An international mining equipment manufacturer is moving to the Illawarra next month in what is seen as a welcome sign for the region’s depressed manufacturing sector.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Nepean Conveyors, which specialises in conveyor systems for ports and mines, will lease the former Orrcon plant at Unanderra in a move that will create 55 new positions including apprentices.
The company now has five factories in Australia including one near Narellan and another near Picton. It also has one in South Africa.
‘‘The Unanderra factory will serve as a design, manufacturing and project management headquarters for conveyor packages,’’ managing director Rolf Van Rooyen said yesterday.
The Picton plant will be retained to maintain equipment for existing clients and Narellan will be used for general engineering.
The company set up an office in Wollongong earlier this year and staff there will soon relocate to the new site in Glastonbury Rd.
The total workforce is expected to be about 80.
Mr Van Rooyen said recruitment had already begun on the new positions which ranged from boiler makers to fitters and machining apprentices and were expected to come mainly from the Illawarra.
Manufacturing operations include fabrication, machining, surface finishing assembly and factory acceptance testing.
The new factory is part of a strategy to serve the rapid expansion in NSW underground coalmines in the past two years.
Mr Rooyen said the market growth was set to reach between 10 and 15 per cent per year for the next five years.
‘‘Underground coalmines in NSW have been expanding rapidly in the past 24 months. Nepean Conveyors believes its current business levels are sustainable in line with market growth.’’
Australian Industry Group regional manager Leanne Grogan described the announcement as encouraging.
‘‘Eighty jobs is great news and every manufacturing job creates another three jobs,’’ Ms Grogan said yesterday. ‘‘It’s even better that it is supporting the mining industry because the multiplier effect in that sector is five to one.’’
Ms Grogan said the deal had highlighted a silver lining to the manufacturing downturn.
‘‘Establishing large industrial sites has been an issue here because of the expense involved but the downturn has freed up some good-sized sites with services already in place for new companies to move straight in,’’ she said.
Orrcon, which made steel pipe, pulled out of the region in June last year after tough economic conditions forced it to close with the loss of 47 jobs.
The 5992sqm site, which is owned by two Illawarra businessmen, went on the market for $12 million in December last year.
However, Nepean Conveyors has negotiated a three-year lease with an option of another three years.
Raine and Horne agent Lynda Burnside said the site attracted interest from mainly mining-related companies based as far away as Queensland.
!function(d,s,id){var js,fjs=d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0];if(!d.getElementById(id)){js=d.createElement(s);js.id=id;js.src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js";fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js,fjs);}}(document,"script","twitter-wjs");
