific region by 2020, which means Perth will be at the epicentre of communications with Australia.

“So that data centre is an interconnection

point for a whole bunch of different service providers,” Deutsch says.

This includes network, content and — potentially — cloud service providers, which Perth businesses can tap into, he says.

“We see that as a great way for digital innovation and digital transformation to occur, through this rich ecosystem of companies we can bring together under one roof, which we are looking to do in PE2.”

Equinix is regarded as the biggest global partner of the large cloud service providers: “Our cloud exchange capability that we are bringing into Perth will bring direct connectivity to the Amazon cloud, Microsoft cloud, IBM cloud, Google cloud etc., giving our customers direct access to those cloud service providers as well.”

And those customers will soon be able to reap the benefits of digital transformation in other markets: “If they are growing globally, which many are, we can support the exact same architecture in Perth as we could for Asia, Hong Kong, Singapore, China and the US,” he says.

“On the flip side, when you have companies from Europe, Asia and other markets looking to support the Australian or WA market they can then come and host with us in Perth as well.”

Equinix's data centre. Left: The 10-tonne deep sea plough can bury the cable up to 10 metres below the sea bed.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 45

R

ob Monaci is likely to get plenty of airtime in his first few months on the job as Georgiou’s new Chief Executive.

He is about to embark on the executive version of FIFO — shuttling between Perth and Sydney to juggle Georgiou’s WA building and civil construction business with its growing presence in NSW. But there is little doubt that the west coast will take up a good deal of Monaci’s early management time as Georgiou targets multiple road, rail and resources contracts.

“WA has been a suppressed market, but I can see signs of it coming back,” he told WA Works. “The iron ore miners are rebounding very strongly and there is a lot of road and Metronet work coming out.”

Securing a chunk of Metronet, the State Government’s long-term, multibillion dollar

46 WA WORKS Spring 2018

rail program, is high on Monaci’s ‘to do’ list after Georgiou recently struck an alliance with Spanish infrastructure conglomerate Acciona and local engineering group Clough.

The consortium has its sights on the Public Transport Authority’s Request for Proposals (RFP) from contractors to build two Metronet rail lines, in what is one of WA’s biggest ever package of infrastructure works.

The PTA is calling for contractors to build two Metronet Stage One projects: the Yanchep rail extension from Butler Station and the ThornlieCockburn Link — worth a combined $1.1b.

Interested consortia have until October 31 to submit their proposals.

“We are uncertain who we are competing against but hear it is CPB/Downer EDI and John Holland/Laing O’Rourke, but this has not been confirmed,” Monaci says.

“The process from here is for PTA to

shortlist a minimum of two participants to go forward to a competitive alliance.”

Georgiou and Clough bring together more than 140 years of WA experience with Georgiou recently completing the award-winning Aubin Grove train station.

“There is a local presence in that, for sure,” Monaci says. “But obviously CPB, Downer, John Holland and Laing are strong in that rail space, so it is a matter of seeing whether we can mix it up with the big boys.”

“We also have our precast yard in Hazelmere that produces precast bridge beams and noise wall panels which can be incorporated into the works.

“Additionally, our building business has extensive experience with PTA at the Perth Underground and Elizabeth Quay projects and the recently awarded Perth Airport Skybridge.”

He will find out if the consortium has made the shortlist by the end of the year.

Flush with

opportunity Georgiou Group’s new boss plans to split his time between NSW and WA amid signs of rising activity in both markets. Stephen Bell caught up with him

Putting the finishing touches on the Direct Factory Outlet project at Perth Airport

Founded on a secondhand loader Whatever the result of the Metronet tender, the company has come a long way since its predecessor Direct Drainage was founded in 1977 as a home business

by Greek emigrant Spiro Georgiou.

Spiro, who remains a Georgiou director, launched the company with an excavator, secondhand loader and a small truck to target stormwater and sewerage jobs for Perth land developments.

After nearly two decades of growth into other segments such as precast concrete and road paving, the company was renamed Georgiou Group in 1996. Spiro’s son, John, became its inaugural CEO two years later, directing the company’s emergence as a national civil and building construction company.

So, it was a key moment earlier this year

when Georgiou announced John would become non-executive chairman, passing the baton to Monaci, the former boss of the company’s growing NSW business.

His first day on August 1 was a milestone in more ways than one. He is the the first non-family member to lead the group and, from this month, will also reside in his home town of Sydney, emphasising the national scope of the new-look Georgiou.

Monaci plans to split his time between the east and the west. “This won’t affect the way I work; anyone who knows me knows that I’m accessible at all times and will be where I need to be.”

Neither does his Sydney residency signal a change of direction for the company, which last financial year still generated about 70 per cent of its revenue in WA, despite a recent growth spurt in NSW. And the payroll remains dominated by the

west, with 460 employees versus 150 on the east coast. “Due to the self-performing nature of some of our WA businesses, there is a larger proportion of wages employees in WA compared with NSW and Queensland,” Monaci explains. >

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 47

Construction > Georgiou has had a presence in the east for about 15 years between Victoria and Queensland and completed major NSW jobs at Port Kembla and Sydney prior to setting up its Sydney office in 2015.

Monaci, a civil engineer who graduated from the University of Sydney in the 1980s, moved from John Holland to run the office as Georgiou’s new executive general manager overseeing infrastructure construction in NSW and Victoria.

He says the permanent Sydney presence allowed Georgiou to capitalise on the east coast government-funded infrastructure boom, part of a successful strategy to balance the downturn in WA. Georgiou currently has six business units, three of which are in WA, (Infrastructure WA, Engineering and Building) and three in the east (Queensland, NSW and Building).

“The push into the east is due to the large capital spend in NSW and Queensland,” he says.

“The idea is to diversify, spread our risks, and become a national company. WA had a boom and the east was very subdued. The opposite is true now and I’m sure that in three or four years it will swap again.

“The market is heating up, and it’s nice to see, actually. The interesting thing is that when I came from John Holland to Georgiou in early 2015, our major clients were iron ore miners, the Rio Tintos, BHPs and FMGs.

“Yet since I have been here we have done no work for miners in three-and-a-half years.”

Changes are afoot, however. “We have been doing budgets for the last three to four months, and we are seeing a change in that right now, with actual tenders.”

Monaci says Georgiou is bidding for iron ore work at several mine sites: Rio Tinto at Robe Valley, West Angeles CD, Western Turner and Koodaideri; FMG at Eliwana and Roy Hill.

The company has also submitted expressions of interest with BHP for its Sustaining Capital panel and with Rio Tinto on its Asset Management Engineering Services panel.

“Obviously we won’t see the peak of three or four years ago because that was iron ore and gas together. But I still see a peak coming back and I think the roads market is coming back also.”

Lithium also remains a target for the group. Georgiou delivered works on Talison’s Greenbushes mine and Tianqi’s lithium hydroxide plant site in Kwinana for head contractor MSP Engineering, and will be tendering for the next stage of works at Talison, Monaci says.

As the market here regains momentum, Georgiou is conscious of maintaining and building relationships with its subcontractors.

“They’re an important part of what we do,” Monaci says.

“Subcontractors are the lifeline of our business and we always attempt to employ

“Subcontractors are the lifeline of our business and we always attempt to employ local”

local subcontractors where possible. While there are too many to thank personally, without their contribution we wouldn’t be where we are today.”

“They are part of our success. If they don’t price to us properly and then help us perform the jobs, we’re not successful.”

All three of Georgiou’s three WA business units are busy as the market shows signs of picking up:

Engineering • On top of the recently awarded Roy Hill Bridge on the Great Northern Highway for Main Roads, awaiting the results of the Karel Avenue tender which are bridges over rail lines and Roe Highway.

• Tendering Roe Highway and Kalamunda Road intersection for Main Roads.

• In JV with Acciona on the Armadale Road to North Lake Bridge alliance and awaiting shortlisting from Main Roads.

• Keen to pursue High Street Upgrade for MRWA. • Seeing activity in the resources sector with current tenders for Robe Valley (Rio Tinto) and Eliwana (FMG).

Building • Completed the Liv Apartments for DHA in Fremantle and on track to complete the DFO project for Vicinity at Perth Airport prior to the official opening on October 3.

• Works underway on the lobby and end-of-trip upgrades for Dexus at 240 St Georges Terrace.

