The Department of Environment and Conservation has given environmental works approval for construction of an expanded waste treatment facility at Shenton Park to be developed by Perth companies AnaeCo and Monadelphous.
AnaeCo has also advised that the funding strategy for the project is beign revised, with majority equity owner Palisade Regional Infrastructure Fund evaluating equity funding because of the difficulties raising debt finance.
AnaeCo managing director Tom Rudas said the granting of the Works Approval for the stage 2 expansion comes on the back of advice from the WA Environmental Protection Authority that overall environmental impact of the proposal is not so severe as to require formal assessment
"We believe this is largely due to the advanced design features of the DiCOM system and successful operation during stage 1, where the environmental performance of the DiCOM
system was subjected to high levels of performance review and significant
operating data was gathered," he said.
With Stage 2 essentially being an expansion of Stage 1, the Works Approval has been issued with general conditions in line with the approval for Stage 1.
Remaining matters to be ticked off before construction can commence are planning approval and finance approval.
Planning approval will be issued by the WA Planning Commission. An application was submitted in March 2010. Community consultation has been completed without issue and AnaeCo is forecasting planning approval coming through in August 2010.
Finance is being handled by majority equity owner, Palisade Regional Infrastructure Fund, which has advised AnaeCo that raising bank debt for this project in the current economic climate is proving challenging, and therefore it is evaluating financing the project during construction by applying its own equity resources.
Whilst the approvals and finance processes continue AnaeCo has been continuing with engineering design and other pre-construction activities.
Engineering design was completed in April 2010, following which all tender drawings and packages were prepared. .
Given the above, AnaeCo and JV partner Monadelphous are forecasting commencement of construction in November 2010.
