Tech firm forging links Adani jobs keeping city busy
T E C H N O L O G Y b u s i n e s s NQAV is winning work on the fitout for Adani’s project management headquarters for the Carmichael coal mine in Townsville and hopes to become further involved, including on what would be the first remote operating centre for a mine in a regional city.
Adani Australia has employed about 80 people in the River Quays building in South Townsville with that number soon to rise to 120 as the company takes up a second floor of the eight- level building.
Adani’s coal and rail project is being run from Townsville with tendering, procurement, rail design and mine infrastructure design under way, while engineering firm AECOM also has a team working on the project in Townsville.
Townsville is the home base for Adani’s project management office for the big central Queensland mine and is also to host the mine’s remote operating centre.
Townsville’s NQAV has been contracted to provide the office’s security access control, video conferencing and internal data communications.
NQAV managing director Kevin Booth said Adani was providing much- needed work for businesses with contractors being sourced locally.
“I’ve not yet seen one from out of the area,” he said.
Mr Booth said Adani had provided good work for NQAV with the prospect of more to come. “It keeps our guys busy and allows us to look to employ more people,” he said.
With construction of Adani’s 388km rail line from the Carmichael mine in the Galilee Basin to Abbot Point set to begin next month, and a rail operations centre to be opened at Bowen, Mr Booth hoped to win more work.
NQAV will also vie for work to provide some of the technology for Adani’s planned re- mote operations centre. Mr Booth said they had installed high definition panel screens for similar operations at the Australian Institute of Marine Science facility at Cape Ferguson south of Townsville. But whether Australia could yet move to remotely controlled, self- drive vehicles, as was occurring in Europe, was yet to be seen.
Mr Booth said he was excited by the technology but cautioned that Australia’s infrastructure was not yet up to the task because of the data capacity and the long distances involved.
“For remote operations of mine sites, there certainly are a number of them around the country that are operating quite successfully,” he said. “It would be good to see one of those centres in a regional centre.”
Several companies have remote operations centres in Perth for iron ore operations in the Pilbara mines in Western Australia and BHP Billiton has opened a centre in Brisbane for key operating roles for Bowen Basin, Mackay and Hunter Valley coal operations.
About 200 workers in Brisbane are stationed at computer hubs taking data and video from mine sites and ports, directing and overseeing mining trucks and shovels, and scheduling train and ship loading.