SNC-Lavalin Australia, in joint venture with McConnell Dowell Constructors (Aust), has been awarded a project by Rolleston Coal to provide EPC services for the Rolleston 5th Coal Valve Project located in the Bowen Basin, 275 km west of Gladstone, Australia. The EPC contract includes the installation of a fifth coal valve in the product stockpile, lengthening of a reclaim tunnel and associated reclaim conveyor, as well as extending product stacker rails and minor upgrades to power and water services.

“We and our joint-venture partner, McConnell Dowell, are delighted to have been entrusted with this mandate by Rolleston, and to be able to provide a real alternative for EPC contracting in the coal industry,” said Marius van Tonder, Senior Vice-President and Regional Manager, Asia-Pacific, SNC-Lavalin Group Inc.

The strategic partnership between SNC-Lavalin and McConnell Dowell brings together engineering and construction expertise to provide an alternative project delivery solution, including EPC and lump sum turnkey projects, in the mining and resource sectors.

Rolleston is an open-pit thermal coal mine, with current approved production levels of up to 14 Mt/y. Rolleston Coal is a joint venture managed by Glencore. It is now seeking approval to extend the life of the existing Rolleston Coal mine by approximately 30 years and this involves extracting coal from leases adjacent to the current mining operations.

The majority of the coal is exported and the mine provides some product to the domestic markets.

With its joint venture partners Sumisho Coal Australia and ICRA Rolleston the proposal is to expand  operations and Rolleston is in the process of seeking the required environmental approvals.

The project area covers 12,758 ha of land. However, mining is not proposed within the full project area with direct impacts (disturbance of the ground for construction and mining) limited to a smaller area of 5,649 ha. The project site covers a small portion of the existing mining lease ML70307 and three additional Mining Lease Application areas, MLA70415, MLA 70416 and MLA70458.

The picture shows Stage7 (closure).