As per industry research company BIS Shrapnel civil construction work will increase by around 20% over the next two years thanks to the surge in mining operations and flood reconstruction work. However skilled workers from Western Australia may end up leaving as major projects like Pluto LNG and Sino Iron Ore end. The work will pick up again in 2012 as new iron ore and gar projects get ramped up.
These ‘fly-in fly-out’ workers may end up being poached by Queensland as they get ready to build the LNG Gladstone projects as per BIS Shrapnel spokesman Damon Roast. He said that while there won’t be a let up for the services of these resources they may get better deals on Queensland rather than in Western Australia.
BIS Shrapnel Infrastructure and Mining Unit senior manager Adrian Hart said that delays in ramping up mining related work and competing existing projects has resulted in low levels of civil construction growth this financial year. He added that the outlook for civil construction was broadly positive with large mining and energy projects being approved and ready to start building.
Bruce Campbell-Fraser from the Chamber of Minerals and Energy hopes that major projects like Gorgon, iron ore expansions, nickel projects in Ravensthorpe, Tropicana in eastern Goldfields and the Oakajee expansion will keep the workers in Western Australia. However with activity levels in Queensland increasing by 50% in the next four years it seems more than likely that Western Australia will lose some of their skilled labour to them.