• Mobilising on the recently awarded industrial facility for Logos in Hazelmere, the Marina East Apartments for Blackburne and early works for the Perth Airport Skybridge between the rail station and airport terminal.

• Also working on ECIs (early contractor involvements) with Ramsay Health Care at Hollywood Hospital and Brightwater’s Beaumaris Beach project.

Infrastructure WA • Working for key land development clients Lendlease at Alkimos and Stockland at Calleya, Newhaven and Sienna Woods.

• Recently completed the Scarborough Redevelopment for MRA. • Working with CBH to expand its grain storage at various facilities around WA. • Recently tendered redevelopment works for Vicinity at Morley Galleria and Belmont Park for Golden Group.

48 WA WORKS Spring 2018

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(08) 9365 7720 | erconsulting@cciwa.com | cciwa.com Spring 2018 WA WORKS 49

Construction

Building

bridges The architect behind the design of Perth’s newest landmark explains the journey, writes Robyn Molloy

M

atagarup Bridge has finally risen from the depths of controversy to shine as one of Perth’s most visible landmarks.

Linking East Perth to Optus Stadium, it’s one of the largest pedestrian-only bridges in the world spanning 400m and one of the most complicated infrastructure projects ever undertaken by the West Australian government.

The 370m (from bank to bank), 9-metre wide bridge reaches 72m at its highest point, where the poignant wishbones cross but don’t touch. An extension of the ‘fan first’ brief synonymous with the Perth stadium, the bridge is now etched on the Perth landscape.

While finishing touches such as shelter canopies, painting, tidy up work on balustrades and cladding, and the application of an omnigrip surface are underway, the entire project should be completed by the end of the year.

50 WA WORKS Spring 2018

Announced in 2014, major contractor York Rizzani Joint Venture was named in 2015 with an expected open date at the end of 2016.

But troubled waters arose when the Malaysian subcontractor failed to meet deadlines and was dumped from the project soon after the McGowan government took office in 2016. Henderson-based Civmec then won the contract in August 2017 to complete the works locally.

Originally costed at $54m, the true cost was already at $91.5 million in July 2017 with no official figure given since.

Named Matagarup, it means a place that is only leg deep and refers to the area around Heirisson Island, which is culturally significant to the traditional land owners, the Whadjuk people.

Despite the rough path, the bridge is a success story. No one is more enthusiastic about it’s opening than Melbourne-based Denton Corker Marshall Director Neil Bourne, who as head architect has been there from

the start, leading the company’s design team.

“I was there at all of the meetings and was very hands on all the way through from the first briefing to that opening day. I don’t think I missed a single design meeting,” he says.

The man who has also been behind the designs of bridges across the country — the Webb Bridge in Melbourne Docklands, the curly wurly Arbour in Southbank Brisbane and the Melbourne Gateway, to name a few — reflected on what it was like to see such an iconic project on the other side of the continent.

Bourne says walking across for the first time — just before it officially opened on July 14 — was a highlight of the complex project that had taken years to complete.

“It had just been swept completely clean and there was absolutely no one there except for me and one of my contracting friends.

It was just fantastic. I must have taken about 600 photographs and it probably took us 40 minutes to get across,” he says.

Bridges of interest Golden Gate Bridge San Francisco, California World’s longest and tallest suspension bridge at 1280m.

Magdeburg Water Bridge Magdeburg, Germany Connecting two canals and crossing a river, this 914m, 2003-built bridge gives ships a way of avoiding the alternative 11.9km detour.

Sydney Harbour Bridge Sydney, Australia One of Australia’s most famous landmarks, the ‘coathanger’ was the world’s widest (48.8m) long-span bridge from when it opened in 1932 until the Port Mann Bridge in Vancouver opened in 2012.

The Matagarup pedestrian bridge connects East Perth to Optus Stadium. Photograph — Sam Shields.

“I just wanted to relish every bit. We had invested a lot of time as a team and seeing it finished was great. The best bit about it was actually that we were all standing there when this rain squall came over just after it opened.

“I was standing there with the builders, engineers — the guys from Italy who I had never met in the flesh before — and we were introduced on the bridge even though we’d spoken for hours; and the client, all there together with a little bit of relief but a lot of pride. It had been a long journey together and to get to this place.”

The journey began in 2014 when, as part of three-month bidding process, Bourne would head to Perth from Melbourne every four weeks as a team including government architects came up with a sketch that is almost identical to what sits on the Swan River today.

Another alternate but rejected option included six artificial islands linked together >

State Route 520 floating Bridge Seattle, Washington This 2350m-long bridge opened in 2016 and uses 77 concrete pontoons as the foundation, allowing it to float. It replaced an older version, just a few feet away.

Helix Bridge Singapore At 280m, this pedestrian bridge which is inspired by the shape of DNA, lights up Marina Bay at night with its 2250m of steel tube that wrap their way overhead in a visual display.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 51

Construction > by small spans to create the concept of stepping stones, with each one landscaped and reflecting the Indigenous community.

Once awarded, Bourne made about 25 more trips to Perth and used video, teleconferencing and virtual reality as part of the collaborative process.

“We were based in Melbourne, the engineers were in Italy, the contractors were based in Italy and Adelaide, the fabricator was in Perth and we had some other technical inputs from Sydney,” Bourne says.

“So to describe that you really needed to look at it in the three dimensional space, and in a lot of ways you had to look at it in four dimensions as you had to be moving through it to get the sense of space, the details and the junctions.”

Bourne says the ‘fan first’ brief came into play when designing the bridge with consideration given to how hot, windy and exposed the site would be for fans walking to and from their games and events being held at the stadium.

“Providing diversity of views and experience

“Linking East Perth to Optus Stadium, it’s one of the largest pedestrian-only bridges in the world spanning 400m” “Largely it was us here, the team in Perth and the engineers in Italy at the same time, so getting the right overlapping time was a challenge. We used VR quite a bit to interrogate the designs and that was very useful.

“With the two ribbons running along, out of that apparent simplicity there was a lot of special complexity,” he recalls.

as well as shade and shelter along the route, that’s how we landed with the landscaped pause points on the piers in the river,” he says.

“It is a unique feature to actually have landscape with mature trees in the middle of the river with manmade piers,” he says.

“But it wasn’t folly, it was directly there to provide shade and somewhere for people

to sit, which was rare, as they made that journey.

“It needed to be inclusive, kids on their way to footy, kids being carried by their parents — they need somewhere to sit down for the disabled and elderly, a place to have some respite. So that was important.”

Long before the design was approved and he was commissioned, Bourne penned in his brief that “bridge design is a lot like the bridges themselves, the journey is just as important as the destination”.

So standing there in the wind and rain on that wet miserable day in July, surrounded by the team who had ridden through all the ups and downs, Bourne reflected on the journey to get to that point.

“It had been very long, very hard, very technical, and demanding a lot longer than we were expecting. But we had a lot of pride,” he says.

“We did a terrific job as a group, it was very collaborative and everyone in that group were friends and I think that says a lot about the journey we went on.

“You can go on a long, slow trip like that and still come out happy. You went in as colleagues and came out as friends, so that was my biggest takeaway. It was really nice to be in there together and doing that.”

The Essential First Step.

Before breaking ground take the guesswork out of locating underground assets.

Lodge a free Dial Before You Dig enquiry at www.1100.com.au Access to the $1.6b Optus Stadium is now complete with the Matagarup Bridge able to transport the masses by foot.

52 WA WORKS Spring 2018

Going for broke

It’s not just about the anode There is much more to graphite than its well-publicised usage as a critical element in lithium-ion batteries, says Andrew Frazer

T

he graphite price has been rising lately which is in stark contrast to the recent performance of the graphite companies listed on the Australian Securities Exchange.

According to Benchmark Minerals Intelligence, the key recent graphite market trends include: • Spherical graphite prices increased by up to 5 per cent as processing restrictions created tighter supplies for growing battery demand • Further China restrictions loom, with environmental inspectors due to return to Shandong province in October • Flake graphite prices stabilise as imports ease pressure on higher value grades; Benchmark Flake Graphite Index climbs 0.5 per cent • Battery demand continues to grow with Japan’s electric vehicle battery sales up 12.5 per cent in H1 and China’s electric vehicle production up 85 per cent year-on-year.

Our preferred entry into this exciting sector is Perth-based Triton Minerals, which has two graphite deposits in Mozambique: Ancuabe and Nicanda Hill.

