Keppel Prince director Steve Garner is hoping to receive some good news in 2022 ahead of a challenging 12 months.
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"It's been a horrid year work wise and COVID wise," Mr Garner said.
In March, Mr Garner was forced to make the difficult decision to make 43 jobs redundant after the contract to build 52 towers for the Ryan Corner wind farm near Port Fairy went to an overseas company.
Mr Garner told The Standard in July he was holding out hope his company would secure the contract for the Woolsthorpe wind farm.
In addition to that he was hopeful the state government would announce the contracts for its Victorian Renewable Energy Target (VRET).
However, he is yet to hear about either of the possible lines of work.
Thankfully, Mr Garner is now confident he won't have to make any more redundancies after a $28 million project to fire up Portland's Aluminium smelter was recently announced.
Mr Garner said he was still hopeful of securing the contract for the Woolsthorpe wind farm after being bitterly disappointed when the contract for the Ryan's Corner wind farm went to an overseas country.
"We don't know what's happening with Woolsthorpe," he said.
"No one's talking - it's all gone silent.
"I'd love to think the developer is still working on getting his proposal approved but we're not expecting any announcements in the short-term."
Mr Garner said the company had maintained its workforce with "little bits and pieces" of work throughout 2021.
But the smelter upgrade is good news for his company and the south-west, Mr Garner said.
"We've been really blessed," he said.
"It has not only saved our company, it has saved a hell of a lot of jobs."
Mr Garner said the VRET announcements had been pushed back and were not expected until September next year.
"We were hoping VRET would get put out into the market very early in the year - we didn't anticipate it being so late," he said.
"But we're holding tight and hoping for a prosperous 2022 and 2023."
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