Long-time Dubbo company Fleetwash Industrial Systems has been chosen to join Australia’s largest gas project, winning a $2.5 million contract.
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The company, which designs, manufactures and installs vehicle wash systems was selected from a list of companies from around the world to produce a drive-through, fully automatic container washing system for international shipping containers.
The containers, which are delivered to the Gorgon LNG project in Western Australia, are washed before being loaded back onto ships to return home.
Production manager Dennis Whitton said Fleetwash was approached by Project Connect, a national company which seeks Australian businesses and industries for huge projects such as Gorgon.
“Once we said we were interested it was a very long process. We had to prove we had installed these systems in remote areas and that they were still working,” Mr Whitton said.
“There was a lot of information and evidence we had to provide and a delegation was sent over. It was a very nervous time.”
Suffering heavily from the mining downturn, Mr Whitton said the contract couldn’t have come at a better time.
“We hadn’t received a big order from November 2008 through to June this year, we were barely existing on a few smaller jobs we do for mining companies and even had to lay three of our employees off,” he said.
“Now we are back to 100 per cent production and have a full order book.”
The project will not only increase productivity for Fleetwash but various other local suppliers.
“We have about five different local suppliers involved for pumps, steel and welding,” Mr Whitton said.
“We’ve even been able to employ five new people including one of the guys that we had to put off.”
A specialist in design and project management has been brought over from England to help with the project.
“It has been a big effort from everyone involved,” Mr Whitton said.
“We’ve been through some pretty dark days but have kept our persistence and enthusiasm going and it is a beaut little thing to happen.”
Mr Whitton said as far as he knew it was a unique project that had never been designed before.
“We’ve had to all put our thinking and designing capacities together,” he said.
“It’s great the client decided Australia and in particular a Dubbo company can do it.”
lucy.rowles@ruralpress.com