Ancuabe has some of the world’s best ‘expandable’ graphite which is an important component in flame retardant foams used in aluminium cladding to dramatically increase the melting temperature of building cladding.

Holland’s AMG Advanced Metallurgical Group currently mines the orebody adjacent to Ancuabe.

It sells expandable graphite products to BASF, which produces fire retardant building products.

The most commonly known is Neopor.

Using 5 per cent of expanded graphite in the aluminium cladding at the tragic Grenfell fire disaster in London could have stopped the blaze spreading to the outside of the building

avoiding the senseless loss of so many lives.

We are confident that Shandong Tianye Mining, the largest shareholder of Triton with a 19.9 per cent holding, wants Ancuabe expandable graphite to produce building industry products as there is a shortage of graphite in China suitable as a fire retardant.

The Chinese government has now enacted legislation requiring fire retardant products to be non-bromine based and the fire code in China has been amended making it compulsory to use flame retardants in all buildings.

China is also cracking down on the highly polluting use of hydrofluoric acid in purification of lower grade graphite.

Just how serious the Chinese government is about cleaning up the country’s environment is evidenced by the widening price gap in the iron ore markets between high and low-grade ores.

The Chinese Government has waged war on pollution with a new three-year green plan.

Graphite is now listed as a critical commodity by the US and EU and the current trade tensions between the US and China will not

reduce the importance of secure sources of the carbon mineral.

About 60 per cent of Ancuabe production will be sold into expandable graphite markets.

The remainder will be sold in the battery (electric vehicle, storage) and steel refractory markets which require high purity graphite.

The all-in cost to develop Ancuabe is about $105-120m and the Engineering Procurement and Construction contract has been awarded to The Metallurgical Corporation of China (MCC).

MCC has provided a letter of intent from a major Chinese Commercial bank to provide financing sponsored by MCC for 85 per cent of the EPC contract value ($70m) at concessionary rates.

Triton’s second major resource is the Nicanda Hill graphite and vanadium deposit.

Partial sale or joint venture of this deposit would assist with funding the equity requirement for developing Ancuabe. Nicanda Hill is adjacent to the battery-grade graphite being produced

by Syrah Resources. It is our view that Triton would dilute to circa 50 per cent when the appropriate partner is found.

To conclude, Triton will develop Ancuabe, selling expandable graphite product into the huge Chinese fire-retardant markets. This could be funded by selling a majority interest in Nicanda Hill. We believe a joint venture will be formed with a Chinese battery producer keen to secure long-term supply of graphite and vanadium for rapidly growing battery markets.

Triton is firmly focused on developing Ancuabe.

The capital cost is manageable and the highgrade offtake contracts secured by Triton proves the commercial viability of the project.

Andrew Frazer is Head of Corporate Finance for Pinnacle Corporate Finance. He provides corporate advice to Triton Minerals.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 53

Drilling down on why women can do it too Two Wallis Drilling employees are living proof that women can hold their own in one of mining’s most male-dominated service industries

By Robyn Molloy

I

t’s dirty work but someone has to do it. Claudia Holschuh was one of those ‘someones’ who chose drilling as a career path.

It meant spending every day covered in mud, broken nails and working rosters of two weeks on, one week off — a rugged career path but a perfect one for Holschuh.

She’s jumped at opportunities offered by her employer — WA-based Wallis Drilling —

54 WA WORKS Spring 2018

and grabbed them with both hands. These days she’s not often covered in mud and is a ‘wearer of many hats’, not just a hard one, as Wallis’ Health, Safety, Environment, Quality and Training Advisor.

By her own admission, Holschuh says females “don’t stay long”, maybe only one to three years, before drifting away as other priorities arise.

“The work on a drill rig is not too hard,” she says.

“There is no reason why females can’t do it. Most females just wouldn’t want to do

it because it’s dirty work — you will get covered in mud every day.

“There is still a bit of stigma that you’ll have to handle 100kg rods but that is far from the truth these days, it just doesn’t happen.

“There are quite a few old-time miners out there who are 60 years old and have spent 40 years in the industry. You won’t find that with females, the priorities are just different.

A lot of people get into it to earn the money and at some point it just changes.”

Holschuh started as a driller’s offsider after realising she wasn’t going anywhere in seasonal work in the Wheatbelt.

In 2007, with the choice of becoming a field technician or driller’s offsider, the call came for drilling and she’s never looked back, lured by the rosters and better pay packet.

At the time, new qualifications came into play and while she was not the first female driller in the country, she was the first to complete the new skillset when the industry reinvented the qualification.

She started on Murrin Murrin between Laverton and Leonora and has since been all over the country.

Holschuh would recommend the job to anyone but understands that it’s not for everyone, with only 1-2 per cent of workers in the field female.

“The next step was being the leading hand and supervisor, then this job came along. For me there was a continuous progression.”

Up for adventure Wallis’s International Drilling and Commercial Manager Bella Luntungan has been in the mining industry for about 15 years, including the last five in drilling.

While her background is in accounting, Luntungan says she doesn’t like “sitting in

“ If you are a woman on a minesite you are probably one of a hundred men”

South Africa, often as the only female.

“It can be uncomfortable without enough facilities and staying in dongas. Some women don’t care about these things, they just want to go and have an adventure, have a look at things, what’s done in the field. Some women are not really up for it,” she says.

“It is very enchanting in terms of the operations because most of them are very remote and you cannot rely on people in Perth because of the time difference. You learn to be very self-sufficient, which is a really important quality in anyone. Relying on people could be a killer in Africa, you have to learn how to fix most things yourself.”

Luntungan says she was once the only female in the entire team in East Africa, which included 50 expats, and 300 Africans. It was great though — she got an apartment to herself.

She does however, wish there were more women on mine sites.

“What I find is the perception when a woman is at the mine site, and this is not just a few years or decades ago, people automatically think she’s the flight booking lady,” she says.

“It’s getting better now, we have a female mining manager but it’s still male dominated.

If you are a woman on a minesite you are probably one of a hundred men.”

Luntungan encourages women to give it a try and be up front if they want to work in the industry but are holding back because of family commitments.

“We encourage them to say why they wouldn’t do the job or why they wouldn’t apply for these jobs. Maybe it’s hard to have a family if you are four weeks on site, but this is something I’d like to hear because arrangements can be made, we can be flexible,” she says.

Where’s Wallis?

Rio Tinto Iron Ore Pilbara projects

BHP Iron Ore Pilbara projects

Murrin Murrin-Glencore Nickel Mining Services

IGO, Independence Newsearch WA Exploration projects

Alcoa “The opportunities I had were the same as for anyone else where you start off doing the hard yards, getting dirty and all that sort of stuff.

I enjoyed it, which is why I stuck by and then at some point the opportunity came up to start learning the equipment and operating. I took that on and had fun doing that too,” she says.

an office looking at the dollars we make”, preferring to get onsite and find out how those numbers are generated.

Now overseeing the operational management of Wallis’s international business, Luntungan has found herself on sites throughout Africa including Tanzania, Zambia, Kenya and

WA Exploration - Bauxite

Rio Tinto Zambia Exploration projects

Anglo American Zambia Exploration projects

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 55

Tianqi’s Kwinana Lithium plant construction site showing the administration complex in the foreground.

Energy

How to build a

LITHIUM PROCESSING HUB Moves are afoot in government and industry to orchestrate a bigger role for WA in the global battery supply chain, writes Stephen Bell

N

ext autumn a cargo ship will sail out of Fremantle carrying a valuable container of chemicals — about nine tonnes of high purity lithium hydroxide. The commercial value is likely to be significant as lithium hydroxide has rapidly become the chemical of choice in Asia’s fastgrowing industry dedicated to making electric vehicle (EV) batteries.

But the shipment will also have a high strategic worth, encapsulating WA’s hopes of becoming a global force in battery materials.

And, according to devotees of the idea that WA is poised to become a high-tech lithium hub, one day that same ship could be transporting WA-made batteries for the world.

It is an intoxicating vision, and one that has gained plenty of traction since 2016 when China’s Tianqi chose Kwinana as the location for the world’s biggest lithium hydroxide facility.

But how realistic is the idea that WA can move quickly to making Li-ion batteries, or their components, destined for the EVs of Asia, Europe and North America? It is a multi-billion dollar question, and one now being debated regularly in the boardrooms of industry and the halls of WA government.

