Veolia Environmental Services wins contract for BHP Billiton's Ravensthorpe Nickel Operations.

Veolia Environmental Services adds further value to BHP through enhanced safety and efficiency methods.

Veolia Environmental Services was recently awarded the new contract with BHP Billiton Ravensthorpe Nickel Operations Pty Ltd for a period of  three years, effective from July 2007. The contract covers a vast range of services including High-Pressure Watering Jetting, Ultra High-Pressure Water Jetting and Vacuum Loading services.

Veolia teams will be operating 12 hours per day, 7 days per week with two crews on a fly-in, fly-out basis. This is a green field site (brand new) and is the largest Nickel operation in Australia, and the VES teams are looking forward to the challenges ahead.

The relationship between BHP and Veolia has been steadily growing, with VES also performing Industrial Cleaning Services at the BHP Port Hedland site.

Veolia received acclaim from BHP in relation to the maintanence and cleaning work carried out at the BHP Billiton, Port Hedland Operations. BHP and Veolia worked together to establish a process of cleaning chutes which capture and direct ore. Consequently the amount of chute blockages and the time it takes to clean them have now been halved thanks to the work from the VES teams.

VES worked with the Port Hedland BHP crew in establishing a variety of improvements to ensure the cleaning of chutes was made easy, safe and highly efficient. Such improvements included several enhanced safety procedures, including personalised danger tags for cleaning crews and isolating areas using retractable bunting to alert people that cleaning was underway in specific areas.

Perhaps the most important improvement however was the scheduling of regular weekly cleaning of the chutes. This pre-emptive method ensured that set-up time was reduced and operational efficiency ensured.