Established in 1977 and based out of Gladstone, Nixon Communications has been providing communications services around Australia for 32 years, growing from a one man business to approximately 60 employees today.

Many of these employees work on communications services for mining projects around the hinterland of Mackay, Rockhampton and Gladstone, but Nixon has a dedicated team of employees that have been providing services to the pipeline sector since the company’s first pipeline project in 1989.

John Nixon had previous experience working in the oil and gas industry, particularly in the area of seismic survey and rig installation and maintenance, in South East Asia in his 20s. With this insight and background knowledge in the gas industry, John jumped at the opportunity to design, manufacture and install communication systems for the State Gas Roma to Gladstone Pipeline (now known as the Queensland Gas Pipeline) in 1989. The company also provided a construction radio system for the contractor, Saipem.

From here, Nixon went on to provide communication systems for both the Port Hedland to Karratha Pipeline and the Moomba to Sydney Ethane Pipeline in 1992.

“It’s just rolled on from there,” John says.

Most recently, Nixon has been involved in the Bonaparte Gas Pipeline in the Northern Territory, QSN Link between South Australia and Queensland, Mortlake Pipeline in western Victoria, the Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline expansion in Western Australia, as well as projects associated with the development of coal seam gas around Roma, Chinchilla and Dalby, in Queensland.

In addition, the company has been asked to reinstall the communication system for the Eastern Water Pipeline Alliance project in Brisbane. “The system was required for the commissioning phase,” says John.

Types of communication

Nixon constructs radio systems to cover the whole work area of the pipeline project including all hand held radios; and all camp communications, which encompass the telephones for both the office and pay phones, as well as television, internet café and all data for the project.

“For the remote radio communications we use state of the art repeaters and linking communication equipment. All of these sites are solar powered. We’ve been using solar power for about 20 years now and the technology has become much more efficient over that period of time,” John says.

“We also use the very latest satellite technology to provide efficient phone, data and television to remote sites.”

The communications process

John explains the process that is involved in providing communications systems to a pipeline project.

First, equipment needs to be set up and the logistics of freighting the equipment to site is organised, which happens at the company’s workshop in Gladstone.

Licencing needs to be arranged for all of the equipment to be used, to ensure that radio frequencies are chosen that do not interfere with anything already there. John says “You have to make sure that you have legal licencing for the equipment where ever it is.”

Nixon then has to work with land liaison personnel to identify suitable sites for the installation of remote towers and secure necessary approvals.

John says that the sites need to be chosen so they will provide maximum coverage and this generally means towers are mounted on the high spots. He says that the number of remote towers required depends on the project’s topography.

“Each repeater can transmit approximately 30 km, which means towers are generally placed at 50 km intervals.

“The install team then flies to the project to install the system,” says John.

The first part of the radio system construction involves the installation of 30 m towers along the length of the pipeline route.

Towers, as well as repeaters, batteries, solar panels and all other equipment, are mobilised to site via specially designed trailers.

Once onsite, the tower is erected and the trailer is positioned at the base of the tower, with the solar panels orientated toward the north. Solar powered repeater systems are used in urban as well as remote areas because they provide the most reliable communication systems.

“Even when doing the water projects through Brisbane, we still had sites there using solar power and our trailers at various locations through the built up area.”

John says “Typically, the install time of each tower would be two and a half to three hours.”

However the installation hasn’t always been so fast, John notes. He says that it has been developed over a period of years. For instance, on the Moomba to Sydney Ethane Pipeline, the company was using stainless steel boxes that weren’t portable. If the system required moving to another site, it had to be dismantled, packed on a vehicle, relocated and then assembled again.

Gradually a more efficient system was developed. “All of the trailers are specially designed to suit and we made various alterations over the years to make them more efficient.”

The towers are designed to withstand cyclonic wind loading.

Nixon also provides a communications centre for the pipeline camp, which houses all the camp communications equipment such as the internet café and pay phones. The building is air conditioned and has its own back-up diesel generator. It also houses an equipment room for the satellite equipment, television, telephones and data.

“Quite often the communications building is one of the first pieces of equipment to arrive at a camp site. This is then set up by our crew, immediately providing communications to the camp contractors and this has a great benefit in the safe installation of the camp.”

Nixon’s communications systems are needed throughout the entire time frame of a project, which John says could be two months to two years.

Changing communications

From a communications perspective, John says that the pipeline industry has changed dramatically over the last 10-20 years.

“Twenty years ago communications were very fragmented and unreliable. High frequency (HF) radios were used along projects in some effort to communicate, which provided, at best, unreliable communication.”

He explains that the HF system is not a line of sight communication but is reflected off the ionosphere, which is continually changing throughout the day. In turn, this requires a user to change frequencies at different times of the day. This confuses the operators and makes the system generally unreliable. Communication over long distances using the system is often quite good, however closer communication can prove difficult.

John then explains that there was a move to use very high frequency (VHF) systems from car to car, but the range provided was very short. A stand alone repeater was then introduced, which extended coverage over local areas.

Nixon was the first company to introduce a communication system to cover an entire pipeline project, providing greater efficiency and workplace health and safety. On the Queensland Gas Pipeline Nixon installed a series of repeaters along the job providing continuous communication over the entire project.

“You could find people and equipment with one call, rather than driving long distances and wasting precious time and money,” says John. “When the whole communication system is connected right along the project, you can communicate with the whole project at once, which is much more efficient.”

Communications, pipelines and wine

While John notes that the longest pipeline Nixon has provided communications for is the 840 km Carpentaria Gas Pipeline, he says that the most interesting pipeline project Nixon worked on was the SEAGas Pipeline. “The project passed through some very interesting parts of western Victoria, such as the Blister tourist area and lovely rich farmlands. In South Australia, the pipeline went right through the Coonawarra wine district.”

John remembers that the first pipeline camp was located at the historic homestead, Pathaway House, which provided a lovely setting.

“We unloaded all of the equipment out of the plane and filled it up with wine to bring home!

“So that was a really good pipeline. Then it went through the Adelaide Hills and the Barossa Valley and that of course meant more wine, so it was a very nice spot.”

The project also provided a challenge because of the dense population in areas of the pipeline route, which made licencing for communications a challenge to ensure no interference with the radio system.

Nixon: communicating into the future

John sees the future as looking bright for the gas transmission industry.

“Obviously the need to lower greenhouse gases is good for gas because gas is cleaner than traditional coal-fired power stations and of course LNG is also providing a great opportunity for the industry,” he says.

John says that the number of proposed Gladstone-based LNG projects and associated development of coal seam gas in Queensland is very exciting. “Gladstone is ideally situated as a major energy exporting location in Australia – so we’re in a good spot for it all!

“We’re actively pursuing LNG projects in Gladstone,” he says.

The company is also looking to pursue the QSN Link Expansion between South Australia and Wallumbilla, Queensland; as well as possible gas work in Papua New Guinea and a rail project in Saudi Arabia.

“We’ve done work in the Solomons and New Guinea before, but not as far afield as Saudi Arabia,” says John. “The company is related to the company which constructed the Alice to Darwin railway, a project for which we provided a successful communications solution.”

John says that it is great working with the pipeline industry. “I am always learning because the industry is always developing and requiring better communications and services generally.

“The remoteness of the industry in general has been the catalyst in the design of our communications systems to a very high standard of reliability for remote projects,” he says.