OPERATIONS REVIEW Australia, and particularly the north west is impoverished in terms of infrastructure to service our marine industries. Some of this has been due to a historical link with our recent industrial past. This is now behind us, and Australia has now become a centre of excellence with respect to both new building and ship repair, particularly for high tech and specialty vessels. The Mermaid slipway will be the third such facility on the western half of the continent , with others located at Fremantle and Darwin. The slipway will be a repair only facility, no new building is contemplated. Its capacity is structured to meet the regional steel mono-hulled fleet requirements of some 60 vessels between 200 and 4000 tonne displacement. Fishing industry, marine tourist industry, large private pleasure craft , naval, scientific and law enforcement vessels are a secondary target. The slipway is designed to initially accept vessels up to 2,700 tonnes, a restriction which is set by our current inventory of cradles used to support vessel on the slip. The cradles will be progressively upgraded to ultimately handle 4000 tonne. A later expansion will allow 500 tonne vessels to be side slipped, thereby increasing capacity. The slipway location and orientation on the Base has been chosen to maximize the cost and load bearing benefits of having a very high strength granite bedrock as the best possible foundation. The Mermaid slipway will rank second in terms of capacity on the western half of the continent. Tenix, Fremantle 8,000 tonne, Mermaid Dampier 2,700 tonne rising to 4,000 tonne, Darwin Ship Repair 2,500 tonne. The nearest other facilities are Singapore, Adelaide, Port Moresby or Cairns. Mermaid has purchased a very large cyclone rated industrial building frame which will be sited beside the slipway and tenanted by Mermaid engineering and companies which will provide ancillary services related to ship repair. G. SLIPWAY. The Northwest Shelf is a world scale offshore oil and gas exploration province. Ar 17