NIOA has begun an extensive refurbishment within its tenancy area at the government-owned munitions factory in Benalla. The Australian-owned defence prime recently took up a 10-year co-tenancy at the Benalla munitions factory aimed at producing munitions for the Australian Defence Force and for export.
NIOA CEO Robert Nioa said early works had now begun to refurbish buildings at the Yarrawonga Road factory to provide a permanent headquarters for the company on site. The NIOA tenancy will eventually create up to 100 advanced manufacturing jobs for the region. The A$2 million upgrade, designed by Architects KIRK and being led by Schiavello Construction, is expected to take three months with up to 15 contractors on site each day, the majority from the local area and Melbourne. Planning for the project has been in the pipeline since 2018 when NIOA carried out work to upgrade the ADF’s 84mm Carl Gustav inventory on the site. As part of its vision to become a top 10 global munitions exporter, that same year the company purchased a 121-hectare adjacent parcel of industrial zoned land.
‘’Defence is an industry that the federal government has identified as one of six strategically important National Manufacturing Priorities within a broader Modern Manufacturing Strategy as the economy recovers from the Coronavirus pandemic,’’ Nioa said. ‘’Projects such as this at Benalla generate jobs now and into the future and NIOA wants regional communities to be part of every step of the journey.’’
The Benalla project is part of a A$130 million capital investment in domestic munitions and explosives manufacturing by NIOA over the next five years which includes the construction of a A$60 million artillery shell forging plant in Maryborough, Queensland with NIOA’s joint-venture partner Rheinmetall Waffe Munition and an A$11 million expansion of NIOA’s Brisbane warehouse and distribution facility.
The company recently secured Stage 1 of Tranche 1 of the LAND 159 program, a program that will replace and modernise the Army’s soldier combat weapons systems. In 2017-2018 it was awarded the A$95 million Major Munitions Contract and the A$100 million LAND 17 – 1C.2 Future Artillery Ammunition contract.
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