Renweld’s members including Hort Enterprises, ILB Steel, Orange Precision Metalcraft, Plexus Technologies, Trang Imagineering and CDE Structures have more work available than they can complete and are seeking employees.

ILB recently completed work on the Melbourne metro tunnel project, building 70 metre-long sheds around the construction site to minimise dust and noise. 

The company is well into its contract for the Sydney metro. 

Meanwhile, Orange Precision Metalcraft has been constructing 10 metre-tall steel cyclone structures for the cotton farming industry from the Victorian border through to central Queensland since before Christmas.

The devices are used to extract dust from the cotton after it is harvested. 

With 40 of them completed so far, the company has until March to finish the remainder of the $2.4 million job. 

Hort and CDE also contributed to the project.

Managing director Mark Thompson said the business currently employed 35 people, but he could easily employ another six boilermakers, sheet metalworkers and draftsmen, short term or long term. 

“I’m knocking back work every day,” he said. 

“We could handle more if I could find the skills.”

Mr Thompson said when the business first started cotton industry work, Orange was considered too far south.

“But with the new cotton varieties, we’re pretty centrally located,” he said.

He believed the Renweld consortium, formed almost a decade ago, was performing well in general because Orange was central, and working together on different projects gave members the confidence to pursue contracts. 

“It’s helped us reduce costs more than anything,” he said.

“We concentrate on what we do well.”

ILB general manager and past Renweld chairman Tim Lockrey agreed Orange had the potential to become an engineering hub as jobs grew.

“Because they’ve got more options in the area,” he said.