Several surveying firms have responded in one of two ways during the past year in response to slowing work opportunities in Western Australia – they have consolidated operations, or cast the net wider for business.
Two WA surveying firms have merged, another two have branched out interstate, and one is opening offices in China.
Number one in this year’s Business News Book of Lists was Asphar Survey Group, which is planning to open offices in Tianjin and Shenzhen after signing a memorandum of understanding this month with China Railway Materials.
The most significant change in the list was AAM’s rise from 11th last year to seventh this year after it bought Vekta Surveying Solutions.
Sydney-based AAM, which has worked with Vekta on a number of projects in recent years, and spent two years negotiating the merger, will finalise the deal this October.
McGarry Associates, which opened a Darwin office but made a number of staff redundant, now has 25 fewer surveyors on staff than last year, dropping it from eighth to 16th on the list.
Also opening an office in Darwin was Twenty20, with business development manager Dean Clother-Sinclair saying a leaner operating model in the new office was key to securing enough jobs to move a quarter of its staff to Darwin.
Mr Clother-Sinclair said Twenty20, up one place to ninth, had been drawn to what he called Darwin’s ‘buoyant market’ because of the greater opportunities arising from construction projects such as the Ichthys LNG onshore gas processing facility.
There are still many opportunities in WA though, with Whelans up from fourth to second on the list this year, most recently winning a $4.3 million contract at Rio Tinto’s Cape Lambert Port B project, sub contracted by project managers SKM.
McMullen Nolan Group, steady at number five, won a number of land development survey contracts in March with Stockland, Cedar Woods, Qube Property Group, and LandCorp.
Ralph Beattie Bosworth, up one place at number eight, won two major contracts this year with the St John of God Midland health campus being developed by Brookfield Multiplex, and Sirona Capital for its redevelopment of parts of Fremantle CBD.
