"The heavy depot work [and] the overhaul work is all going to be at Amberley," he said, adding that while some of the services TAE delivered to the operator might be located at Williamtown, the overall operation would be at the Amberley site.

Sanderson said TAE had been assigned the work by the US government on the back of its know-how and record in the industry.

"Of all the tendering that I've done over my time with the business, it's the best of all of them," he said, adding that the win had a lot to do with the firm’s reputation.

"I think it was a 20-page document," Sanderson said. "We could only write on half of the pages because the questions were on the left-hand side of the page.

"And then we were assigned the work for this region. So champagne corks were popped [but] having said that, right now we've been operating largely on the back of a press release from the minister in February 2015; so we [have] still got a lot of work to do to get some contracts over the line."

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