Construction World May 2016

PROJECT PROFILE

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HME FILLING STATION at Sishen Work may have been undertaken outside the so-called ‘red zone’ at Sishen mine in the Northern Cape, but this did not make one of the last contracts Murray & Roberts Infrastructure undertook for Kumba any easier.

of a host of built-in and cast-in items for the project. While lead times for some items, such as the pipelines, are 12 weeks, he says that the biggest hurdles occur before the actual order is placed with the vendors. All docu- mentation can take up to 18 weeks to finalise to receive the necessary permission to have the items delivered to site. “Sometimes, it can take between three and four months before you get everything to site, so you have to plan very carefully” says Krugel. Big pours One of the highlights of the build was the 600 mm concrete slab that makes up the forecourt of the filling station. Constructing the 90 metre by 66 metre forecourt called for the placement of 4 800 m 3 of concrete – with a total of 8 000 m 3 poured – and 570 tons of reinforcing bar – with a total of 770 tons for the entire project. Between six and eight readymix trucks ran to and from the batching site a day. The sheer number of trucks was necessary considering that 3Q Concrete’s batching plant is located eight kilometres from the site. A total of 18 pours were needed to complete this aspect of the works with the

> Following the completion of

of the complexities of this project was the number of working faces on the contract and the extremely fast track nature of the project, which was completed in as little as six months. “The biggest challenge we faced on this contract was the number of working faces from day one. There were at least 10 at any given time during the project duration,” he says. Coping with the formidable task at hand called for excellent team work, and Krugel notes that the client’s involvement helped tremendously. “The client did a great job in terms of managing the project. It was extremely proac- tive, which helped us moving forward.” The contracting team also had to take a proactive approach to managing the arrival

another civil engineering construc- tion contract at the iron ore mine later this year, the leading South

African infrastructure specialist, which forms part of Murray & Roberts Construction, will be establishing itself elsewhere in the country to start working on a road construction contract for a major local roads agency. Murray & Roberts Infrastructure recently completed the civils works for the mine’s new Heavy Mining Equipment filling station and storage tank area. This infrastructure will be used to service the giant Komatsu rigid dump trucks that haul iron ore out of the pit to the tipping point. Murray & Roberts Infrastructure’s contracts manager, Tiaan Krugel, says one

CONSTRUCTION WORLD MAY 2016