July 4, 2016

A.G. Coombs Projects has been appointed by Managing Contractor, CPB Contractors (formally Leighton Contractors), to deliver mechanical and HVAC services to stages four and five of the new Post Entry Quarantine (PEQ) facility.

Commonwealth-operated PEQ facilities manage high-risk imported animal and plant commodities and are a key component of Australia’s biosecurity system. Secure and efficient post-entry quarantine reduces biosecurity risk associated with the importation of new genetic material which is necessary for Australian agriculture to maintain competiveness and productivity. The completed PEQ facility will consolidate the existing post-entry quarantine operations that are currently situated in other parts of Australia into one site.

These final project stages involve the extension of the cat and dog facilities, and the delivery of a new avian building, which will replace current facilities at Torrens Island and Spotswood, and which has been designed to Quarantine Containment Level 3 (QC3) to mitigate the biosecurity risks associated with avian imports.

The contract award follows on from A.G. Coombs Projects’ successful delivery of the first three stages of the new PEQ facility, which incorporated the horse, cat, dog and bee compounds, and the buildings that provide site-wide services such as the dispatch, administration and central utilities buildings. A wide range of specialised HVAC, mechanical and fire services was delivered to meet the many individual requirements of the compounds, including specialist climate control systems installed in the plant compound, and very particular systems installed for the complex Quarantine Containment (QC) laboratory spaces, QC2 and QC3.

Walker Fire Protection installed fire detection systems throughout the facility, mimicked back to a central monitoring and control station. The Walker Fire Protection team has since been engaged in this new contract to deliver dry fire services, including the installation and commissioning of smoke detection systems, evacuation speakers and Fire Indicator Panels in each of the Stage 4 and 5 buildings.

Alek Sivakov, Services Manager at CPB Contractors, stated that “We were confident in the A.G. Coombs Group’s ability to successfully deliver the specialist mechanical, HVAC and fire protection systems and services required for this large, complex facility”, and added that the A.G. Coombs Group’s detailed engineering and technical support, together with its thorough commissioning processes and rigorous testing of all systems, is what led to the achievement of required outcomes and thus the award of this new contract.

Stages four and five are due for completion in late 2017.

To read more on A.G. Coombs’ involvement on the first three stages of the PEQ Project, view our PEQ case study.

For more information on A.G. Coombs’ project capability, please contact us.