By Molly Taylor
KEY components of a complex multi-million dollar engineering project for one of the world’s largest aluminum smelters have been built on Mount Gambier’s outskirts.
Several vital parts of a 16-metre high dust collector have been designed and manufactured at Nederman MikroPul’s Worrolong production facility, ready for shipping to Aluminum Bahrain – the world’s largest aluminum smelter outside of China.
It is among the company’s largest and most complex projects completed in Australia, with Nederman MikroPul operating from the former McKee Engineering premises for the last 12 months.
The collector features over 800 self-filtering bags and will be used to purify Spent Pot Lining (SPL), an unavoidable waste product of the electrolytic process in the smelting of aluminum.
It is planned to be installed by March next year.
Nederman MikroPul Australian engineering manager Jon Franklin said it was not first time a project of this complexity had been completed in the Limestone Coast, recalling production of similar components around a decade ago.
Mr Franklin said the workshop had manufactured two identical units over a decade ago, which were welded together as full pieces and transported by truck.
“This is all being shipped over in shipping containers so it is basically being built so it can be put together over there, like an Ikea flatpack essentially,“ Mr Franklin said.
“There is a significant level of complexity involved because it has to be pulled apart and put back together.“
Workshop foreman Bob Green – a long-time employee at the Hawkins Road facility – said as it was being built in different parts, an extra level of attention was needed.
“There is no way we can bolt it together and see in in one piece before it goes over. It just means you have to be much more critical when you are actually measuring things and when it gets over there, making sure it is going to fit together again,“ Mr Green said.
Mr Franklin said dust collectors were a critical part of processing and every project system was custom-designed and different in its own way.
“It is not like we use a cookie cutter system for these dust collectors, we do have a standard approach but pretty well every one of them has been designed specific to customers needs,“ he said.
“These guys here (in Mount Gambier) really take pride in what they’re doing, they won’t just accept what we have drawn, they’ll question something and make sure it’s what its need to be, opposed to what we are suggesting.
“That is important, especially when we are trying to build these in a flatpack style, which is a critical part of why we decided to have these manufactured here.
Mr Frankin said Dalkar Engineering had also been engaged with the manufacturing and all steel had been supplied from Limestone Coast-based companies, as well as many other components.
