Winyama Contracting Group teams up with Striker
Winyama Contracting Group is being supported by Striker crushing equipment as it expands its reach in the Pilbara
For Western Australia’s Winyama Contracting Group (WCG), its work goes beyond providing construction and mining services, with a strong commitment to supporting Indigenous communities and businesses in the Pilbara region.
From its base in Karratha, WCG has been growing its presence over the past two years to become a key name in Pilbara’s earthmoving, construction and mining industry. Vital to this growth has been the reliability and productivity of its crushing equipment, supplied by fellow WA business Striker.
From initially hiring out jaw and cone crushers from Striker, WCG is now taking the next step with a new pair of crushers currently being built as its looks to expand its crushing capabilities.
Key to growth
Winyama Contracting Group, named after the Ngarluma word for sea eagle, was set up in 2023 by Arthur Ramirez, Jason Gore, Ray Kaestner and Justin Angove after a buyout of Iron Mine Contracting’s operations in the area.
Bringing a range of experience across trades, mining, oil & gas and construction, the co-founders have quickly expanded WCG’s capabilities, growing from 50 staff and two contracts to quadruple that in just two years.
“We operate four specialised divisions, one of which is mine services. In this space, we support Rio Tinto’s port operations here in the Pilbara,” Gore says.
“We have a specialised civil fleet and personnel that maintains the cleanliness of their facilities, and we provide screening services to resize ore, as well as bulk haulage using our fleet of 100-tonne dump trucks.
“Our construction projects divisions focus on civil earthworks and concreting — both in situ and precast. We also deliver maintenance services at the Karratha Gas Plant, ranging from minor works like door installations to major civil scopes, including concrete remediation.
“Our most recent addition is the crushing division, which has been operating for just over eight months.”
Gore explains that WCG turned to Striker equipment when a stemming and crushing contract was awarded by Rio Tinto at Paraburdoo.
“Jarrad Mouritz, who heads up our crushing division, is a strong advocate for Striker gear,” he says.
“We initially hired a setup for a six-month campaign at Paraburdoo, and the results were so strong that we’ve since invested in new, larger jaw and cone crushers from them.
“We were initially going to replace the equipment that we’re hiring, but we’ll probably end up holding on to that and expand our offering through to other parts of Rio Tinto. There’s been a lot of engagement with our clients regarding what we’re doing, and they’re happy with the product and the productivity.”
With lower-grade ore typically being crushed down to 10–30mm for use in blasting by Rio Tinto, Gore says the performance and reliability of Striker’s equipment has been invaluable to the business.
“We are currently using a Striker JM1180 mobile jaw crusher and a Striker CR300 mobile cone crusher,” Gore says.
“We’ve worked together to iron out all the wrinkles and we’ve had a really good performance to the point where, yesterday, we crushed 5,000 tonnes for our client, which is a record for us on a 12-hour shift.
“The guys have been very happy with the performance of it. It’s Caterpillar equipment, so it’s easy to keep up with parts. Striker also have a good warehousing facility, which we reviewed in Perth.”
With a new jaw and cone crusher on the horizon, Gore says Striker has provided excellent technical support to help them achieve even higher levels of safety and productivity with their new gear.
“On our new machinery we’re really excited about having a hydraulic rock breaker, which gives us a rapid response to unblock jaws,” Gore says.
“We’re dealing with all sorts of oversized rock, so this particular add-on that Striker discussed with us is going to be a big help.
“What I also like about their equipment is the quick setup. We can mobilise from Paraburdoo to Nammuldi in about four days, and we’re back producing. So the speed at which we can demob, put those items on a truck and move to the next location is a big plus.
“Overall, the Striker team has been fantastic to deal with, whether it’s the hire side, sales or parts. They’ve been really good at supporting us from the back end – taking calls on weekends and getting hold of parts to keep us going when needed. So, we feel like we’re very like-minded West Australian businesses. We want to keep our clients happy, and they want to keep us happy. It’s a win, win relationship.
Community focus
WCG and Striker also have a mutual vision to support local Indigenous businesses in Western Australia and help give back through training and contracting opportunities.
With all four directors of WCG living in Karratha, the business is doing what it can to bring positive change to the area through its work.
“We love supporting the community, and the community supports us,” says Ramirez, a proud Ngarluma, Yinjibarndi, Nykina and Nyul-Nyul man.
“We’re a big advocate for returning to the community where we can so we have sponsorship of local sporting clubs and we’ve just worked out a scholarship arrangement with an Indigenous student who we are supporting through high school.”
Ramirez says that having Indigenous representation and supporting local Indigenous communities in and around Karratha and the Pilbara is core to the business.
“We’re at 50 per cent Indigenous employment, with a small contingent of FIFO staff, but we’re typically residential,” he says.
“We just ticked over $2 million since we started supporting local Indigenous businesses. We do what’s called business incubation. So, through our contracts with companies like Rio Tinto or Woodside Energy, anyone who comes to us who’s got a good business idea or has some plant they want to hire out, we try and take them on our journey.
“We offer our management system, and the opportunity to work through us first, with the idea to self-perform at some stage. We’ve got a real push to try and empower local communities to build up their confidence.
“We’ve got some really high expectations of ourselves and what we can continue to contribute back to the community.
“We have a Reconciliation Action Plan and the next stage is to put some strong stretch targets in place to push ourselves. We’ve found that Indigenous participation in white collar roles is an area that we really want to work on, so looking for our next superintendents, estimators, engineers.”