West Australian company JFK Engineering is fabricating mining equipment for BHP Billiton's Rapid Growth Project 4 in the Pilbara region.

The company is fabricating three car dumper hoppers made from 260 tonnes of XLERPLATE® steel.

"The hoppers are eight metres high, eight metres wide, and eight metres long, and taper to four metres wide and six metres long at the bottom," Project Manager Nick Woodward said. "They weigh about 90 tonnes each without lining."

JFK Engineering has also recently delivered five surge bins and two feed bins to BHP Billiton's Mining Area C development in the Pilbara region. The company was contracted to undertake both projects by Monadelphous.

"We fabricated the bins from Grade 250 XLERPLATE® steel," Mr Woodward said. "They're six metres high, six metres wide and five metres long."

Established in 1969, Perth based JFK Engineering now employs 60 people and specialises in general construction, mostly for the mining industry.

"We can undertake 15 to 20 projects at any one time, depending on the size and delivery times, at our 7,000 square metre workshop at Maddington," Mr Woodward said. "We're in the process of expanding two of our bays to provide an extra 1,500 square metres of undercover area.

"It will provide more room for our CNC plasma machine and general processing."

JFK Engineering's clients include Monadelphous, Voest Alpine and Outokumpu.

"Outokumpu, a design and project management company based in Sweden with offices in Perth, has contracted us to fabricate ball mills and bearing housings," Mr Woodward said.

Ball mills, used in all mines, are rotating horizontal cylinders containing steel balls that crush ore.

JFK Engineering has also fabricated ball mills for Telfer gold/copper project and Ravensthorpe nickel project in Western Australia, and Granites Mine in the Northern Territory.

"We fabricate the ball mills from Grade 250 and 350 XLERPLATE® steel in thicknesses ranging from 25 to 110mm," Mr Woodward said.

JFK Engineering also uses Bisalloy Steel's Bisplate® 400 and 500, made from BlueScope Steel green feed plate, to fabricate buckets and dump truck tubs for the mining industry.

The company sources its steel through distributors OneSteel Steel and Tube and Smorgon Steel.

Bisplate® is a registered trademark of Bisalloy Steel.