Grange Resources

McElligotts Tasmania has had the pleasure of working with Grange Resources to provide refurbishment services for their tanks and conveyors. These large pieces of mining equipment are essential to the continual operation of the mines run by Grange Resources, so our maintenance work specifically contributes to the success of these large operations.

Grange Resources operates two facilities in Tasmania. The first of these is the Savage River mine, which is approximately 100km southwest of the city of Burnie. This mine produces some of the highest iron-concentrated magnetite in Australia. The national resources excavated from this mine are renowned for their minimal impurities and play a big role in the country’s iron economy.

The second mine is located at Port Latta, roughly 70km northwest of Burnie. This is Grange Resources’ entirely owned pellet plant and port facility. Each year, this facility produces over 2.2 million tonnes of high-quality iron ore products.

The McElligotts team were tasked with the job of delivering remedial services to Grange Resources’ tanks. Both types of equipment play a valuable role in the storage, transportation, and movement of resources throughout the mine. Therefore, it is paramount that they also always remain in peak condition.

Our team refurbished the tanks using a mix of high-pressure washing and abrasive blasting, afterwards applying a fresh, new coat of paint.

We would like to thank Grange Resources for giving us the opportunity to work on this exciting project, and to all the McElligotts team members for demonstrating their skills and expertise in getting the job done to such a high standard.

Telstra Towers

McElligotts has recently had the pleasure of working on a series of Telstra Towers that we started back in mid-June, 2021.

The team at McElligotts were tasked with providing protective coats of paint to the metal angles that will eventually form the towers. These metal angles were stacked up on transport pallets in a way that made removing larger items to be quite difficult at times. Moving each item required a high degree of precision and care from our team, as one wrong move could cause the stacks to collapse.

Our team also had to spend several hours covering up the bolt holes using masking tape so that they would be protected from the paint. Once this task was complete, we were able to apply the protective coating system so that the parts can handle the elements once the towers are complete.

McElligotts would like to thank Telstra for giving our team the opportunity to work on this project. We have been working hard continuously for the past three months and look forward to seeing the results of our effort when the towers are completed.

Telstra Tower

Telstra Tower Project

Telstra Tower Tasmania

Mortlake South Wind Turbines

McElligotts Tas were privileged to have contributed to the new wind turbines for Mortlake South Wind Farm in Victoria’s Western District in 2020. This new hub for renewable energy will power up to 117,000 Victorian homes once it is completed and commissioned sometime in the first half of 2021. At $275 million, the farm was one of the six winners of the Victorian government’s renewable energy auction in 2018 and is being built by the energy groups Nordex and Acciona Windpower.

The wind turbines were originally in 140 sections, 64 sections were fabricated by Hayward’s Steel Fabrication, a long-time customer of McElligotts Tasmania. The remaining sections were completed in Portland Victoria by Kepple Prince Engineering in Portland Victoria. McElligotts Tas was tasked with the abrasive blasting and application of the coating system supplied by Akzonobel. The Internals were coated with a high build epoxy and the externals were coated with high build epoxy and polyurethane. It was an interesting challenge firstly fitting the 4.3m dia x 35m sections in our workshop then having to rotate them using a flange ring to complete the coating system to the high global standard required on these projects. We completed our portion of the project in August 2020.

Each of the 35 wind turbine towers is an incredible structure, both in scale and its potential to generate large amounts of clean energy. The turbines individually generate 4.5MW of energy, adding up to an impressive 157.5MW across the entire Mortlake South Wind Farm.

The farm will be connected to the grid via an underground transmission line, a first for the State of Victoria. The team at McElligotts Tas were proud to have contributed towards a project that promises a cleaner environmental future and energy for hundreds of thousands of people.

Wind Turbines

Wind Turbine Towers

Towers Protective Coatings

Echuca-Moama Bridge Project

In 2020, McElligotts had the pleasure of working on what is currently the largest transport infrastructure project in northern Victoria. The project, due to be completed in mid-2022, is the Echuca-Moama Bridge Project, which is delivering a much anticipated second crossing between the towns of Echuca and Moama over the Murray and Campaspe rivers. This $323.7 million project (Stages 1 to 4) is jointly funded by the Australian, Victoria and NSW Governments.

Currently, the existing Murray River Bridge, built in 1878, is the only structure that links the Victorian town of Echuca with the NSW town of Moama. A second crossing will make it quicker and easier to travel across the Campaspe and Murray rivers, for residents, interstate travellers, freight operators and tourists in the region.

