Tamworth concrete company Humes gets jobs boost after Inland Rail Project contract win

Humes Executive Genera Manager Guido Dewilde said the vast 1700-kilometre new freight rail line had already boosted their business.

In just two years, the company has grown from 15 employees to over 100, driven by earlier work for the $14 billion rail project. With the $67 million contract to create concrete for the Narrabri to North Star section, the company is now set to grow by another 30, he said.

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The company will now be one of the bigger industrial producers in Tamworth, Mr Dewilde said.

"I think it does. It's not just our direct output, it's our supply chain as well. We use a lot steel, we use a lot of materials from local quarries. We use a lot of other materials that are locally sourced and we use local labour," he said.

New England MP Barnaby Joyce told media that the announcement of the contract win was his first as returned Deputy Prime Minister outside of Canberra.

"That's how important it is to me," he said.

Mr Joyce said the rail scheme is an "iconic project" and a piece of "nation-building infrastructure" and getting the job done fast will prove to competitors like China Australia's resolve to be "doers".

"We have the capacity to be respected because people can see that we're doers that can get things done, and that we are strong in our own right," he said.

The concrete company will use a form of cutting-edge low-carbon "green" concrete called ECOPact to produce 9,400 concrete products for the rail scheme. Including carbon offsets, the concrete production is carbon-neutral, Mr Dewilde said.

Humes is already a market-leader in green concrete - the Tamworth company's work for the rail project's Parkes to Narromine section was the country's first ever carbon neutral pre-cast concrete project.

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