Navy work proving a winner for SA

Defence SA is 80% of the way through spending $300m to build the common user facility with practical completion achieved of a 213m-long wharf, a dry berth and transfer systems.
The CUF will be used as an assembly point for the ships. It’s a giant hard stand honeycombed with almost 800m of tunnels for electronic cables and services, and will be available to the private sector – mining or petroleum companies and other heavy industry – as a staging point for big machinery.
A 35ha supplier precinct is being developed for subcontractors and suppliers to set up operations at Techport Australia together with a commercial and education precinct and on-site Maritime Skills Centre (completed early 2008).
Strong demand from firms has allowed Defence SA to open up a new 35ha industrial site next to the naval hub. The present supplier precinct is already 50% sold.
Steel-plate cutter Ferrocut, manufacturer LeFevre Developments, crane company Harbrew and defence systems company Babcock Integrated Technology are the first four confirmed suppliers at the site.
Premier Mike Rann opened Techport Australia’s administration building in early April, remarking that the shiplift, which lowers 18m into the water to enable vessels weighing up to 9300t to be launched, would be ready in the first quarter of 2010.
The blocks that make up the ships, will be forged from specially reinforced steel, and assembled at the CUF. The blocks will be made using a modular construction method in Australia – one-third by shipbuilder ASC at its Osborne shipyard adjacent to the CUF, and the remainder interstate.
Meanwhile ASC is investing $120m to upgrade its shipyard, with completion in the last quarter of 2009. The two facilities together form one of the most modern naval shipbuilding precincts in the world.
ASC (formerly Australian Submarine Corporation) designed and built the Collins class submarines, and now maintains them under a 25-year through-life support contract. ASC’s workforce will rise to a peak of more than 2000 when work starts in earnest on the AWDs at the end of the year.
Defence SA chief executive Andrew Fletcher believes the facility will help boost the state’s defence reputation in Australia and overseas. It will be available to other shipbuilding firms, possibly even the US Navy for maintenance and refit work.
Locals have a big part in the Techport story. Hansen Yuncken won the design/construct contract for ASC’s shipyard for the destroyers, McConnell Dowell/Built Environs JV is managing contractor for the planning, design and construction of the CUF, Bardavcol is doing site work on 15ha of land adjacent to the CUF for Techport Stage 2, and Tagara Group is building the AWD Systems Centre, which will house Defence Materiel Organisation and industry partner staff.
For AWD project information: www.ausawd.com and www.asc.com.au
For Techport Australia information: www.techportaustralia.com