The project construction includes two road bridges, two flood relief structures, and a shared-use bridge (over the Campaspe River) connecting to a 4.5 kilometre shared walking and cycling path.

McElligotts partnered with the Launceston-based steel fabricator Haywards, head contractor McConnell Dowell, and Major Roads Projects Victoria (MRPV) on the Echuca-Moama Bridge Project. We were responsible for the abrasive blasting and application of the protective coatings to the bridge sections using an Akzonobel three-coat system – epoxy zinc, high build epoxy and polyurethane finish. Accessing the bridge sections can get quite high, so a rolling scaffold was constructed to assist works to the internal surfaces and another scaffolding was constructed to assist works to the external surfaces of the structure.

McElligotts is proud to have been involved with such an incredible project. The Echuca-Moama Bridge Project delivered by MRPV and Transport for NSW (Stage 4) will connect the Murray Valley Highway and Warren Street on the Echuca side of the river with the Cobb Highway at Perricoota Rd in Moama.

Echuca-Moama Bridge

Echuca-Moama Project

Echuca Project

Echuca Bridge Project

Echuca-Moama

Echuca Bridge

Cattle Hill Wind Farm

Last year, in 2019, the McElligotts Tasmanian team were involved in a large wind turbine project for the new Cattle Hill Wind Farm in partnership with Haywards.

Cattle Hill Wind Farm is Tasmania’s third wind farm (with their fourth currently close to completion) and is located on the shores of Lake Echo in the Central Plateau of Tasmania. The farm consists of 48 turbines which produce 148 MW of clean renewable energy – that’s enough to power about 63,500 Tasmanian homes! It is also the first wind farm in Australia to trial innovative eagle monitoring and detection technology, designed to help conserve Australia’s native bird populations.

McElligotts worked closely on this project in partnership with Haywards who were responsible for manufacturing 20% of the tower components, and our Tasmanian team supported them in providing all of the protective coating systems. The biggest challenge in this project was the scope – each piece was very large and moving them through the workshop was a process that needed to be managed carefully. Each piece of the turbine was oversized, and multiple roads had to be closed when transporting them to Cattle Hill Wind Farm.

Renewable energy in Australia is a growing sector with wind energy a leading component of that. Wind power currently accounts for approximately 8.5% of Australia’s total energy demand, and about 35% of all renewable energy production within the country. There are currently 101 wind farms throughout Australia with another 30 projects either under construction or committed to being built in the next 24 months. So this is a growing sector that McElligotts are excited to be involved in and contributing to.

Cattle Hill Wind Farm is not the first wind farm that McElligotts have provided protective coatings services for and is likely to be the last. With a strong focus on renewable energy, especially coming out of the devastating bushfires in late 2019 / early 2020, we can see many more wind tower projects coming in the future. Our Tasmanian facilities are well equipped to handle this work, with a very close relationship with Haywards who manufacture a lot of the wind towers within Australia.

Our Tasmanian facilities are located next to Haywards and we share some facilities including cranes and a trolley rail system that enables us to move the wind towers and other heavy structures around. For example, currently with wind towers, we can have 3 or 4 sections of the tower in our facility undercover at one time. The trolley system then pushes the structures through the line, from blasting bays and then into painting bays. Learn more about our Tasmanian facilities and capabilities here.

Bridge of Remembrance

McElligotts’s Tasmanian team were proud to have the opportunity to work on a key piece of infrastructure in Hobart, the Bridge of Remembrance. The bridge is a new pedestrian bridge that opened to the public on March 31 2019, just in time for ANZAC Day.

The Bridge of Remembrance is named so because it links two of the most significant areas of remembrance in Tasmania, the Cenotaph and Soldier’s Memorial Avenue. The bridge allows visitors to walk or cycle from one to the other and acts as an overpass above the busy Tasman Highway.

The Bridge:

The bridge is a stunning structure, architecturally designed by Denton Corker Marshall (DMC) in partnership Arup, Inspiring Place and BSPM Architects. It cost $11 million, and is 4m wide and over 6.5m high. The striking design features steel ‘wings’ and cladding along the sides and is part of the City’s on-going mission to make walking the most attractive mode of transport by giving high priority to pedestrians and providing them with convenient walking links to key destinations.

The Scope of the Project:

The McElligotts Tasmanian team have a close relationship with Haywards, a Launceston-based steel fabrication company who were also contracted for this project. We partnered with Haywards to provide all of the protective coatings work for all of the main structural steel.

