PERMAcast wins multi-million dollar Wheatstone contract

Mundijong-based concrete pre-caster PERMAcast has won a multi-million dollar precast package for the inside/outside battery limits concrete and civil works for the Wheatstone project, awarded by Laing O'Rourke.

The contract amount has not been disclosed but industry sources suggest it is between $10 million and $20 million.

Under the deal, understood to have been awarded some weeks ago, more than 1,000 individual trench units are to be manufactured in PERMAcast's quality-controlled factory environment. Variable falls mean every trench unit has to be cast not only with the required gradient for drainage in the floor of the unit, but also to accommodate variable heights for ground level.

Manufacture of products will continue for eight months with an estimated 7,500 cubic metres of concrete being poured during that time.

Designed to cater for a potential emergency overflow of supercooled natural gas, 560 lineal metres of the trench will require lining with a perlite insulating concrete. Perlite aggregate is an exceptionally light weight aggregate. It has a very low strength, which creates a raft of casting and handling challenges. The perlite concrete will be anchored to the inside face of the precast trench units, using 20,000 bolts.

PERMAcast sales & marketing manager Rasmus Sorensen said the project was technically very challenging and required a large-scale, modern precast manufacturing and storage facility.

Mr Sorensen said PERMAcast was now a leading supplier of precast and prestressed concrete products to the state’s most prestigious infrastructure, oil and gas and resource projects as a result of robust business management systems and highly skilled team of in house engineers.