McMahon Services headed 80 kilometres North from Darwin, out across the Timor Sea to the Tiwi Islands to complete vital work on the Melville Island Bulk Fuel Facility. Our multi-skilled workforce was engaged to complete early works on the new Bulk Fuel Facility, which included the construction of an accommodation village as well as the civil and concreting works in preparation for the new fuel tanks.
The facility will become part of the ongoing development of Melville Port, which will include a 200 person camp, office complex, waste and hazardous material storage facilities, workshops and warehousing. This complex project required a number of our in-house service divisions including, civil, concreting, building, electrical, plumbing, hydraulics, carpentry, roofing, data and communications and cranage. By using extensive pre-planning and effective management, al materials and equipment were transported to Darwin and then barged onto Melville Island.
The number of personnel required on site varied from 14 up to 32 workers at the project’s peak. This included general labour, skilled tradespeople, WHSEQ site safety, supervisors and management. The McMahon Services team took every opportunity to engage with the local Purlingimpi community and the Tiwi Land Council, (a representative body for Aboriginal Land Rights). To maximise the Indigenous employment outcomes, The Tiwi Islands Training and Employment Board provided local Indigenous workers for the project.
The accommodation village and ancillary infrastructure components of the project consisted of the delivery of 60 building modules, including a 200 person commercial kitchen, consisting of 10 building modules, two laundry buildings with linen stores, chemical storage and ablution, 30 accommodation buildings with 120 ensuite rooms, an administration block comprising of four building modules, a climate controlled data room, a first-aid meeting room and ablution block, commercial ice and cold water supply/storage, an active recreation and movie room, a wet mess/recreation room as well as outdoor table settings.
One of the unique features that McMahon Services used in the design was a galvanized screw pile footing system to eliminate the need for concrete, which is typically used in these projects. McMahon Services purchased a specialist Compact Rotary Drill to install the screw piles on this project. The light and compact drill rig worked perfectly in the remote environment.
Over 1,000 screw piles were installed over the duration of the works and 75% of the plant and equipment used on the project was McMahon Services’ own in-house equipment. This was supplemented by third party plant hire equipment from local Darwin-based businesses.
For the civil package, McMahon Services was engaged to construct three in-situ ring beams, as a base for three fuel tanks, with a circumference of 100 metres, and requiring a total of 150 cubic metres of concrete. Prior to pouring the ring beams the McMahon Services team earthed them, and following the construction of the ring beams McMahon Services backfilled the inside with conditioned fill, which had to be transported to the work area from other parts of the island.
Following the construction of the three tank sump structures, a 100 metre thick sand bedding layer was placed over the compacted fill to the inside of all the ring beams, mobilising over 600 bulk bags of sand to use as a bedding layer for the HDPE liner and concrete bund slab floor.
Once the fuel tanks were installed on top of the ring beams, McMahon Services constructed a bund slab and walls around them. The bund slab spanned over 4,000 square metres and was constructed over 35 separate pours, requiring over 500 cubic metres of 40 megapascal (MPa) concrete, which was self-batched on site using the Fiori mobile batching plant.
We were flexible and innovative in providing solutions to deliver this complex project, the challenges faced by our project team included working around Northern Territory’s weather conditions, logistics of transporting equipment, supplies and specialist personnel to the island, the Christmas break period and shipping schedules. Our successful management of these logistical challenges was paramount to ensuring the construction program was maintained.
