Indigenous contractor into liquidation

Guildford-based BYAC Contracting has been placed into liquidation after losing a long-running contract at the Murrin Murrin nickel project and failing to establish itself as a training provider.

The liquidation does not affect parent company Burnna Yurral Aboriginal Corporation, which is owned by members of the Laverton-based Tucker family.

The contracting arm was established about 20 years ago primarily to work on Murrin Murrin, which was developed by Andrew Forrest’s former company Anaconda Nickel.

The project is currently owned by multinational mining group Glencore.

BYAC’s directors voted on Tuesday to appoint Stephen Duncan and Nicholas Gyss of Adelaide firm DuncanPowell as joint liquidators.

Mr Gyss said BYAC had been a major supplier of labour when Murrin Murrin was being developed in the 1990s.

It retained a waste management contract for about 20 years, but that ended in July after it was unable to negotiate acceptable terms with Glencore.

Former general manager Candy Spalding said she spent four months earlier this year trying to negotiate a contract that would make it viable for BYAC to continue the work.

“We had no choice but to walk away from the contract,” Ms Spalding told Business News.

Glencore purchased BYAC’s equipment fleet and is believed to be undertaking the work using its own workers.

Ms Spalding said BYAC had been the only indigenous contractor working at Murrin Murrin.

In tandem with its contracting work, BYAC spent the past two years seeking to establish a training business and gain accreditation as a registered training organisation.

However, it was advised in July it was not successful in gaining accreditation, and Ms Spalding left soon after.