Make and mend

摘要

IT COULD be tough to find subcontractors to handle mine maintenance work in Western Australia over the next couple of months. While it is difficult to get a handle on the extent of the work at hand, a number of mines are bringing forward maintenance work. This is because they have had to scale back regular activities due to the explosion that disabled Apache Energy's Varanus processing plant. With that plant went 30 percent of WA's gas supply. Exacerbating the problem is damage to the state's flagship coal fired power station, which has taken it offline forcing more gas to be burnt than usual to keep the lights on. The station's turbine room was damaged just five days before the Varanus Island explosion.