One of the largest earthworks in Australia's history - the major earthworks on the site of the Western Sydney Airport,
which cost AUD5.3 billion, have been started.
After Lendlease Engineering Department and CPB Contractors, a joint venture partner, won a major earthwork project
contract of A $644 million, the construction of West Sydney Airport has made progress.
The Australian government also invested AUD5.3 billion equity through the government holding company "Western
Sydney Airport" for the delivery of the West Sydney Airport project.
Jim Tragotsalos, Executive General Manager of Western Sydney Airport, said that the main earthwork is to remove about
25 million cubic meters of soil and build new international terminal, runway, road and track.
Tragotsalos said: "This is an exciting day not only for Western Sydney, but also for the whole country, because this
transformation project is the largest milestone project so far."
Since the commencement of the first phase project in 2018, the site workers have worked about 1 million hours accumulatively
and removed 1.8 million cubic meters of residual soil.
Phase I earthworks also include redesigning the 1.6km Badgerys Creek Road, which will become one of the channels leading to
the airport when the airport is opened in 2026.
Tragotsalos said that the West Sydney International Airport was officially named after Nancy Bird Walton, one of Australia's great
aviation pioneers. The earthwork of Phase I was "just the beginning", and the construction area was only 6% of the airport site of
17.8 million square meters.
Tragotsalos said: "The main earthworks will remove 1 million cubic meters of soil every month, which is almost the total workload
of the first phase of the airport project. The working area covers 67% of the entire airport site."
The airport site is located 44 kilometers west of Sydney CBD. The project will involve hundreds of workers and more than 200 scrapers,
excavators, graders, dump trucks and bulldozers.
Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison said that the commencement of large-scale earthworks marked the beginning of an "immortal"
milestone project and also meant that the airport would be put into operation in 2026.
Morrison said, "The scale of the earthwork is equivalent to the amount of soil used by more than 10000 Olympic swimming pools, which
are stacked 12 stories high."
Members of Lindsay Melissa McIntosh added that by 2026, the airport will create more than 28000 direct and indirect employment opportunities.
McIntosh said: "For workers and learners in Western Sydney, the technical challenges faced by the earthwork scale will be a good learning opportunity."
Finance Minister Mathias Cormann said that the construction of this once-in-a-lifetime infrastructure project will change Western Sydney.
Cormann said: "The airport and the surrounding aviation cities will increase employment and economic benefits by
attracting commercial and industrial projects to the region."
In addition, market research on construction contracts including terminal areas, runways and internal roads has also
begun.