McConnell Dowell is pleased to announce the award of a contract by Port Authority of New South Wales for improvements to the Overseas Passenger Terminal, located in the iconic Circular Quay area of Sydney Harbour.
Built in 1960, the OPT is located in one of Australia’s busiest waterways. Over time, natural processes and vessel activity have caused scouring, accretion and movement of materials on the seabed around the terminal’s wharf. Port Authority’s Berthing Infrastructure Project will see improvement works to protect and support the wharf alongside the OPT to ensure it continues providing a safe berth for ships.
McConnell Dowell’s scope of works includes underwater sheetpile wall installation and caisson repairs to prevent ongoing movement of sediment around the wharf; clearing accumulated seabed material from the terminal’s berthing area; and scour protection design and installation to protect the seawall from future erosion.
McConnell Dowell’s leadership in marine design and construction, coupled with the company’s proven environmental management credentials, were crucial in securing this project.
The award of the project follows the recent release of McConnell Dowell’s first Reconciliation Action Plan and the company is pleased to be supported on the project by MGM Building Maintenance Pty Ltd (MGM), a proud indigenous business led by Anthony Mundine and Gosh Daher.
McConnell Dowell and MGM will use the project to showcase Australia’s first Indigenous Construction Hoarding, which will be adorned with the indigenous artwork of both companies.
The highly visible and colourful hoarding will clearly delineate the works from public spaces, while also promoting our indigenous culture and providing opportunities for indigenous youth, who will be employed by MGM to install it.
More success for our Western Program Alliance (WPA) with this week’s signing of a contract to remove the dangerous and congested level crossing at Ferguson Street, Williamstown, in Victoria.
WPA, which also includes Arup, Mott MacDonald and Metro Trains Melbourne, will lower the rail line under the road, remove the level crossing and build a brand-new North Williamstown Station.
Once construction teams are up and running next year, their major task after establishing site, will be to prepare to excavate a 750-metre trench through hard basalt rock and clay, removing enough material to fill 20 Olympic swimming pools.
From there they will rebuild Ferguson Street over the new trench, lay tracks beneath the road, and build the new North Williamstown Station. Construction for this massive undertaking will require a three-month closure of the rail line in late 2021.
The local community embraced the several opportunities to shape the project, responding in force even through Coronavirus restriction periods. More than 1,800 surveys were completed across three rounds of consultation.
Our team will now establish site early next year and the project is set to be finished by 2022.
McConnell Dowell is pleased to announce that they have been awarded a contract by BHP Mitsubishi Alliance (BMA) to undertake the main berth construction scope for the Shiploader and Berth Replacement (SABR) Project at BMA’s Hay Point Coal Terminal.
The SABR project is a brownfields project located within the lease boundaries of the existing Hay Point Coal Terminal near Mackay, Queensland.
The project includes the disassembly and replacement of one of the existing Shiploaders and Berths to replace and renew aging infrastructure, improve materials handling throughput, and provide improved cyclonic wave immunity.
The scope of the contact awarded to McConnell Dowell encompasses:
- Off-site fabrication of new berth topside modules;
- On-site preparatory works including modification of the existing concrete caisson berth foundations;
- Disassembly and removal of the existing berth and ship loader;
- Installation of the new berth modules, tie-in and commissioning; and
- Installation of the new ship loader (SL2A).
The award of this contract follows a twelve-month collaborative Early Contractor Involvement (ECI) process led by BMA and involving design engineer Aurecon, and McConnell Dowell.
In reflecting on the award, McConnell Dowell’s Australian Managing Director, Jim Frith, welcomed the collaborative approach embraced by BMA for the project saying:
“Working collaboratively with our customer and their designer enabled us to add value through smarter, safer and more constructable solutions.
“The adoption of a fully modularised fabrication and installation methodology, and use of heavy lift vessel (HLV) for both demolition and construction phases, has significant safety, cost and schedule benefits to our customer.”