Given the state’s extensive and high-quality lithium reserves, a skilled workforce and the ready availability of power and chemicals, WA seems to be in the box seat to create a

56 WA WORKS Spring 2018

significant processing hub. But care needs to be taken to separate battery facts from the hype, according to a several heavyweights from industry and government.

One of these is Tianqi Australia General Manager Phil Thick, who believes WA has to “crawl before we walk” on processing battery minerals.

“Currently we are not even producing any processed lithium hydroxide or carbonate,” Thick reminded a recent Cannings Purple battery minerals forum.

“It is a great opportunity, but we’re all talking a lot about battery production now and that is a lot of steps down the chain.”

Nevertheless, there was undoubtedly potential to move further downstream, given the “very strong” desire among end users to have a supply of battery products from somewhere else than China, Thick said. “We are certainly in a strong position both geographically and on the timeline to take great advantage of that.”

Hype versus facts Meanwhile, Mines and Petroleum Minister Bill Johnston said he was “not interested in hype” in investigating the opportunities for downstream processing via the current State Government lithium taskforce.

“People in other states are talking about battery factories,” he told reporters on the >

Energy

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 57 Tianqi’s Kwinana Lithium plant construction site showing the administration complex in the foreground.

Energy > sideline of a recent meeting of the CCI-supported Lithium and Energy Materials Industry Consortium.

“If you set up a battery factory anywhere in Australia, you’d have to import every single component that went into the battery,” Johnston said.

“That’s the reason we have the taskforce — to make sure we that we can have a genuine policy response to these opportunities. There are immense opportunities, but they will only come to fruition if we have a proper business case.”

The lithium taskforce is expected to report its initial findings by November.

The WA Government is also backing a bid to locate the Federal Government’s $50 million Future Batteries Industries Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) in Perth. The Federal Government is expected to make a final decision on the location in March.

Global consultancy McKinsey, which has been a close follower of the EV revolution, recently spent six weeks studying the battery market and the ability of WA tap into it.

Based on EV growth, lithium demand is forecast to “grow at least triple to quadruple” in the next eight years, said Prabhav Sharma, a Perth partner and industry analyst for McKinsey.

And the supply of lithium hydroxide, the chemical of choice for the new long-range NMC 811 batteries, would fall short of demand, based on existing, upcoming and announced capacity, he said.

“Based on these insights, we imagine a vision in which Western Australia is a world leader in ore mining and processing at least,” he said.

The vision would require substantial research and development and talented engineers to populate the companies created. Government and industry also needed to establish what incentives would be required to attract investment.

“For the financials, how can you separate facts from the hype and encourage purposeful investment to help encourage this market with adequate and cheap capital?”

To become a world leading lithium hydroxide hub, processing capacity would need to be built fast enough to prevent customers from switching to lithium carbonate, another common battery chemical, Sharma said.

Bring in the Feds (and the nickel) WA Governor Kim Beazley, meanwhile, is enthused about the leading role WA could play in the rise of EVs. “We are likely to see WA form a key part of this equation in global politics, due to the strategic value of lithium and the security of supplies we offer,” he told the Consortium meeting.

Already there was plenty of global money flowing into WA to kick-start the value-adding push. Three of the world’s biggest producers of lithium products — China’s Tianqi,

58 WA WORKS Spring 2018

Albemarle of the US, and Chile’s SQM were either building, or considering, downstream processing of lithium ore in WA, Beazley said.

“These companies’ planned investments in WA is over $2 billion with an operational workforce of nearly 900,” he said. “The potential is to develop further downstream processing for further steps down the lithium value chain.”

However, Beazley said WA needed the active engagement of the Federal Government to fully realise the opportunities. “We need to capture their imagination,” he said.

“It is the national taxation regime which suppresses or incentivises research, development and production. A current review of R&D tax incentives provides an opportunity to address widely-recognised shortfalls. Otherwise we risk a continuance of local innovation and industry moving overseas. The Commonwealth needs to consider us a partner in this opportunity.”

Tianqi’s Thick, meanwhile, believes it is important for WA to engage more with end users in formulating the state’s downstream plans. “For us to sit here in isolation and say, ‘We can make batteries for the world’, well, does the world want those batteries?

“Why would BMW want to build a car

battery manufacturing plant in Perth when they could build it in Germany next to their (car) production plant?”

Nonetheless, Thick is optimistic about the long-term prospects for advancing the industry.

“Combining materials here for (battery) precursors is definitely a possibility further down the track,” he told WA Works.

There are several metals widely produced in WA which are critical in most modern EV battery types, including lithium, nickel and cobalt.

BHP recently produced the first high-purity nickel/cobalt sulphate from a pilot plant in a CSIRO laboratory in Perth and is starting construction of a $58m commercial nickel sulphate plant — located just down the road from Tianqi’s new Kwinana plant.

It would not be surprising if WA’s next downstream step involves combining BHP’s nickel sulphate with Tianqi’s lithium hydroxide to manufacture battery precursor materials.

If it does happen, that elusive high-tech battery hub will inch one step closer.

CCI and the Chamber of Minerals and Energy are preparing a comprehensive study on the viability of producing batteries in WA, due for release in October.

“There are several metals widely produced in WA which are critical in most modern EV battery types, including lithium, nickel and cobalt”

Energy

Duck season for energy market Energy Minister Ben Wyatt is juggling many balls, and a few ducks, as he tries to reform electricity networks

By Stephen Bell

T

here’s no ducking it. WA’s electricity market is headed into a period of rapid and overwhelming change as it copes with an influx of renewables — and regulators are playing catch-up.

But Energy Minister Ben Wyatt has a few plans up his sleeve that should provide good news for consumers, gas producers, renewable energy providers and power companies looking to get onto the grid.

One of his immediate challenges is to manage the rapid-fire incursion of household solar panels into the state’s electricity system.

Wyatt told the Energy for the Future conference that more than a quarter of WA households had installed a rooftop system, a number growing daily, while photovoltaic (PV) installations on commercial premises were “also gathering steam”.

“Counted together, rooftop solar and PV now accounts for the single largest generator on the South West Interconnected System (SWIS),” he said. “These trends toward decentralised and renewable energy sources, along with smarter energy systems, are only likely to

accelerate, regardless of government policy.”

The stresses on power generators has got the ducks quacking. More specifically, the increasing penetration of rooftop solar generation on the SWIS is affecting the daily demand profile, in the shape of a ‘duck curve’, which points to an increasing dip in demand in the middle of the day.

“We can all bicker about how the duck curve will look in terms of its actual belly and head, but we all accept that there will be a duck of some shape or another,” Wyatt said.

“As demand from the grid continues to fall in the middle of the day when the sun is shining our coal-fired generators are facing the situation where they are required to ramp down or even turn off more often,” he said.

“This increases wear and tear on the generators, and — along with the need for more expensive, fast-ramping generation to meet peak demand as the sun sets in the afternoon — is increasing costs to customers.

“Similarly, large-scale intermittent generators need to be supported by flexible, dispatchable energy supplies, such as gas plants, and new technologies such as energy storage.”

As the state’s coal-fired power stations near

the end of their lives, we “need to plan what we’ll replace them with and when,” Wyatt said. “And we need to deliver these objectives in a way that minimises the cost burden to the state.”

The other side of the coin is trying to minimise the impact on the Collie coal mining community.

While changes to the energy sector would create exciting job opportunities via lithium battery metals, mining equipment, technology and services, it also presented challenges, the Minister said.

“Coal generation and the Collie community have played a central role in the supply of electricity to Western Australians over many decades,” he said. “With a total capacity of over 1600MW, power stations in and near Collie generate approximately half of the state’s electricity. This Government is committed to supporting workers in Collie and that broader community through this transition.”

Earlier this year the McGowan Government established a ministerial steering committee to oversee the design of an economic development plan for the Collie and Bunbury regions.

“We must provide the clarity that workers in our coal fields and power stations deserve in identifying some of the opportunities emerging in the sector.”

Meanwhile, Wyatt addressed the problems faced by proponents of new electricity generation projects being unable to connect to the grid, without facing prohibitively expensive costs.

While the network was fully booked in some places, it was nowhere near fully used, he said.

(See WA Works winter edition, “Western Power to the people”) “These connection costs are affecting the viability of our electricity generators,” Wyatt said.

“With the changing patterns of customer demand from the network, the unconstrained access framework also drives inefficient network investment, which increases costs for customers.

