Albermarle awards major contract to Compass Group, recruitment drive underway
Albermarle has awarded a contract worth nearly $71m to Compass Group Remote Hospitality Services to operate and maintain the Paris Grove workforce accommodation precinct in Australind, near Bunbury, WA.
The $140m Paris Grove village is now under construction and will provide accommodation during rosters for up to 800 people working on the $2b expansion of Albemarle’s nearby Kemerton lithium hydroxide processing plant.
The contract with Compass Group spans three years with extension provisions and its ESS Support Services Worldwide arm will be responsible for the contract.
Around 70 people will be employed by Compass Group on a rolling roster with the company seeking to employ as many local people as possible.
A range positions is now being advertised, including roles with flexible working hours to support school hours work, at https://careers.compass-group.com.au/home-page.
Albermarle’s Paris Grove operations manager Grant Barrow says the village is being developed as a sustainable, long-term accommodation precinct specifically to support the Kemerton plant expansion.
“Paris Grove will be a modern, high-quality and purpose-built village accommodating around 800 rostered workers and will take pressure off existing rentals and short-term accommodation in the South West,” he said.
“Albermarle is setting out to positively change the approach to village management and operations and Compass Group will help us implement a healthy and safe culture for our workers – in line with recommendations of the recent WA Government resource sector inquiry.”
Located near Australind’s Spud Shed, the village design is landscape-led and is being built by Grounded Construction Group.
Compass Group’s ESS will roll out and maintain all onsite catering, accommodation, cleaning, security, health and lifestyle programs, grounds services and facilities management.
Mr Barrow says innovations at Paris Grove include secure access and check in/check out linked to a Compass Group App called ‘Guesst’ and features comfortable and stylish queen bed villas with superior mod-cons including flat screen TVs, silent fridges, as well as blackout and noise-reducing features.
“A local leading interior designer has also been working on the village dining area to be a harmonious backdrop to what will be diverse and rotating high quality menu, prepared in a state-of-the-art commercial grade kitchen,” he said.
“Recreation facilities and personalised and group health and wellbeing programs, including fitness activities will be very important and Albemarle is working closely with Compass Group on a range of measures to support psychosocial health at Paris Grove.”
Mr Barrow says Albemarle is committed to smoothing the entry of Paris Grove into the Australind community and to ensure that village operations start out and remain first class.
As part of this, the Paris Grove Community Reference Group (CRG) was recently formed and will be just one of the ways that Albemarle will consult and gain feedback from Australind residents.
The Compass Group contract award follows the recent Albemarle announcement of two other major Kemerton expansion contracts including a $330m contract to UGL, part of the CIMIC Group, and a $200m-plus contract to Monadelphous.
Albemarle’s Kemerton expansion project will see construction of processing trains three and four with plant capacity set to double at full capacity to up to 100ktpa of lithium hydroxide each year.
Albemarle’s vice-president of Australian capital projects Josh Rowan says the contracts are among the largest ever awarded by Albemarle and the Compass Group/ESS contract is the first workforce accommodation contract ever awarded by the company in Australia.
“We are Australia’s largest producer and manufacturer of lithium and our Kemerton plant is about to get a whole lot bigger,” he said.
“Construction of trains 3 and 4 is set to create over 1000 new jobs across all of our major contractors and Albemarle has recently launched an intensive three-month recruitment drive in support of our major Kemerton contractors.
“We are particularly pleased that Compass Group is seeking to employ as many local people as possible to run and manage Paris Grove with the variety and flexibility of roles set to be very attractive to local job seekers.”
Mr Rowan says that workers interested in being a part of the clean energy transition, by helping to expand the biggest and most productive lithium hydroxide processing plant in the nation, should visit the Compass Group website and link to jobs across all other major contractors at www.albemarle.com/careers
