Powering WA’s Future: How Energy Installation & Decommissioning Unlock Growth Opportunities

Decommissiong Energy

Western Australia is at the centre of one of the most significant industrial transitions in decades. From the retirement of coal plants in Collie, to the rise of large-scale batteries and offshore wind, through to oil and gas decommissioning, the energy sector is reshaping rapidly, and with it, the opportunities for local engineering, fabrication, and installation businesses.

The Collie Transition & Beyond

The WA Government has committed over $660 million to Collie’s transition, including staged shutdowns and demolitions of coal-fired power stations. For businesses located nearby, like GB Gillespie in Boddington, this creates a once-in-a-generation pipeline of contracts: demolition steelwork, boiler dismantling, conveyor removal, battery enclosures, and civil steel structures.

Just down the road, Synergy’s Kwinana and Collie battery projects are delivering over 1 GW of firming capacity. Every one of these installations requires platforms, skids, cable trays, and structural steel, work that WA fabricators including Walsh Steel Fabrication, are uniquely placed to supply.

Transmission, Offshore Wind & New Energy Infrastructure

To enable this transition, Western Power’s SWIS Transmission Planning Update outlines major new transmission corridors and substations across the state. That means demand for towers, monopoles, substation gantries, and fencing.

Offshore wind is also emerging as a new frontier, with the 4,000 km² Bunbury declared zone moving toward feasibility. Developers will need landfall ducts, port upgrades, onshore substations, and fabrication for offshore components.

The Decommissioning Wave

Australia faces $60 billion in oil and gas decommissioning liabilities over the next few decades, much of it off WA’s coast. From topside dismantling to sea-fastening and recycling, this sector is now heavily regulated, ensuring that clean-up obligations are met. With the Northern Endeavour case costing taxpayers over $325 million already, government and industry are under pressure to build local dismantling capacity rather than sending work offshore.

This presents an opening for WA-based firms with steel, fabrication, and logistics expertise to plug into national and international contractor networks.

Why Fitzgerald Equity is Watching Closely

At Fitzgerald Equity, we target sectors where consolidation builds immediate scale and resilience. Energy installation and decommissioning fit this model perfectly:

Bankable cash flow: Energy projects - whether installing new batteries, upgrading transmission, or dismantling oil & gas assets, generate recurring, contract-backed revenue. Businesses with recurring income are positioned to reinvest quickly into expansion.

• Growth through aggregation: Smaller contractors often face limited scale in tendering. By acquiring these businesses and rolling them into a larger platform, we create a contractor with the capacity to chase high margin opportunities.

• Strategic upside: Scale unlocks access to Tier-1 energy and decommissioning programs, valuing the combined entity at high multiples for proven capability.

• The energy sector is not just about renewables, it’s about the entire lifecycle: build, operate, decommission, and repurpose. For steel fabricators, engineers, and industrial contractors across WA, the opportunity is here and now.

At Fitzgerald Equity, in addition to our own roll up startegy, we’re building partnerships that help businesses capture these opportunities at little to no cost to the owners, leveraging acquisition funding and sponsor support.

If your business wants to take advantage of WA’s energy transition, whether in installation, fabrication, or decommissioning, reach out to us to discuss how growth through acquisition can unlock the next chapter.