Thread: Rents North WA

Originally Posted by Sparksdisco

So where do your "young" guys FIFO from?




Bali i guess
Seems the norm

Four weeks on 1 week gettin off

No from Perth actually they are OK I'm glad I don't have their lives

Originally Posted by Brian Hjelm

I take it you have not heard of Glenden, Middlemount[B], Tieri, which amongst others are towns built by the mining company concerned to service the exploitation of a particular resource. you can hardly call the iron mines of Pilbara a short term resource. They have been mined since around 1966 with no end in sight.[B]As stated i was talking 3 to 5 year contract jobs. I have not mentioned the pilbara projects as short term. Some contract miners are signing 18 month contracts. Whos going to put up capital to build a town for a project that may be shiite canned after 18 months or is marginal? Does Ravensthorpe rings any bells with you.? The three towns you have listed all support coal mining. This is a very different animal to resources such as nickel,gold,tantalum and manganese that are only as viable as there current resource value. [B]

Mary Kathleen and Greenvale were towns built for the exploitation of a short term finite resource. All highly successful. Mary K. was sold at auction and hauled away. All concerned were satisfied. Greenvale has turned into a residential town with a growing population since the mine closure.How far are these towns from a major capital city? whats the population density in these areas compared to the northern and far eastern parts of WA?

Blackwater and Moura were little more than a sign on the railway line and most of these current towns were built by the mine companies to house and service their workforce.What is the projected life span of the projects that now support these towns? Longer than 18 months?

I have friends and rellies currently working in NW of WA. They comment on the continual turnover of staff, mostly young (<35) marrieds. These young men get flak at home every time they go back for their nine days off between cycles. "You leave me here to do everything, cope with these kids, etc, etc.", or the information from "concerned citizens" about the car parked outside or the "visitor" when they are away. The wives have often no local family or support group, these being left on the other side of the continent. You don't have these problems with a town on the resource and hubby going home at night.I dont mean to insult you but if you believe this you trully have you head in the sand. I grew up in a Pilbara mining town. The roster worked was 4day/4off 4nights/off. The husbands and wives that where inclined to cheat on there sposes found a way to do so. By this logic anybody who goes home to there wife/husband every night won't ever be cheated on/have marital problems that result in divorce. How does this stack up in real life?

You say that the resources boom would not have occurred if strict conditions were applied to the miners. I say "Wrong". The profit motive would have ensured the projects went ahead. Lilewise private sector profit motive would have provided excellent facilities and services in towns full of very well paid mining families. Are you familiar with the issues surrounding native title and environmental conservation in the resource sector in WA? It is much more viable financially and socially to install a self contained camp facility with minimal environmental impact verses a town and the extended infrastructure required. I have worked on many many site where if you strayed off the designated work/access areas (on foot!) it was considered an environmental incident and was reportable to the Dept of conservation/resources. Even spraying of mine water from water carts past 1mtr from designated roads is reportable. How the heck are you going to get approval to build roads, houses,schools,shops,waste management facilities etc etc etc and still turn a profit?


My friends and rellies tell me that most of the longer serving workers are 45+ trying their last chance to get a decent retirement fund and would rather be doing easier work in better climates. One of my rellies is supervising road haulage operations on remote construction sites and the average age of his road train drivers is over 50. He is now reluctant to start young men as he says they won't stay, no night life, nowhere to spend their money, too much agro from the woman back wherever, etc.The camp life is what you make of as is any work/life balance. I ran a workshop in Perth for a few years and we have all the night life a young man could ask for and this doesn't stop the turn over of staff. The grass is always greener and younger people will always jump the fence to check it out. As you say your older friends are giving it there last gasp and would be very foolish to chase something that may or may not be a better move

again my 2c.
luke

Agree with the points made above.

Where I am at the moment -

- If you overspray the road verges (dust suppression), it's a reportable environmental incident.

- If you walk off the road between the camp and the minesite, it's a breach of "heritage control" rules, and earns you a window seat on the next flight.