“Work is underway as a priority to develop and legislate a new constrained access framework for Western Power’s network, to promote further competition in the wholesale electricity market, and to make it easier and cheaper for new energy projects to secure access to the network.”

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 59

Energy

Big power companies looking to invest in WA remain locked out of the smaller end of the electricity market

By Stephen Bell

H

aving just traded through another winter of steep power bills, small businesses with electricity consumption sitting in the non-contestable range are probably hoping for a quick fix.

But the long-discussed remedy — full retail contestability (FRC) — looks as far away as ever, according to a panel of experts at the recent Energy for the Future conference held in Perth.

“This Government doesn’t seem that keen on FRC — certainly not in the foreseeable future,” WA Independent Power Association Chairman Richard Harris said.

WA, while deregulating the retail gas market in 2004, has restrictions in the retail electricity market which means most residential customers and small businesses cannot choose their supplier of choice.

The previous Liberal-National Government said it would open up the residential and small business electricity market to FRC from July 2019.

In 2017 Labor Energy Minister Ben Wyatt said he favoured more competition for WA households and SMEs, but earlier this year the McGowan Government backed off from the potential changes.

If the market was opened to new commercial players, such as AGL and Origin Energy, home owners and small businesses would be able to choose their electricity providers, much like they already can for gas.

Harris pointed out that that WA hadn’t seen any “movement” on the contestability threshold in electricity since 2005.

“I would like to start at least pushing the

60 WA WORKS Spring 2018

boundaries,” he said. “If you opened it up to all small businesses, for example, there are more than 25,000 customers who quickly could access contestability. Those who have been in a contestable market in electricity, the customers have benefited — they’ve had deals in the order of 20 per cent cuts in their cost of electricity.”

Victoria was the earliest state to embrace deregulation of its electricity supply and introduced FRC in 2002.

Another panellist, Alinta Energy CEO Jeff Dimery, didn’t see FRC at the retail level being introduced in WA “any time soon”.

“We’ve given up in many respects of trying to drive the politics of FRC,” he said.

Government-owned utility that has a monopoly on supplying electricity to households, is also pruning costs. “We view our role at Synergy, quite naturally, as to become as good as what we do, with or without FRC,” he said.

“Exactly like Jeff’s comment in regards to his ambitions for Alinta, we at Synergy are trying to become more cost competitive — we’ve reduced our cost structure significantly, become more innovative, fit and competition ready.

“Ultimately it’s a decision for Government and, when that moment happens, we’ll be ready to roll. But up until then, we’ve got a job to do, which is to deliver cost effective and reliable electricity.”

Waters and the other panellists were speaking on eve of the snap Liberal Party ballot in Canberra that delivered Scott Morrison as the new Prime Minister after Malcolm Turnbull quit.

Liberal party conservatives’ dissatisfaction with Turnbull’s National Energy Guarantee was seen as a key motivation for the leadership spill. Several panellists saw ongoing political instability as the major hurdle in creating a sensible national energy policy — one that would encourage new investment and offer low cost, reliable electricity supplies to consumers.

Waters said participants in Australia’s electricity market needed to have a “facts-based” conversation about transitioning it to a greater reliance on renewables.

“You only have to listen to the 30-second sound bites through which we’ve had energy and climate policy debate in Australia to appreciate the diversion from strong factual analysis to the opinions that have framed so much of the education that shapes people’s views, and therefore the lack of trust in outcomes the market has delivered,” Waters said.

Alinta’s Dimery said the uncertain policy

“Why would you stop Western Australians from getting access to the lowest cost electricity supply” Instead, Alinta was working hard to shave costs from its business. The company aimed to ensure its cost of energy production was the lowest in the market, while introducing digital platforms to meet customer demands.

“Then, ultimately, being able to turn around and say, ‘Why would you stop Western Australians from getting access to the lowest cost electricity supply in the marketplace?’”

“We are not after subsidies — we’ll be at a level where subsidies are just not required and then, let’s open the market and let’s go,” Dimery said.

Jason Waters, CEO of Synergy, the State

environment was taking its toll on energy investment Australia-wide.

“WA needs certainty in how emissions are going to be treated,” he said. “There needs to be a national approach to emissions reduction — the current policy environment is definitely impacting on investment,” Dimery said “Confidence is needed to make significant and long-term investment decisions. A stable, national and, dare I say, bipartisan energy and renewable policy environment is required.”

Alinta is seeking to increase its penetration in the WA electricity market via its proposed $600m Yandin wind farm project in the Mid-West.

Energy

WA good to H2 go Tapping into the hydrogen economy will need a well coordinated approach, writes Justin Ashley

A

bout 350 energy nerds flocked to State Government’s Renewable Hydrogen Conference on August 31. It was the unofficial culmination of a recent flurry of hydrogen-related activity, including the release of Australian Chief Scientist Alan Finkel’s Hydrogen for Australia’s future briefing to the COAG Energy Council and the CSIRO’s National Hydrogen Roadmap for Australia report.

Guest speakers presented on topics ranging from the latest hydrogen vehicle developments to international policy frameworks for activating the hydrogen economy.

It’s not just the policy wonks and science boffins taking a long hard look at hydrogen, industry is getting in on the action too: • In WA, Yara Pilbara has announced a pilot project to make renewable ammonia based on hydrogen produced from solar electrolysis.

• Woodside

has signalled its intention to develop export markets for hydrogen derived from both natural gas and renewable sources.

• ATCO

Australia, with assistance from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, is developing a $3.3 million research and development project in Jandakot to produce renewable hydrogen from on-site solar.

• Various

demonstration and pilot plants are in development throughout Victoria, South Australia and Queensland • Multiple

research initiatives are also underway including the CSIRO’s Hydrogen Energy Systems Future Science Platform focusing on opportunities for innovation throughout the hydrogen energy value chain.

While South Korea and Japan are way ahead of Australia in terms of government policies and initiatives for activating the hydrogen economy, these countries also

present a massive opportunity for WA players looking to tap into hydrogen export markets.

The South Korean government has a US$2.3 billion public-private investment plan to accelerate the development of hydrogen fuel cell infrastructure, manufacturing capabilities and technology.

As part of this plan, South Korea has set a target of having 9000 hydrogen-powered vehicles on the road by 2020, with the potential for as many as 630,000 by 2030. This target is underpinned by subsidies covering a third of the price of a new hydrogen vehicle.

“These countries present a massive opportunity for WA players looking to tap into hydrogen export markets” Japan is even more ambitious with its hydrogen energy roadmap that is aiming to develop a CO2-free international hydrogen fuel chain, large-scale hydrogen power generation capacity, three million residential hydrogen fuel cells, as well as 800,000 fuel cell vehicles on the road by 2030.

In the short term, Japan is planning to deploy 40,000 fuel cell cars, 100 buses, 160 hydrogen refuelling stations and 1.4 million

residential fuel cells in preparation for the 2020 Tokyo Olympic Games.

With all this activity going on, it seems like the idea of hydrogen is certainly going to be the next big thing, right?

I’ll hedge my bets and say: maybe and maybe not. Having been in development since the early 1970s, hydrogen technology has faced multiple technological and economic barriers that have prevented it from becoming a mainstream energy source.

There was a lot of interest in the US during the mid-2000s under the Bush administration, but this dropped off when the price of oil tanked around the time of the GFC. Since then, electric vehicles have hogged the spotlight.

However, there is a sense that many of these historical barriers are being overcome as the underlying technology becomes more refined and costs come down. The dramatic drop in the cost of solar power generation has also helped the cause, as the use of renewable energy for hydrogen production through electrolysis addresses concerns around carbon emissions.

While Australia’s approach to hydrogen has previously been fragmented and uncoordinated, it appears that this is changing.

Australia could have a hydrogen policy framework in the near future as the COAG Energy Council, after receiving advice from the Chief Scientist, requested a proposal for the development of a national hydrogen strategy by December 2018.

The State Government has jumped on the hydrogen policy train too, with Premier Mark McGowan and Regional Development Minister Alannah McTiernan announcing the formation of the Renewable Hydrogen Council to support the development of a renewable hydrogen industry in WA. As long as the Federal and State Government, as well as industry and research institutions are coordinated and cooperating on this, there is plenty of potential for hydrogen to take off.

