Aurecon upgraded Rio Tinto's Cape Lambert Jetty, Karratha shown at sunset.

Bringing complex port, marine and coastal design to life

Ports, marine & coastal

Ports, marine and coastal facilities are the hub and node of networks that support everyday lives, with the transportation and distribution of commodities, materials and people, provision of jobs, and access to export markets that ensure a country’s economic prosperity and security.

The design and delivery of these facilities needs to be able to withstand extreme weather events, the corrosive marine environment, protect marine biodiversity and facilitate quick responses with inherent flexibility and resilience. This requires smart capital investment decisions and an integrated approach across infrastructure ecosystems to create and protect value for stakeholders, customers, investors and communities.

This is when Aurecon’s design, engineering and advisory experience is combined to deliver solutions for the benefit of economies and communities:

  • Ports – we collaborate with port authorities, asset owners and operators in bulk ports, container terminals and general cargo terminals to maximise productivity, resilience and agility, and extract value from assets.
  • Marine – we assist governments, defence and national security organisations as well as the private sector to develop wharves, quays and jetties, and shipyards, to support national and international connectivity and security.
  • Coastal – we work closely with clients to understand, design, control and manage coastal infrastructure to defend against sea level rise, protect marine environments, and develop urban infrastructure for coastal recreation.

With the ability to provide ecosystem-wide solutions, Aurecon owns our client’s challenges to ensure that solutions respond directly to their needs with infrastructure that satisfies existing and future demands.

Our difference

Aurecon asks the right questions, at the right time, to shape projects in the right way from the very beginning. Whether this is using data and analytics to optimise and sustain assets; increasing the productivity of operations; designing climate smart infrastructure for agility and flexibility; or ensuring that sustaining capital programmes create and protect asset value.

Our particular expertise in understanding how to scope plan, design and deliver port structures in the aggressive and exposed offshore marine environment remains a mainstay of our capability.

Our insights are shaped by the variety of projects that we co-create with our clients, from business cases through to detailed design, construction, maintenance and asset management:

Increase productivity of operations, graph inside cog

Productivity
of operations

  • Advisory and engineering to link data with delivery
  • Address and resolve ecosystem-wide and value cycle challenges
  • Define processes and systems that work
Developing and maintaining assets for performance, scorecard with pencil.

Build and sustain infrastructure

  • Comply with regulations and standards
  • Unlock value in the life of assets
  • Design agile and flexible supply chain infrastructure
Navigating climate change, mountain with flag at summit

Navigate climate change and performance

  • Understand the risks and priorities of transitioning to net zero emissions
  • Protect assets and build community resilience
  • Reduce the complexity
  • Unveil opportunities to enable advantages
  • Asset regeneration and reuse
People and planet

A legacy for people and the planet

  • Design for the future
  • Enable smarter capital or asset management expenditure decisions
  • Help communities and economies to thrive
Develop a future for industries, hand holding bar graph

Support
future industries

  • Smarter ways to derive value
  • Leverage disruptive technologies
  • Define new pathways, products and markets
Forefront of global design standard, certificate

Setting the global design standard

  • Spearheading guidance for structural resilience to climate change
  • Knowledge and expertise in global maritime standards
  • Representation on Standards Australia committee

Aurecon’s eminent people contribute knowledge and expertise to global maritime structure standards, including representation in the industry on the Standards Australia committee for maritime structures (AS 4997).

This follows similar contributions to the World Association for Waterborne Transport Infrastructure PIANC guideline Climate Change Adaptation Planning for Ports and Inland Waterways. This guideline is particularly focused on assisting developing nations and small organisations to manage the broad range of risks and opportunities that climate change will bring to ports.

What we deliver

With the increasingly rapid pace of change experienced in the markets in which we operate, there is an urgency to the completion of projects for our clients. We address this with a delivery ecosystem that includes smart and innovative design and delivery to ensure the continued operation, efficiency and productivity of ports, marine and coastal facilities.

By working closely with our clients, collaborating with stakeholders and technical experts, and developing industry partnerships, we help organisations achieve their goals and deliver projects that meet the needs of users both now and into the future.

Brownfields site development

Responding to existing site constraints is challenging for ports, marine and coastal infrastructure across brownfields environments, where there’s significant downtime, safety and schedule implications for any interruption to operations.

The three key factors to address in brownfield site developments are: an operations-led perspective that provides tailored advice; execution-led perspective focused on delivery and engineering; and digital enablement.

This ensures that the right asset investment decisions are made so that existing facilities remain relevant and competitive.

Shipyard and port industry hubs

Investment in shipyard and port hubs is key for a country’s economic prosperity, export potential and national security.

Our design of naval, shipbuilding and port hubs are fit-for-purpose and, to the maximum extent possible, designed for future flexibility and adaptability, asset operators have efficient transportation, employment and distribution operations. Deliberately agile in nature, Aurecon’s design of facilities incorporates advanced digital engineering and modelling to accommodate the ever-changing needs of asset operations, and the changes to equipment manufacture specifications.

Precinct integration

Ports are, by their very nature, precincts, interacting with and requiring a variety of supporting infrastructure and landside development. Successful port precincts are dependent on how they serve and respond to users’ needs. At Aurecon, we understand the variety of port precincts, including industrial, commercial and small craft, defence, bulk export, and how they are unique in their objectives, vision, funding mechanisms, availability of developable land and infrastructure requirements through to social, economic and environmental requirements.

While Aurecon’s advice and delivery methods are tailored to the development of each individual precinct, they all aim to facilitate the following objectives: stimulate economic growth and opportunity; provide for jobs; promote social and environmental equity; support liveable and sustainable communities with jobs and accessibility; and support current and future export industries.

Design for sustaining capital

As asset investment imperatives shift towards optimising the value and performance of existing asset portfolios, how ports, marine and coastal infrastructure assets are managed becomes more critical.

We work with clients to create and protect value, achieve optimal productivity and efficiency outcomes, and design compelling customer experiences, by rebalancing and optimising existing asset portfolios.

In the context of asset re-investment, data-driven and informed decisions provide the opportunity to put in place programmes of work that deliver consistent value, continuous improvement and greater productivity.

Our services

We develop designs with process, technical, environmental and regulatory risk considerations to deliver safe, sustainable, risk-resilient and high-performing infrastructure and facilities.

Our clients turn to us for surety of delivery timeframes, design for safety, and the quality and innovation of solutions across:

  • Marine structures
  • Coastal management and protection
  • Port planning and infrastructure
  • Wharves and jetties
  • Dredging and reclamation
  • Dry bulk terminals
  • Passenger and recreational facilities
  • Defence infrastructure
  • Shipyards, ship lifts, vessel transfer path and hardstands
  • Bulk liquids and gas terminals
  • Container terminals and general cargo
  • Moveable architecture
  • Intelligent transport systems
  • Transhipment facilities

Thinking

More insights

Projects

More projects

Podcasts

Climate change in Asia with South Pole

Aurecon with Renat Heuberger describe a new narrative for climate change adaptation and mitigation emerging in Asia and how Asian countries have responded to climate change risk.

Listen to this podcast
Podcasts

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