Australian Pipeline Industry Association (APIA) Business Manager Steve Dobbie recently travelled to Karratha, Western Australia, with Sargent National Sales Manager Grant Harrison and Sargent Major Accounts and Projects Manager Ed Burrows to visit the McConnell Dowell construction team at Loop 0 of the Stage 5B Expansion of the Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline (DBNGP).
The three-member party flew to Karratha following the successful APIA WA Seminar and Dinner Dance held in Perth on Friday 26 June. Naturally, a Sargent 4WD vehicle was waiting for the party at the Karratha Airport, but it took a while for the particular white vehicle to be located amongst the other 250 white 4WDs.
After a quick look around Karratha, the party drove south 65 km to the DBNGP Loop 0 camp. An occupational health and safety, and site induction was the first appointment and McConnell Dowell’s Safety Adviser, Lindsay ‘Bully’ Bull, went to great lengths to ensure that nothing untoward would happen to the visitors.
The team was then joined by Jamie Crawshaw, Plant Manager for the project, and spent the next few hours being shown aspects of the construction process.
Article continues below…
Starting from the welding teams at the front of the spread, Jamie explained all of the different stages as the party slowly travelled up the line.
From the welding at the start of the line, to the completed rehabilitated line, the visitors observed the inspection of the welds, coating of the welds, trenching and padding, lowering in of the pipe, application of padding filler and, finally, the filling in of the trench.
A number of partially completed creek crossings were of particular interest to the group, who were amazed at the detailed logistics put in place to tackle the extremely rocky terrain. Also of interest were the facilities put in place to complete the hydrotesting of the pipeline, including the installation of a temporary dam.
At the completion of the drive up the line, the visitors drove back to camp to enjoy the hospitality of the McConnell Dowell team. The quantity and quality of the food on offer came as a surprise to the trio who observed that no-one was going to go hungry while based out of the camp.
As with all pipeline construction camps, an early night was on offer so, after a couple of ‘quiet ones’ following dinner, everyone departed for their respective ‘dongers’. The next morning, as was for the entire McConnell Dowell crew, it were up with the sparrows, and the trio was on the road by 6:15 am to head back to Karratha.
A detour into Dampier showed the tourists the immense port facilities adjoining the town, and filled another piece of the pipeline industry jigsaw for all three.
Leaving the white Sargent 4WD with the other 250 white 4WDs at the Karratha Airport, the trio departed for Perth looking back on what was a memorable 24 hours on the pipeline spread.
For all three visitors, this was a fantastic opportunity to see many of APIA’s members at work throughout the different stages of the construction process.
Steve, Grant and Ed would like to thank all of the McConnell Dowell and DBP personnel who made the arrangements for the trip and, in particular, Project Director Rob Harris and Jamie Crawshaw for his tour guiding expertise.
Basket is empty.