Justin Ashley is the Energy Policy Advisor at CCI.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 61

Major Resource Projects

Mutineer Fletcher Exeter Finucane Lambert Deep Persephone Athena Eaglehawk Hermes Lambert Searipple Angel Egret Capella Thebe Cossack Perseus Wanaea Ajax Forestier North Rankin Montague Gaea Chandon Goodwyn S/Pueblo Goodwyn Hurricane Keast Tidepole Yellowglen Rankin/Sculptor Dockrell Urania Dixon/W.Dixon Wheatstone Sage Jansz Pemberton Pluto Iago Geryon Reindeer Saffron Io South Toporoa Eurytion Scarborough Gnu Xena Winchester Wilcox Brunello Caribou Corvus Chrysaor/Dionysus Balnaves Bravo Briseis Maenad Orthrus Julimar Wandoo See Glencoe Orthrus/ Maenad Acme Tusk West Tryal Rocks Barrow Island Achilles Nimblefoot Oryx Stag Clio enlargement John Clio South Gorgon The Grafter Chamois Brookes Clio North Satyr Yara Pilbara Fertilisers NWSV LNG Rosella Davis Mentorc Pluto LNG Yara Pilbara Nitrates Chester Rosella North Anketell Dampier Spar Dampier Salt Halyard Maitland Cape Preston Cape Lambert Bianchi Cape Preston East Zola Maitland River Devil Creek Gas Antiope Radio Hill Tallaganda Pasco Whundo Zn Cu Bunyip Sino Iron Flinders Shoal Balmoral South

North West Shelf

Ferrand

Exmouth

0

50

100

Kilometres

14 Dorado

SOD

Oil

PROPOSED -19.0336 118.7338WA-437-P Quadrant

Dorado 1

Excellent

Quadrant

R Bruce 23/8/18

Project labels:

Projects operating or currently under development with an actual or anticipated value of production greater than A$10 Million are shown in blue Proposed or potential projects with a capital expenditure greater than A$20 Million are shown in red Mineral Projects under care and maintenance and petroleum fields that are shut-in are shown in purple Concerto/Ichthys Mimia Pharos Cornea Ichthys West Echuca Shoals Ichthys Prelude Torosa

Brecknock Calliance

0

Bambra Ulidia Wonnich Deep Linda Lee Bambra East Rose Harriet Monty North Alkimos Josephine Baker Ginger Agincourt South Plato Simpson Barrow I Little Sandy Double Island Pedirka Victoria Gorgon LNG Denver 1 Barrow Island West Cycad Narvik

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

Ord Stage 1 !

KUNUNURRA

Thunderbird Yulleroo

Broome

Ord River Hydro Energy Speewah V Ti Fe Speewah Fl Smoke Creek Matsu Argyle

Point Torment Lloyd Boundary Blina

Derby

Browse LNG Precinct

Savannah North Savannah McIntosh Gr Copernicus Panton Pt Pd

Sundown

Ungani Valhalla–Asgard Valhalla Duchess–Paradise

Paulsens

Dmd

Turtle

Cockatoo Island Irvine Island Koolan Island

10 Wonnich

Koongie Park Zn Cu Pb Lamboo Kapok West Pb Zn Ag

Port Hedland

!

HALLS CREEK Brockman REE Nb Zr

Browns Range REE

Admiral Bay Zn Pb

Commodities

Precious mineral

Blacktip

Cape Bougainville

Gwydion

Sorby Hills Pb Zn Cu Ord Stage 2

km Spartan

Rough Range

Shark Bay Salt

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

Yeneena Cu

Maroochydore Cu Co Kintyre Lake Mackay K

Nicholas Downs Mn Lake Disappointment K

See Pilbara enlargement

Yangibana REE

Ilgarari Cu

Butcherbird Mn

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 Peak Hill DeGrussa Monty Cu Au Cu Au Jack Hills Andy Well Matilda Jundee–Nimary Paroo Station Pb Wiluna Central Murchison Wiluna/Toro Wiluna West Weld Range Honeymoon Well Reedys Gabanintha V Ti Fe Yeelirrie Cue JV – Hollandaire Cu Au Ag Mt Keith Gidgee Cliffs Big Bell Barrambie Bronzewing Yakabindie V Ti Fe Comet

Balline Grt

Yogi Mag

Succoth Cu PGE West Musgrave

Wingellina

Tollu Cu

Lake Wells / Salt Lake Potash Lake Wells / Australian Potash

Dalgaranga Mt Magnet

Gruyere

Windimurra V Fe Kirkalocka

Geraldton

Cyclone

Coal and lignite Uranium Industrial mineral Processing plant

Tropicana

Mulga Rock

Petroleum symbols

Gas field Oil field Oil and gas field Significant gas discovery Significant oil discovery Significant oil and gas discovery Processing plant Oil / gas pipeline, operating Oil / gas pipeline, proposed

Infrastructure

Power plant Irrigation / water / desalination Port

Edna May Collgar wind

PERTH Fremantle

62 WA WORKS Spring 2018

EUCLA !

Nova–Bollinger !

Tampia See Goldfields Wickepin Kln enlargement

Bunbury

Cosmic Boy Concentrator Salmon Gums

Katanning Mt Cattlin Li Ta Great Southern Au Cu

See South West / Mid West Coastal enlargement

Enquiries for latest information for Commonwealth controlled waters is available from the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator (NOPTA) at <info@nopta.gov.au>

Tern

Wyndham

Phoenix South Roc Dorado

Mineral symbols

Petrel Frigate

Zephyros

Barrow Island

Announced 7/2018

Ag........... Silver Au........... Gold Kentish Knock Brederode Co........... Cobalt Eendracht Cu........... Copper Dmd........ Diamond Fe........... Iron Fl............ Fluorite Gp........... Gypsum Gr............ Graphite Grt........... Garnet K............. Potassium Kln.......... Kaolin Li............. Lithium LNG........ Liquefied natural gas Mag......... Magnetite See North West Shelf Mn.......... Manganese enlargement Nb........... Niobium Ni............ Nickel Pb........... Lead Pd........... Palladium PGE........ Platinum group elements Pt............ Platinum Cape Cuvier Lake MacLeod Gp REE........ Rare earth elements Lake MacLeod Salt Ta............ Tantalum CARNARVON !

Ti............ Titanium V............. Vandium W............ Tungsten Zn........... Zinc Zr............ Zirconium

Prometheus

Argus

Mardie

Rivoli

Cape Range Lst

Laminaria East

Mardie Salt

Ramillies South Chervil Coniston Nasutus Taunton Nimrod Novara Wildbull Cyrano Tanglehead Australind Van Gogh Cadell Stickle Corowa Vincent Moondyne Stybarrow Pyrenees Outtrim Ashburton North Laverda Blencathra Onslow Macedon Enfield Coaster Crosby Onslow Salt Scafell Ravensworth Wheatstone LNG Leatherback Macedon Gas Tubridgi Gas Storage

Toro

August 2018

Southdown

Albany & Grasmere wind

Albany

Scaddan Ravensthorpe

Esperance

0

100

200

Kilometres

300

400

Major Resource Projects Gnu Reindeer Corvus Caribou Wandoo Tusk Oryx Stag Chamois

Ridley

Port Hedland

Yara Pilbara Fertilisers NWSV LNG Pluto LNG Cape Lambert Yara Pilbara Nitrates Anketell Dampier Cape Lambert Dampier Salt Cape Preston Sherlock Bay Cape Preston East Maitland River Devil Creek Gas Radio Hill Sino Iron

August 2018

Port Hedland Salt

Precious metal

Speciality metal

Ti–Zr (or as shown)

Base metal Iron Alumina

All sites are bauxite

Corunna Downs

Mt Webber

McPhee Creek

PANNAWONICA

Mulga Downs

Brockman 4

Paulsens

Cloud Break

TOM PRICE

Marillana Extension Nyidinghu Yandi/BHPB Iron Valley Yandicoogina/HI Hope Downs 1 Mining Area C Jinidi South Flank Rhodes Ridge

Marandoo

!

Tom Price

Rocklea CID Hardey

50

100

Kilometres

Prairie Downs Zn Pb Ag

Mineral separation Geraldton brick Narngulu synthetic rutile Greenough River solar Alinta–Walkaway wind Mumbida wind

Proposed or potential projects with a capital expenditure greater than A$20 Million are shown in red Shine Golden Dragon

Karara Mag

Oxley K

Mt Mulgine W

See Dongara enlargement Cliff Head Xanadu

Three Springs Tlc

Extension Hill Mag

Eneabba/Iluka

Senecio Waitsia Centauri 1 Xyris Xyris South Eremia Hovea Apium Jingemia Evandra

Warro Dandaragan K Phos Moora Silica Waddi wind Cataby

Dongara 0

Yandin wind

km

Boonanarring

Gingin West Red Gully

100

Darlot

Lawlers Agnew–Emu

Vivien

Malaga brick

PERTH Fremantle

!