“The integrated team focused on engineering out, or controlling risks through elimination or substitution. For example, we have been able to develop a construction approach that eliminates the need for our workforce to travel to the workfront by marine vessel. That’s not just a huge safety benefit, but decreases significant downtime and eliminates weather risks.”
The project schedule sees the first activity on site (establishment of temporary facilities) happening in late 2021. The shutdown work associated with the main shiploader and berth replacement works on site will commence in March 2022 with a duration of approximately 16 months.
After a short 32 months, the Wynyard Edge Alliance is proud to announce that we have completed the new waterfront infrastructure, required to support the 36th Americas Cup to be held in Auckland 2021.
Awarded in February 2018, the project was designed and constructed by the alliance team to accommodate participants and the public for the duration of the Cup and leave a legacy of infrastructure improvements along the waterfront.
Working to an accelerated programme the works have helped to transform the once industrial area into a vibrant entertainment district. The scope also included upgrading marine, landside and civil infrastructure, enhancing streetscapes and the installation of the Daldy Street Outfall to improve water quality and bring long-term benefits to Aucklanders and visitors.
In a feat of coordination and planning, over one Million hours of work across 13 different work fronts went into completing the project on time. The scope of work included:
- Over 70,000m3 of dredging
- Construction of seven wave calming breakwaters.
- Design and construction of fivemarine bases and a wharf structure.
- Building floating berths for superyachts and syndicates.
- Installation of a 500m long, 3m diameter stormwater outfall pipe.
- Relocation and construction of the new Sealink ferry terminal.
- Upgrade of the road and streetscape along Brigham Street.
- Installation of the new Silo Park Extension
Thank you to everyone involved for coming together to deliver a world class project - the project team, the local community, iwi partners, subcontractors, suppliers and our client, Auckland Council, Panuku, and MBIE.
Amīria, McConnell Dowell’s micro tunnel boring machine (mTBM) beat her previous project record by 80-metres on 20 November 2020.
The AVN2500 mTBM once again set a new pipe-jacking record for the longest single drive in the Southern Hemisphere by a TBM greater than 2.6 metres in diameter. The project set a 1,216-metre record on completing the second drive for the pipeline earlier in the year.
Richard Atkin, the Hūnua 4, Section 11 Project Manager, said “I couldn’t have asked for a more experienced tunnelling team to successfully navigate through Auckland’s challenging volcanic fields which comprise of hard basalt (up to 160MPa). To gain another record for this project after 18 months of tunnelling, across three individual drives, has put the team in good spirits as we near the finish line.”
The new record is a hard-earned achievement for the team delivering the 3.5-kilometre watermain upgrade for Watercare. The final 1,296-metre drive consisted mostly of basalt rock and tough clay ground conditions, but despite the geological challenges, the crew completed the final drive in less than three months.
Justin Shepherd, McConnell Dowell’s Tunnelling & Underground Group Technical Director, praises the efforts made on Hūnua 4, Section 11 by saying “McConnell Dowell challenges both the norm and ourselves by thinking creatively, engaging our multi-discipline specialists, embracing new technology, and driving continuous improvement through our teams and projects. This project, which we believe to be the longest large diameter pipe-jacked drive through ‘continuous hard-rock conditions’ in the world, exemplifies McConnell Dowell’s approach to successfully delivering award-winning, and record-breaking, tunnelling and underground work.”
With 2.9 kilometres of tunnelling now completed, Amīria, one of McConnell Dowell New Zealand’s three mTBMs will be refurbished by our in-house mechanical and maintenance team. The next step for the project team is the installation of the 1,575 mm diameter concrete-lined steel (CLS) watermain pipes inside the tunnel which is planned for early 2021.
McConnell Dowell’s proposed trenchless methodology won the contract to design and construct the final section of the Hūnua 4 pipeline in 2018. Rather than digging trenches through some of Auckland’s busiest roads, the tunnelling approach meant traffic continued to flow between Epsom and the city as the pipeline was built underneath.