New Caledonia Engineering Consultants

Beca has worked in the Pacific for more than 30 years, including 20 years in New Caledonia. Our local team delivers civil, structural, process and natural resource management engineering across the mining, industrial and utilities sectors, alongside FEED and EPCM delivery.

Beca's global network backs up that local knowledge, allowing us to pull in specialist technical expertise whenever a project demands it. Société Le Nickel's TBC Plant Upgrade and the Prony Resources Beneficiation Project have both benefitted from this approach.

Get in touch to discuss what we can do for your next project in New Caledonia.
 

Our Services and Capabilities

Civil and Road Engineering

Beca's civil engineers design and engineer roads, pads and drainage for mining and industrial sites across New Caledonia. That scope includes site earthworks, access route design and stormwater management, engineered for terrain that's often steep and cyclone-exposed. On mine sites, this extends to haul road design and the earthworks needed to move heavy ore loads across difficult ground.

Structural Engineering

Steelwork and foundations for processing plants and industrial facilities across New Caledonia carry equipment that can weigh hundreds of tonnes. Beca's structural engineers design these structures to carry that load reliably for decades. The island's tropical, coastal environment adds corrosion and heat to the usual design demands, factors built into material choices and detailing from the outset.

Mechanical and Electrical Engineering

Beca provides mechanical and electrical engineering for processing plants and industrial facilities across New Caledonia. This covers rotating equipment like crushers, dryers and pumps, along with the power distribution, motor control and instrumentation that keep a plant operating. On upgrades and retrofits, the electrical scope often means tying new equipment into systems that have to keep running through the changeover.

Process Engineering and Process Safety

New Caledonia's nickel operations run complex chemical processes at scale, where small inefficiencies compound across millions of tonnes of throughput. Beca's process engineers develop flowsheets, mass balances and hydraulic models that squeeze more out of each stage of production. Process safety runs alongside the design work, identifying hazards in high-temperature, high-pressure operations before they reach the plant floor.

Front End Engineering Design (FEED)

The decisions that define most of a project's cost and risk happen at FEED stage, well before construction starts. That leverage is why FEED studies matter. Beca runs them across New Caledonia's mining, industrial and utilities sectors, defining scope, cost and technical approach in enough detail for a client to commit capital with confidence. Where a client is weighing several options, this stage tests each one against cost, risk and buildability.

Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management (EPCM)

Split engineering, procurement and construction across separate contracts and the gaps between them become the client's problem to manage. Holding all three under one line of accountability is what EPCM does, and it's a core part of what Beca delivers for industrial clients on the island. Our team runs procurement, manages contractors and oversees construction through to a commissioned facility.

Plant and Support Services

Once a plant is operational, the engineering focus moves from construction to reliable day-to-day performance. Beca provides ongoing plant and support services to industrial operators across New Caledonia, from troubleshooting a bottleneck on the production line to scoping the next capital upgrade. Sitting close to a client's operations this way means the engineering knowledge carries straight into the next project.

Industrial Advisory

We support clients from early discovery and operations through to sustainability and digital transformation. Our industrial advisory spans strategic and technical consulting, giving a client one point of contact whether they need a feasibility study, an options assessment or specialist engineering input. Local knowledge and French-language capability keep that support close to the operation.

Selected Projects in New Caledonia

Prony Resources NHC Production Transition

Beca has worked with Prony Resources since the inception of their nickel processing facility. In 2019, Prony Resources set out to discontinue nickel oxide and cobalt production in favour of Nickel Hydroxide Cake (NHC), decommissioning the refinery section of their plant and introducing an advanced filtering and bagging unit to scale up NHC as their sole product. Our involvement began with a FEL3 study, then continued through detailed design, construction management and commissioning support.

Prony Resources Beneficiation Project

We enhanced production efficiency at Prony Resources through optimised ore handling and metallurgical design, from concept to detailed engineering. The Beneficiation Project focused on improving the nickel to magnesium ratio supplied to the high pressure acid leaching (HPAL) process, boosting output across the HPAL circuit and downstream processes. Beca's scope ran from specifying and interpreting metallurgical testwork through to a full suite of civil, structural, mechanical, electrical, instrumentation and piping design.

Société Le Nickel TBC Plant Upgrade

Within a tight 17-day shutdown window, Beca helped Société Le Nickel's TBC (Tour Broyage et Criblage) plant upgrade achieve reduced dust emissions, lower operating costs and improved throughput. The solution centred on a high efficiency trommel screen fitted to the plant's dryers, engineered to work within the existing dust collection system. Awarded the EPCM contract, Beca assembled a site-based construction team to complete brownfields work spanning more than 15 points of interface inside that shutdown window.

Société Le Nickel Shaking Baghouse Project

Beca's work on SLN's baghouse project leveraged digital modelling technology (IDEAS™) to identify heat loss and validate solutions that avoided the need for high-outlay equipment. The investigation began as a study into gas duct configurations for cleaning off-gases from the smelter's ferronickel desulphurisation shaking stations. Once modelling confirmed that cooling emissions to 250°C would make a baghouse viable, construction proceeded in a live operating environment and was completed with no lost-time or safety incidents.

Mobil Ducos Bunding Design

At Mobil's fuel terminal in Ducos, Nouméa, Beca handled front end and detailed engineering design for a series of depot upgrades. The project increased the site's bund capacity and introduced a new impermeable lining across the terminal, containing any fuel that escapes storage before it reaches the ground. All design work met French and New Caledonian regulatory standards, with existing depot drawings checked against Mobil's own operating practices.
 

Ready to Build in New Caledonia?

Beca has worked in New Caledonia for 20 years, delivering engineering and advisory services across the island's mining, industrial and utilities sectors. Get in touch to discuss what we can do for your next project.

Frequently Asked Questions

How should you choose an engineering consultancy in New Caledonia?

Local knowledge matters as much as technical capability here. An effective consultancy understands New Caledonian and French regulatory standards, can work in French alongside local contractors, and has real experience in the island's mining and industrial sectors. It also helps to know whether a firm can bring in specialist expertise from outside the territory when a project calls for it, rather than being limited to locally available skills.

What size projects does Beca take on in New Caledonia?

Beca works across a wide range of project scales, from focused advisory studies and single-plant upgrades through to multi-year programmes on major nickel processing facilities. The local team draws on Beca's wider network when a project needs additional specialist depth, so project size is rarely a constraint.

Can Beca support a project from feasibility through to commissioning?

Yes. Beca works across the full project lifecycle in New Caledonia, from early FEED and feasibility studies through detailed design, procurement and construction management, to commissioning support. Clients can engage Beca for a single phase or for end-to-end delivery under an EPCM arrangement, with the same team carrying knowledge through each stage.

Does Beca have experience with New Caledonia's environmental and regulatory requirements?

Yes. Beca's work in New Caledonia is delivered to French and New Caledonian regulatory standards, including the environmental requirements that govern mining, industrial and fuel storage sites. Projects like the Société Le Nickel emissions work and the Mobil Ducos containment upgrade were shaped directly by local compliance obligations.

How does Beca approach sustainability on industrial projects?

Sustainability runs through much of Beca's industrial work, from emissions reduction and cleaner processing through to the digital tools that improve plant efficiency. On nickel operations in particular, Beca has helped clients cut dust emissions, model energy use and validate lower-cost solutions that reduce both operating expense and environmental impact.


Click on the images below to download a brochure outlining the work we've been delivering in the Pacific, including New Caledonia.          
                                                          

English version                                                                                French version