Bentley Zn Pb Cu

Mondarra Gas Storage

King of the Hills

Mt Forrest

Leonora/Kin

Cashmere Downs

G Bunbury

!

Burtville Mt Weld Phos Mt Weld REE

NiWest Wallaby Murrin South Murrin Murrin

Mt Mason

Sunrise Dam Red October Fortitude Second Fortune

Ulysses

Mt Ida

Deep South Wandoo Lake Giles

Deception Windarling

Meckering Kln Mt Jackson

Willowdale

Highway Davyhurst

Marda Sandy Ridge Kln

Goongarrie Scotia Aphrodite Siberia Kalgoorlie North Ora Banda

Karari Lindsays Silver Swan

Pinnacles

Paddington

Kanowna Belle Kundana Bombora – Lake Roe KALGOORLIE–BOULDER Superpit Frogs Leg !

Nimbus–Boorara Ag Au Zn White Foil Nickel smelter Blair COOLGARDIE !

Coolgardie South Kal Mt Monger Bullabulling Aldiss Burbanks Randalls Carnilya Hill Mt Marion Li Ta Nepean Long–Victor Nickel concentrator St Ives Castle Hill

Athena

Boddington Au Cu Marradong

Cristal mineral separation

LEONORA

Sons of Gwalia Mt Bevan

Armadale brick Cardup brick Koolyanobbing

! SOUTHERN CROSS Marvel Loch

Saddleback

Kemerton Sisd Titanium pigment Worsley Alumina Collie Bluewaters 1–2 Premier Ewington Doral mineral separation

Capel North synthetic rutile Wonnerup Wonnerup North Wonnerup South Tutunup Tutunup South Yoongarillup 100 Whicher Range Ta

Windarra Murrin North Mt Morgans

Calingiri Cu Mo Ag Au

Keysbrook Huntly Pinjarra Alumina

Southern Seawater desalination Lithium hydroxide Silicon smelter Chlor alkali

Ben Hur – Epsilon

Irwin Synaphea

Caversham tile Middle Swan brick Midland brick Airport brick

Wagerup Alumina

Garden Well & Rosemont

Thunderbox

Chandala mineral separation and synthetic rutile NORTHAM !

Felicitas Dana Kln Fortuna

Neerabup/Newgen

Moolart Well

Rosie

Leinster

Kilometres

Tarantula Dongara Redback Beharra Springs

5

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

50

Odysseus–Cosmos

!

Emu Downs wind and solar Atlas Cooljarloo/Tronox

Kwinana–Rockingham

0

Goldfields

Iron Hill

Dongara

Warradarge wind

Kilometres

Magnetite Range

Eneabba/Sheffield

JURIEN BAY !

Badgingarra wind

Mineral Projects under care and maintenance and petroleum fields that are shut-in are shown in purple

Mungada East Extension

Irwin River

Corybas

Enquiries for latest information for Commonwealth controlled waters is available from the National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator (NOPTA) at <info@nopta.gov.au>

Karlawinda

Projects operating or currently under development with an actual or anticipated value of production greater than A$10 Million are shown in blue

Deflector Au Cu Ag Golden Grove Cu Zn Pb

Oakajee

Geraldton

Power plant Irrigation / water / desalination Port

Project labels:

South West / Mid West Coastal

50

Infrastructure

Ophthalmia Wonmunna Hope Downs 4 West Angelas 31 24–25 Wheelarra JV Giles Mini Mt Whaleback !

Davidson Creek NEWMAN 35 17–18 Jimblebar Robertson Range

PARABURDOO Turee Syncline !

Western Range Eastern Range Paraburdoo Channar

Pilbara

0

Christmas Creek Roy Hill

Koodaideri

Beasley River

0

Mesa – Ant Hill Mn

Kings

Western Turner Syncline

Gas field Oil field Oil and gas field Significant oil discovery Processing plant Oil / gas pipeline, operating Oil / gas pipeline, proposed

Nullagine CID

Investigator

Nammuldi Eliwana

Petroleum symbols

Nullagine Weelumurra Firetail

PIOP/Flinders Serenity Homestead Silvergrass

West Pilbara

Coal and lignite Industrial mineral Processing plant

Big Hill W

!

Middle Robe Mesas Mesa J Mesa A – Warramboo

Bungaroo South

Ni (or as shown)

Miralga Creek Pilgangoora Li Ta Sulphur Springs Zn Cu Pb ! MARBLE BAR Iron Bridge Mag

Li Ta Wodgina Li

Caliwingina

Steel alloy metal

Spinifex Ridge Mo Cu

Whim Creek Cu

Mardie Salt

Bungaroo Creek

Ag........... Silver Au........... Gold Cu........... Copper Fe........... Iron K............. Potassium Kln.......... Kaolin Li............. Lithium LNG........ Liquefied natural gas LPG........ Liquefied petroleum gas Lst.......... Limestone Mag........ Magnetite Mn.......... Manganese Mo.......... Molybdenum Ni............ Nickel Pb........... Lead Phos....... Phosphate REE........ Rare earth elements Sisd....... Silica sand Ta............ Tantalum Ti............ Titanium Tlc........... Talc V............. Vandium W............ Tungsten Zn........... Zinc Zr............ Zirconium

Au (or as shown)

Whundo Zn Cu

Balmoral South

Commodities

Mineral symbols

Balla Balla Salt Creek Zn Cu Pb Balla Balla Fe V Ti

Widiemootha

Nevoria

Mariners

Bald Hill Li Ta

Polar Bear

Earl Grey Li Greenbushes Li Ta

Lanfranchi Miitel

Mt Thirsty Lake Johnston

Flat Rock wind New Morning

Flying Fox Spotted Quoll

!

NORSEMAN Mt Henry

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 63

Done and dusted

Federal backing for Thunderbird Sheffield Resources’ Thunderbird mineral sands project in the Kimberley is on firmer footing after the company secured a $95 million loan from the Federal Government’s Northern Australia Infrastructure Facility (NAIF).

Perth-based Sheffield says the NAIF facilities will enable Sheffield to construct on-site LNG power generation and accommodation facilities at Thunderbird, while allowing the revitalisation of ship loading and logistics assets at the Port of Derby.

“We are extremely pleased with the level of support shown by NAIF and the Federal Government,” says Managing Director Bruce McFadzean.

He says the loan is a “significant milestone for Thunderbird and will underpin many hundreds of jobs in the Kimberley region over several decades”.

While the NAIF Facilities won’t reduce total funding requirements for the $350m project, the proposed structure will allow Sheffield to own the asset infrastructure and should also reduce forecast operating costs, McFadzean says.

Sheffield plans to arrange project funding and begin construction of Thunderbird — WA’s first major mineral sands mine in many years — in the fourth quarter.

GR Engineering was named as preferred tenderer in October last year for the engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) of the mineral processing plant.

Premier Mark McGowan officiated at the opening of Sheffield’s Derby office in July.

Meanwhile, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia Matt Canavan says the loan is great news for workers because the mine will provide “intergenerational opportunities for the area, particularly the towns of Derby and Broome”.

“That’s what the NAIF is all about – providing the right financial support to get new opportunities in Northern Australia off the ground.

64 WA WORKS Spring 2018

Perth company goes well with Shell

D

ecmil will continue brownfield works at Shell’s QGC coal seam gas operations in Queensland after winning a $150 million contract extension.

Perth-based Decmil says the job, which includes options to extend for up to two years beyond the initial three-year term, begins in November.

It includes provision of construction activities, logistics and maintenance services across several QGC upstream projects in the Surat Basin.

Decmil has been working with QGC in the Surat Basin for more than seven years providing services such as the installation of wellheads and various brownfield maintenance activities.

“This extension builds on the strong

relationship we have with QGC and we are pleased to continue to support their upstream operations,” says Decmil CEO Scott Criddle.

“Decmil has an established capability and reputation in upstream CSG and we are expecting increased activity in the sector and our Queensland business unit over the next few years,” he says.