The project was completed in several sections and then transported down into Hobart. Once in Hobart, the sections were welded together and the cladding was put on. To complete the project, the highway was closed for a day so that the massive sections of the bridge could be lifted into place.

McElligotts are proud to have been part of such an amazing project. The Bridge of Remembrance was not only an impressive project due to the design and scale of it, but it is also an important part of Australia’s infrastructure and history, as it helps commemorate the service and sacrifice by our Australian service men and women.

The images below were taken on the official opening of the Bridge of Remembrance in Hobart on 31st March 2019. Click on them to enlarge.

Wayatinah Penstocks

In 2016, McElligotts was contracted by Hydro Tasmania to remediate the Wayatinah Penstocks in Wayatinah, Tasmania. An important part of Tasmania’s power systems, the Wayatinah Penstocks are a group of three steel penstocks that run 220m into 3 spiral castings, powering the hydroelectric run of the river Wayatinah Power Station.

To begin the project, McElligott’s first had to remove the existing coating of coal tar using ultra high water, pumping the waste water back to the top and treating it so it could be re used back through the system. This was important to us as we are a company that values sustainability, so we made every effort to reduce water waste during this project

After removing the existing coating, we were able to set up the abrasive blasting robotic system so that we could achieve a class 3 blast and also apply a holding primer to keep the abrasive coating in place. Once the abrasive blasting and waste garner was removed and cleaned, the welds and pitted areas were stripe coated.

Finally, the spray robotic system was put into each of the penstocks to apply one full coat at 500 microns, which saw the project complete at two years after the start date.

McElligotts were proud to have been able to play a part in remediating one of Tasmania’s most important power systems, which proved to be a rewarding experience.

Penstocks Restoration

Cape Wickham Lighthouse

Situated on King Island, Tasmania, the Cape Wickham Lighthouse is Australia’s tallest lighthouse, standing 48 metres tall. Built in 1861, the lighthouse is constructed of local stone, has walls 3.4 metres thick at the base and 11 flights of stairs each with 20 steps. The lighthouse was originally lit with a single oil wick burner with an acetylene flasher before finally being replaced with a lightbulb in 1918. Shortly after in 1921, the light was permanently switched off after the superintendent’s house was demolished. Now, the lighthouse is an iconic tourist destination in Tasmania, so it’s important that the lighthouse is upheld to standard.

In February 2019, McElligott’s were engaged by the Australian Maritime Safety Authority to complete the rehabilitation and painting of the lighthouse. The main job was to remove the existing lead-based coatings and replace them with a modern protective coating system. In addition, we were asked to repair and stabilise the cracking in the concrete balcony and internal lantern room floor support corbel, repoint the iconic stone work, repair corrosion and damage to metallic substrates, replace the ground floor external stairway stringer and re-glaze the lantern room and timber windows.

Cape Wickham Lighthouse 1887
Cape Wickham Lighthouse 1887

Trevallyn Dam Conduit Relining

Trevallyn Dam was built in 1955 and McElligotts are proud to have assisted in maintaining this historic piece of Tasmanian infrastructure. As part of the remediation process to keep Trevallyn Dam in good shape, our team stripped and re-lined three 30m x 1500mm conduits. This project required a quick turnaround, owing to rising dam levels.

Our team were required to abrasive blast the existing coal tar epoxy lining, which had heavy surface pitting, posing some challenges with surface preparation. From there, we repainted the conduit internals with a protective coating suited to the client’s needs. Our team had to deal with water leaks from stoplogs stream throughout the painting process, but we developed processes to ensure the quality was not compromised.

Trevallyn Dam After

Hydro Tasmania Meadowbank

McElligotts works with Hydro Tasmania to conduct remedial maintenance works on their infrastructure facilities around the state. We work on everything from dam and penstock infrastructure to turbine and power station internal works. Much of our work centres on removal of lead-based paint (as lots of these structures were built many decades ago), abrasive blasting, protective coating and lining and surface preparation.

This particular project was at the Hydro Tasmania Meadowbank facility. We were involved in painting two different types of protective coating systems on the upstream and downstream sides of crest gates, each spanning 35 metres.
When our client requested an earlier deadline, we established night shifts during critical parts of the project. Difficulties we had to overcome included poor access and weather (sub zero, high winds and waves). One of the key measures of success we take away from each project is our safety record, and we completed this project in 3000 man hours with no incidents to report.

Hydro Tasmania Meadowbank