Waste project nears completion

Monadelphous Group and AnaeCo’s long-delayed waste treatment plant in Shenton Park has finally been given a completion date, with a short list of tasks to be finished by mid-April.

Bentley-based AnaeCo said the WMRC project, which is owned by funds managed by Palisade Investment Partners, will be completed after tasks including handover and demobilisation by April 15.

The exit date was confirmed after the joint venture agreed to modified terms for what constitutes as the project’s completion.

“The parties have agreed there is no longer a requirement to conduct the performance trials specified in the contract and the defect liability period will be deemed completed by the exit date,” AnaeCo said in a statement.

“The AnaeCo-Monadelphous team will work in transition with the newly-appointed plant operations and maintenance contractor to ramp-up plant operations by the exit date.”

The facility is loacted at the JFR McGeough Resource Recovery Facility in Shenton Park; a solid waste transfer station owned and operated by the Western Metropolitan Regional Council.

AnaeCo was supposed to run the plant after achieving practical completion, however after numerous delays and unexpected additional costs, the WMRC in August last year said the company would no longer operate it.

An unnamed NSW-based experienced operator of mechanical and biological treatment plants has been selected as the operations and maintenance contractor for the facility.

AnaeCo managing director David Lymburn said the company was pleased to have agreed terms upon which the project will reach final completion.

“Given the extended commissioning the facility has been through since October 2013, including biological ramp-up which concluded in July last year, it makes every sense to now focus on a transition to operations, working with the owner’s contracted operator,” Mr Lymburn said.

“The Brockwaste facility in Shenton Park becomes our reference plant as we move ahead to market the AnaeCo System, armed with the knowledge and experience of this completed project.”

AnaeCo has invested $120 million in the technology used at the facility, which is designed to generate energy through the production of biogas.

At full capacity, the plant can produce biogas containing around 1,200 tonnes of methane per annum, with the energy content able to fuel the generator to provide around 800kWe of electrical power and 800kWt of thermal power.

The total cost of the plant was not been disclosed.

AnaeCo shares rose 50 per cent to 0.3 cents each at midday.