28km Long Delivery for Energy Resources Australia

ERA’s Ranger mine in the NT produces uranium for the world’s nuclear power generators.

When we understood the scope of the cargo to be transported for Energy Resources Australia (ERA) we were determined to save the customer project costs and risk with smart load planning and trailer configuration.

ERA is one of the longest continually operating uranium producers in the world with processing at their Ranger mine, 260km south-east of Darwin, delivering fuel for the global nuclear power generators.

Like many remote and regional mining operations around Australia, ERA had several projects that required construction materials - at scale.

Specifically, ERA required 28 kilometres of several diameter poly pipe, ranging from 110mm and 710mm, to be transported from Townsville to Darwin, to support key water projects including:

• Dredged tailings

• Mill tailings

• Concentrated brine; and

• Bore water needs

Knowing that shorter lengths mean more pipe joins and manual labour, our team set about load planning to reduce the overall cost to their projects.

Distribution Direct worked directly with ERA’s supplier Vinidex in Townsville, to maximise the lengths we could transport using our specialist fleet of road trains and extendable trailers.

We were able to configure our fleet to transport 20 metre lengths instead of the usual 12 metre lengths and reduce the overall number of loads to be transported. On paper, if ERA had to join all that pipe together they would have saved 0.6 join per length shipped - that’s over 920 joins in total!

The entire 28 kilometres of poly took four months to transport and by transporting longer lengths ERA made significant labour, materials, project time and transportation savings.

Want this project’s one page spec sheet? Download it here.

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