Atwood Resources Inc., located in Atwood, Ontario, renders carcass material for volume reduction purposes and captures the fat to market to biodiesel refineries. The facility experienced a devastating fire in December 2014 which destroyed their main production plant, administration area, and maintenance building. The gasification plant sustained minimal damage.
Atwood retained Ausenco as Owner’s Engineer for the re-build project. Ausenco provided multi-discipline engineering services from design development, regulatory approvals, and detailed design through to final construction and commissioning. The new 30,000 sf facility was completed in 2016.
Ausenco’s scope of engineering services for the project included the following:
- Architectural design for the new production plant, administration areas, and maintenance building, including Ontario Building Code (OBC) classification and construction assembly requirements.
- Civil design including site development and required site plan amendment.
- Engineering review of existing production facilities to establish plant layouts, production and utility requirements and new processes.
- Detailed design of civil, structural, mechanical, electrical and process components of the new plant, which satisfy Atwood and regulatory requirements, the OBC, Electrical Safety Code, Ministry of Environment, and Technical Standards and Safety Authority.
Ausenco also provided project management through the design process, along with procurement and construction management assistance during the rebuild and equipment commissioning.
Project challenges included design and construction of an entirely new building foundation arrangement and product receiving pits without interference of the original plant foundations. This was achieved by extensive field verification and mapping of the existing site information onto the proposed new building foundation layouts, thereby minimizing the extent of foundation removals and modifications required on site, and expedite the new construction.