On first reading of the Earthworks Eliwana Rail 20 to 143km work...

On first reading of the Earthworks Eliwana Rail 20 to 143km work packages, I found the words 20 to 143km difficult to understand. I have since learned the tender is for 123km of rail formation – see below. The package of work does not include bridge building. The estimated volume of cut and fill would give a civil engineer a rough basis for an estimate. Obviously, the nature of the cuts required could be significant (hard rock, or not?). Sometimes this type of job includes surveying, but not in this case.

• Construction of bulk earthworks including foundation preparation for rail embankments, embankment construction (cut to fill, borrow to fill, drill and blast and cut to spoil), construction of haul and access roads and establishment and rehabilitation of borrow pits;
• Construction of drainage infrastructure for road and rail including culverts, table drains, diversion drains, cut off drains, levees and floodways, including supply of materials as required;
• 123km of rail formation (1.96M m3 cut, 2.67M m3 fill); and
• 100km of road formation (0.22M m3 cut, 0.45M m3 fill).

The Eliwana Bulk Earthworks and Roads package mainly covers earthworks for a few camps and an airstrip. If you click on https://gateway.icn.org.au/project/4182/eliwana-project and then click on the “docs” tab for any work package, you will find the work scope for the selected package – thus you can look up whatever is of interest, e.g., Bridge Contractot (to build two bridges over Rio Tinto Rail's infrastructure).

I have found locating estimates for work packages to be a hit and miss affair, and some of the hits suggest costs that are plainly wrong.

Suffice to say that revenue volumes are not going to be a problem for a few years.