With the arrival of Liberty Industrial’s custom-built 120-tonne High Reach Excavator, works at Chevron Australia’s Thevenard Island Onshore Decommissioning & Remediation project has seen our team successfully – and safely – demolish three oil storage tanks with a capacity of 350,000 bbl (oil barrels) and weighing approximately 1436-tonnes each.
Liberty’s investment in specialised high-reach plant and equipment makes us uniquely placed to execute this type of heavy industrial work safely and efficiently.
Utilising our 120-tonne demolition excavator with heavy demolition front and large capacity shear, we were able to pierce the tank at approximately two-thirds of its height (almost 24m) and progressively shear the circumference causing the upper third of the tank to collapse in a controlled manner within the bottom tank walls. With the ability to shear down the lower wall sections into more manageable sizes, this approach makes shearing on the ground, safe and efficient.
The strategic use of high-reach plant and equipment at Thevenard Island has played a critical role in reducing the interaction between personnel and the workforce – a cornerstone of our risk mitigation strategy.
Almost 100% of the steel has already been processed into export-grade size for recycling off-shore through our export partner THC Holding. Upon project completion, it is expected that more than 5000-tonnes of steel will be recycled.
About Thevenard Island
Located 22km off the coast of Onslow in Western Australia, Thevenard Island was previously the base for the processing and storage of hydrocarbons. The island infrastructure included facilities capable of handling up to 120 000 bbl/d of mixed oil-water production, three 350 000-bbl oil tanks, water treatment and disposal facilities, pipelines, three gas-turbine generators, a gas treatment plant, a 55 m3 capacity slug catcher/separator vessel and gas compression units.
With production activities ceasing in 2014 and island facilities no longer operational, Liberty Industrial is currently working closely with Chevron Australia to dismantle, stockpile and dispose of redundant infrastructure, facilities & utilities. Once demolition is complete, our team will work to remediate the land on the island to its former glory.