Shell is the operator and majority interest holder in the QGC venture, which produces natural gas from coal seams in Queensland.

QGC’s operations include more than 2600 production wells, 24 field compression stations, six central processing plants, two water treatment plants and a two-train LNG export facility on Curtis Island.

BGC Contracting hires former Probuild chief Industry veteran Mark Angove will lead BGC Contracting’s construction business as its new Chief Operating Officer.

Angove has more than 25 years’ experience in the construction industry, most recently as Fulton Hogan’s Operations Manager, overseeing the contractor’s civil construction business in South Australia and WA. Prior to that he was managing director for Probuild Civil.

BGC Contracting CEO Greg Heylen says Angove’s leadership experience will contribute to the company’s sustainable growth strategy.

“There has been an increase in resource sector and construction opportunities, particularly in WA, and we look forward to Mark leading our construction business into a sustainable growth phase,” he says.

Former iron ore specialist BGC Contracting recently diversified into east coast infrastructure following the commodities downturn, but retains a presence in WA resources.

Done and dusted

Wood nails Scarborough role Woodside knocks on long time partner’s door to get development underway

W

oodside has appointed its long-term engineering contractor Wood to help execute development plans for the proposed $15 billion Scarborough gas development off the Pilbara coast.

Secured under a long-standing master services agreement, the work will be split between Perth and Houston, Wood says.

The contract extends Wood’s 35-year relationship with Woodside across its asset portfolio, the UK-based contractor says.

Wood has also supported Woodside’s current $2.7b Greater Western Flank (GWF-2) project on the North West Shelf from concept development to execution.

The Scarborough job will include concept definition-level engineering for the floating production unit, subsea umbilicals, risers and flowlines, flow assurance and overall system integration of the upstream development.

“The proposed development of the Scarborough area assets will maximise value and recoverable resource and we are excited to be chosen to work with Woodside on this significant opportunity, demonstrating our trusted relationship and strong track record of consistent, quality delivery,” says Bob MacDonald, CEO of Wood’s Specialist Technical Solutions business.

to spend US$11b ($14.9b) on building Scarborough’s offshore infrastructure, pipeline and additional LNG train at Pluto, near Karratha.

This compared with an initial cost estimate of US$9.7b ($13b) from February when Woodside announced its acquisition of ExxonMobil’s stake in Scarborough alongside the concept of piping the gas to Pluto.

“In May, Woodside increased the forecast cost of Scarborough to about $15 billion” In May, Woodside increased the forecast cost of Scarborough to about $15 billion after boosting the size of a planned bolt-on LNG train at the Pluto facility.

The company told investors it planned

Woodside CEO Peter Coleman has said that market conditions support his strategy for Scarborough, which is due to begin front end engineering design (FEED) late this year and be approved in late 2020.

Impressive retention rate Fast-growing WA indigenous contractor Njamal People Joint Venture (NPJV) has won a workforce excellence award at the recent AMMA Industry Awards in Melbourne.

NPJV scored the Indigenous Employment and Retention gong, sponsored by Newcrest Mining, in recognition of its impressive employee retention rate and successful business model.

The award recognises an organisation that has embraced training and employment initiatives resulting in the successful engagement of indigenous Australians.

NPJV launched in November 2016 and started with only three employees and a plan to introduce a new concept in Native Title contracting.

The company now employs 60 people and has secured more than $15 million in contracts.

It has also helped establish four businesses run by Njamal families with the aim of each company eventually being a stand-alone enterprise.

The Njamal people partnered with Pilbara Resource Group to form NPJV with a focus on training, and a robust management framework to support Indigenous workers to deliver services to WA mining and construction sectors.

NPJV Managing Director Scott Dryland, who travelled to Melbourne alongside Njamal traditional owner Elizabeth Walker to accept the award at AMMA’s Centenary celebration, said it was a significant acknowledgement for the Njamal people and their aspiration to be industry leaders.

AMMA is the national representative for Australia’s resources, energy and supply industry employers.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 65

66 WA WORKS Spring 2018

The BIG Picture Northern Mineralsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; new Browns Range heavy rare earths project in the East Kimberley was opened in July.

Spring 2018 WA WORKS 67

Echidna Tales

A fascinating bush yarn was delivered recently to WA Works’ offices by snail mail, handwritten, no less, by quill pen.

Once the bona fides of The Echidna were established, it was agreed the pointed observations should be shared

I

don’t mind being an Echidna. We might be prickly on

natural environment and distant from we simple creatures. Ego

the outside, but we are soft on the inside. You may not see

is the name of the game and increasing power is the purpose.

us very often, but we do keep our ears close to the ground

And how big does the Possum Service need to be?

and we do know a fair bit about other bush dwellers.

Echidnas don’t have much time for those who are destructive

or deceitful. That is why we eat Termites and White Ants.

As to our friends, they are a mixed lot. For a start there are too many Rabbits and they gossip too much. If you want to start a rumour, just tell a Rabbit.

My best friend in Canberra is a Dingo. He is sly and can walk on both sides of the street. You can never be sure what he really thinks, but he is a survivor. He has dodged the never-ending procession of “reform” as seven Ring Masters have come and gone over the past decade. That is counting the Wombat twice!

The Koalas, who we all like and are as Aussie as it gets,

The Rabbits reckon if Tony had asked Malcolm to be chief

have had enough. They are the mainstream and just want a

counter of the gumnuts, then he still might have his job. And

good quality of life and a future to look forward to. They are

now they reckon if Malcolm had asked Tony to look after the

sick of the Canberra antics, which they see as not being the

Soldier Ants, then he might have got less stress from those

Australian way. My closest Koala friend says …. ‘New Zealand

stuck in the back paddock and he might still have his job.

is looking good’!

As to Scott, they say he is a nice and capable guy. Let’s see!

Closer to home, in WA, we have just had the mother of all

And then there are the Parrots. I guess they are colourful

booms and crashes. That is our history as growth comes in

enough, but they are just too noisy. They think they are the

spurts when you have an export economy. We are now back

only ones in the forest who are endangered and care about the

to more normal times, though that can be a bit boring. There

environment. The old Owl thinks that is noble, but wonders

are some bright spots, just as there are some flat spots. The

why some Parrots are so aggressive. The Owl enjoys a quiet life

risk is that the economy just drifts. Another risk is that we try

and doesn’t like being told what he can or cannot do! He also

to do things that we are not good at. The Owl says: “Bananas

believes in progress and the prosperity that goes with it.

taste good and you can grow them anywhere, but that’s no

Of course, we are all proud Aussies, though don’t assume we haven’t got friends and relatives elsewhere. A Corgi in London

good if they cost too much”.

And then there is the ongoing squabble over government

keeps us up to date on what those overseas boards are doing.

and all of that red tape. It drives hard working animals mad.

Apparently, there isn’t a Blue Heeler in sight!

Echidnas are sympathetic to that, but equally frustrated

And my good friend the Panda tells me that China is not all that happy with us. He says it is the worst things have been for a decade. The last time this happened a Wombat was running the show.

Most of our overseas friends say they haven’t heard much about

want. It seems that for every pack wanting to get rid of a regulation, there is a rival pack wanting to keep it. The restricted hours in which you can spend your hard-earnt gumnuts is just one example.

Some say get rid of the pollies and have independent

Western Australia lately. It is like

regulators. The problem is nothing much is independent these

we have fallen off the map and

days and so-called independent regulators are invisible if

out of the news. The same can

something goes wrong. When that happens, as it often does,

be said for Australia.

Now we do like farm dogs. They work hard and put up with tough times. But why do they pick a fight over every old bone in the yard? They don’t seem to agree on anything, other than their dislike of the Parrots. The Owl says, “If you can’t yap in tune, then no one will hear your bark”.

And then there is Canberra. We call it the Circus. Most of the residents there are outside of their

68 WA WORKS Spring 2018

that so many of the animal clans can’t explain what they

finding the culprit can be like looking for a Budgie in a Snake pit. So, as just one Echidna, there are some tales to tell and some ideas to think about. And yes, there are also some things to worry about, but there is far more to be optimistic and thankful for. Meanwhile, just keep on eating Termites.

THE ECHIDNA, September, 2018 Editor’s Note: These scribbles will fill the void left by the departure of Yelverton, who is on extended leave in the WA outback.

NEWS, PROFILES, MAJOR PROJECTS LIST, OPINION AND MORE

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