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Instrumentation providers sweep NECA awards

Two instrumentation projects have won major awards in the 2008 National Electrical and Communications Association (NECA) Excellence Awards which were announced in Sydney last week.

Trifield Electrical Engineering in Western Australia won gold place in the Small Contracting Business category, for a coal fuel handling project where it performed all the electrical and instrumentation work (with hazardous area classification) to enable a manufacturing plant to accommodate an alternative fuel to gas (coal) to heat one of its existing lime calciners.

The project included a coal transport and grinding system with a gas burner management system to heat the coal to the desired temperature. Trifield also implemented a solution to modify electrical plant and equipment located in the way of the pipe that feeds the heated coal into the calciner.

In another win for the industry, Electrical Construction and Maintenance — also based in Western Australia — took the award for the Industrial category for its instrumentation work at Pilbara Port.

The company won for its contract to enable Fortescue Metals Group to construct a new mining operation at Cloud Break, 260km south east of Port Hedland, and move mined ore on the world’s heaviest haul rail system to Point Anderson (now Herb Elliot) Port.

The construction team started on site in June 2007, initiating the first stages of the HV Reticulation Package. With delivery of 22kV to the plant and pre-commissioning of the conveyor system, the port facility rolled on from there, with all staged commissioning meeting target dates to allow ‘first ore on ship’ in May 2008.

EC&M and its sub-contractors worked in excess of 145,000 man-hours on a round-the-clock schedule, with no time lost to injuries. The team also innovated to save approximately six weeks in installation time by developing a unique method to install cable directly from a truck mounted cable stand into a HV trench. This is equal to a 50 percent reduction on the industry standard unit rate for installation.

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