The "footprint" of land that the mine owners have been allowed to build all required infrastructure on is way to small to consider even thinking about establishing a townsite - so a camp is the only feasible option. When you also consider that the life of the orebody here is 11 years - the option of setting up a town just doesn't make any sense to anyone with common sense. This is typical of the vast majority of minesites these days. Where larger and more long term operations are proven, it has been the practice in the past to establish townships (Tom Price, Newman, Paraburdoo, Pannawonica etc), but this practice is simply too costly in today's environment, and the red tape you have to go through even before thinking about setting up a town is enough to put anyone off.

There is already an established (mining company) town about 40km away servicing one of their other operations (same company as where I am). However, during the wet season, access between the two locations is far too unreliable - even the iron ore trains can't always get through.

When towns like Mary K, Greenvale, Bachelor and many others were established to service the mines in those areas, travel was a very different story to what it is today. I grew up in these type of towns (many of which no longer exist). To travel from capital cities / major centres to these areas could take days in those times - these days you can fly there in a couple of hours from just about anywhere - there really is no comparison.

Claims that FIFO results in broken marriages / relationships is just an excuse to cover other problems. If the marriage or relationship fails, it's a pretty good chance that there were problems there anyway and it would not have survived the distance no matter what the roster or living arrangements. I know of many relationships which have survived a lifetime of FIFO, long periods of separation etc (including my own), and I know many people whose relationships have failed while they have never been on a FIFO roster in their life - so this argument just doesn't hold water for me.

In iron ore at the moment, believe it or not - the current trend is away from FIFO, at least with the larger players. The project we are building at the moment will be operated from a control room in Perth. The only people on site will be the maintenance crew, and probably a small clean-up crew if there is any need for them (these are quite likely to be indigenous people from a nearby town). The crushing plant will be operated from a Perth control room, the dump trucks will also have no drivers in them - they are controlled from a Perth control room, and use GPS to keep them on track. Similarly, when trains are on site being loaded, there is no train driver on board. They are controlled from Perth, and the train loading facility is similarly operated from Perth (this one will be interesting, I reckon). They also have the ability to run the trains on the main line with nobody on board, but I can't see this being allowed for at least some significant period of time. These remote control systems are already in place at another minesite up here - we are building the first operation which is designed from the start to be operated by these means. Eventually, Rio Tinto plans to operate all of their iron ore mining operations from a single control facility in Perth.

Originally Posted by BMKal

Similarly, when trains are on site being loaded, there is no train driver on board. They are controlled from Perth, and the train loading facility is similarly operated from Perth (this one will be interesting, I reckon).

Aww Gawd

Visons of WA1200's/992G's dumping ore between cars, pushing cars off the track. Loading cars that aren't there.....

It will be a major step forward once the ROC gets off the ground. I went for a job as part of the perth based trouble shooting crew and missed out

Originally Posted by Lucus

Aww Gawd

Visons of WA1200's/992G's dumping ore between cars, pushing cars off the track. Loading cars that aren't there.....

It will be a major step forward once the ROC gets off the ground. I went for a job as part of the perth based trouble shooting crew and missed out

Like to see them get the current system right first

And who is going to maintain the equipnment
and who fixes it when it dose dump a train or a compressor car.
Seen that happen and its not pritty

Won't be using WA1200's / 992's etc to load the trains.

There's a luffing stacker at the end of the crushing circuit that is capable of stockpiling a massive amount of crushed ore. The trains run through a tunnel under this stockpile, and can be loaded from one of two separate loadout vaults, each of which has two loading chutes. They load on the run - target speed here is 1.4 km/hr. Approx 108 tonnes of iron ore in each car, and these loadout systems are very accurate once set up properly. But when they do go wrong - for example if chute opens between wagons - they make way more mess than a front end loader ever could.

As I said - operating this from a remote location will be interesting.

We had almost identical loadouts when I was at Yandi - and we had the ability to operate them from a remote location years ago - but we would never have dreamed of trying it (and they still don't).

Ever seen a train buried in a tunnel ??? It's not a pretty sight. I've spent more than a little bit of time getting them out over the years.

BHP have a similar setup at Whaleback. The load out tunnel is cool but what really impresses me is the ore car dumper at Pt Hedland.

Brian,
Did you ever see the sign at the rail crossing at hedland port before its was taken down?

I read something similar to "Our Trains take 15 minutes to cross this crossing, whether your on it or not"

apparently somebody took offence and it was taken down.

I think its quite a good msg!