ABBOT POINT EXPANSION RUNNING ON TIME
Ports Corporation of Queensland’s (PCQ) Stage 2 expansion project at Abbot Point coal terminal is well on track for completion later this year.
Some coal could be moving out of the newly created terminal area as early as July or August, although much depends on how quickly a new stacker-reclaimer machine can be commissioned.
According to PCQ’s CEO, Brad Fish, work on PCQ’s $116 million Stage 2 project was about half-finished in early February. Bulk earthworks at the coal terminal site ended in November and the construction of concrete foundations and rail beams was about 65% complete by the first week of February. This work is expected to conclude by mid-April, subject to weather.
Mr Fish said several weeks of heavy rain starting from 20 January created some problems for those working on the project. For example, an access road flooded along with parts of the site itself and there was disruption to deliveries of construction material as well as to internal transport on site.
“Although this has inevitably caused some delay to the schedule, PCQ remains optimistic that the impact will not prove too serious.”
The civil contractor for the project has been a joint venture between Civdec and Civmec, while Brisbane headquartered firm Sun Engineering is building the various conveyor and transfer tower sections.
Mr Fish said the main elements of the terminal expansion were a new 1.2-km-long concrete bund (Bund 2), a new yard conveyor and two additional transfer stations to stack and reclaim coal from two new stockpile rows. This will allow the terminal to export 21 million tonnes (mt) of coal a year, compared to 15 mt at present.
In terms of equipment, the “big ticket” item is the new coal stacker-reclaimer, the main parts of which are due to start arriving in March. Most of the machine — a well-tried and tested design — is being built by Voest-Alpine in South Korea. It will be Abbot Point’s third stacker-reclaimer. A specialist engineering team from Voest-Alpine was due to be established at Abbot Point by the end of February.
Mr Fish said the major steel components of the stacker-reclaimer, “the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle”, will be transported from Korea by heavy-lift vessel to Townsville, transferred to a barge and then delivered to the site..
Greg Mallin, PCQ’s highly experienced Project Manager, says while components such as the C-frame, boom and slew deck will be delivered from Korea in the second half of March, the tripper and elevator parts of the machine are being fabricated in Western Australia and are due to arrive earlier. Assembling the components and commissioning the finished machine will keep the engineers busy.
ends
26 February 2007
For further information:
Gary Campbell
Corporate Relations Manager
Ports Corporation of Queensland
Ph: (07) 3224 4346
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