The WA Government is celebrating the arrival of Beverley, Australia’s largest registered jack-up barge, to support construction of the Alkimos desalination plant north of Perth.

Standing on 78m legs, Beverley will install ocean intake and outfall structures above the seabed, connecting to underground pipelines currently being bored by tunnel boring machines.

These pipelines will bring seawater into the plant (intake) and return brine safely back to the ocean (outfall).

Beverley is carrying out 24–7 operations to keep construction on schedule, supported by a 400‑tonne crane, a helideck and an eight‑tonne‑per‑square‑metre deck load capacity. The vessel also hosts accommodation for more than 50 workers.

Another smaller jack-up barge will arrive this month, with Beverley to continue works at the outfall location until mid-2026.

Following the completion of major tunnelling, pipeline and site works, stage one of Alkimos will be fully operation by mid-2028. This is set to inject 50 billion litres of drinking water to more than 2.5 million Western Australians.

“Securing Western Australia’s long‑term water future remains one of the Cook Government’s highest priorities, and this project will deliver the resilient water supply our communities will rely on for decades to come,” WA Water Minister Don Punch said.

In October 2025, Alkimos marked the installation of WA’s largest water pipeline in Perth’s northern suburbs, supporting a 33.5km underground trunk main connecting the desalination plant with the Wanneroo reservoir.

Each 12m section of pipe weighs nearly nine tonnes and is expected to last around 120 years.

Pipeline manufacturing was centralised in WA for this project, carried out by an alliance comprising Water Corporation, Georgiou Group and DM Civil.

Subscribe to Pump Industry to discover all the latest industry news, technical articles and thought-leading content from Australia’s only dedicated pump magazine.