Up to that time, the big pipeline proposal for Western Australia was the Kimberley Water Pipeline. This $9 billion proposal was promoted by the then Labor Government Minister for Water Resources, Ernie Bridge. It involved transporting water from the Kimberleys nearly 4,000 km by pipeline to Perth and South Australia.

After receiving advice from the Kimberley Water Board the Coalition Minister for Resources Development and Energy Colin Barnett killed Bridge’s water pipeline proposal.

With the death of the water pipeline proposal the Court Government introduced a gas to the Goldfields plan, which involved piping gas from the northwest of the state to Kalgoorlie, servicing the many mining areas along the way. The Coalition government announced it would do this by inviting the private sector to submit proposals to build and operate the pipeline.

Work the government had carried out to this stage indicated that there were two options for a gas pipeline route, one providing better access to the midwest area, while the other tied in with a related proposal to pipe gas to Port Hedland and other iron ore projects within the Pilbara. A modified version of the latter was eventually agreed upon.

On the 19 April 1993 the Western Australian Department of Resources Development and Energy advertised inviting Expressions of Interest to build, own and operate the Goldfields Gas Pipeline and any associated compression and distribution facilities, with submissions closing on 31 May.

Goldfields Gas Transmission (GGT) was selected by the government in September 1993 to go ahead with a feasibility study into the proposed pipeline. Premier Richard Court said the feasibility study and detailed design was expected to take twelve months and if GGT met all the government’s requirements and the feasibility of the project was satisfactory, then it was expected that GGT would be able to start construction towards the end of 1994.

The GGT joint venture comprised Wesminco Oil (a Western Mining subsidiary), Normandy Pipelines (a subsidiary of Normandy Poseidon Limited) and BHP Minerals. Premier Court said that of the sixteen contenders the government had narrowed the field down to three. These were GGT, which had been given the go-ahead; AGL/Devex joint venture comprising the Australian Gas Light Company and Devex; and, Westralia Gas Pipeline Consortium, comprising Bridge Oil, Eyres Rees, Pipeline Technologists and Worley Engineering.

Both the AGL/Devex and Westralia consortiums were asked to maintain their expressions of interest in case GGT decided not to proceed. GGT did proceed and one of its first actions was to appoint CMPS&F as consultants.

After a further three months of negotiations, the government and the Goldfields Gas Transmission Joint Venture (GGTJV) reached an agreement about key terms and conditions for the $400 million pipeline that included minimum size of the pipeline and third party access. AGL/Devex and Westralia’s expressions of interest were then allowed to lapse. The agreement was needed to allow a State Agreement to be passed by the government. The arrangement included the pipeline having a 400 mm diameter from its starting point to Newman and at least a 350 mm through to Kalgoorlie.

The third quarter of 1994 saw a major step forward, with a State Agreement being presented to parliament to clear the way for the project to proceed. Resources Development Minister Colin Barnett said the government hoped to have the legislation through parliament by 30 June. He said preliminary engineering work would commence immediately after the agreement had been ratified in parliament. The GGTJV still expected to have gas in Kalgoorlie by the end of 1996.

Further progress was made with the environmental review opened for public comment on 27 June 1994, which proposed a change of route that would create a shorter route and avoid possible conflict with future mining activities in the Pilbara. Lateral pipelines to service Newman, Mt Keith, Leinster, Kalgoorlie and Kambalda were included in the public environmental review (PER). The PER was opened for public comment until 22 August 1994. The following month saw the release of a comprehensive tariff package by GGT setting out its terms for natural gas transmission requirements.

The appointment of Bruce Ride as CEO of GGT was one of the three key appointments made early in October 1994. Bruce Ride came from Santos where he had spent ten years as manager of major projects. Bruce was appointed to have overall responsibility for the project and in particular to manage the marketing and commercial activities of GGT. Together with Ride’s appointment, AGL Pipelines (WA) was appointed operator of the pipeline and CMPS&F for Engineering, Procurement and Construction Management. Gary Voss was General Manager AGL Pipelines (WA) and Project Manager for CMPS&F was Peter Dahm. It was noted at the time that this was the first project that CMPS&F had been awarded in their own right; all previous projects had been in joint venture with the American company Williams Brothers.

When the GGTJV submitted their detailed proposals to the government, it marked the end of the first phase of the project and the completion of all the obligations by the JV prior to the implementation of the project. In particular it confirmed the diameter of the pipeline to be 400 mm to Newman and 350 mm from Newman to Kalgoorlie, with the initial load on the pipeline expected to be around 70 TJ/d. It also closely followed the securing of the environmental clearance for the project and the government’s advice that it had agreed to the proposed pipeline route. The timetable for the project was now based on the Minister approving the project by the end of January 1995.

It was late January when the approvals were announced, allowing the project to proceed with tenders for construction scheduled to be called in March 1995. Resources Development Minister Colin Barnett revealed at this time that construction would take place in three stages. Work he said was scheduled to start by the end of the year on section one at Yaraloola in the Pilbara and lay 310 km to south-west of Newman. A further 670 km section would extend the pipeline from Newman to Mt Keith and the last section 400 km section to Kalgoorlie. It was later revealed that two constructions teams would be used, the first completing the northern section and then moving to the southern most section while the second crew constructed the centre section. The GGT Joint Venture had pre-qualified bidders and they were reported to be: Thiess Murphy JV, Spie Fletcher JV, McConnell Dowell and Saipem Leighton JV.

Contracts for pipe and coating were soon awarded with nearly half the pipe to be supplied by Tubemakers of Australia. Shaw Pipe Protection won the coating contract and prepared to set up a plant at Port Hedland, to coat pipe for the northern section. The Port Hedland plant was officially opened by Colin Barnett on 27 July 1995. Coated pipe for the southern section came from Shaw’s Kembla Grange plant.

It was halfway through 1995 when it was announced that the Saipem – Leighton JV had been awarded the construction contract for the entire project. Saipem was underway with preliminary works immediately and actual construction was planned to start in August 1995. This target was achieved with trenching and pipe hauling and underway by late August. Meanwhile, Saipeim awarded ITC the contract to x-ray all welds. Bob Gill, ITC’s project manager, said at the completion of the project that this had involved the x-ray of over 80,000 welds using approximately 90 km of film.

GGT released a progress report in December 1995 reporting good construction progress with over 825 km of pipe delivered to Port Hedland, 450 km of pipe welded and 250 km of pipe backfilled. Key personnel for Saipem included Donato De Stefano as Project Director; and, Carlo Zilli as Construction Manager.

Meanwhile, laterals off the main line that had been scheduled for construction since the third quarter of 1995 were still delayed by cultural heritage issues but in April 1996 Minson Constructions won the lateral construction contracts and soon had all the pipelaying complete. Minson’s crew was headed up by Tony Tschappeller together with Paul Tschappeller, Jim Manning, Ron Corino, Steve Brewer, Don Wallace, Neville Harvey and Mal Harry.

A major milestone was achieved when GGT delivered gas to Pilbara Energy’s Newman power station on 6 June 1996. As at July 1996, GGT’s Project Manager Mick Chenoweth reported that Saipem had completed welding of 1,200 km of the 1,380 km pipeline. Construction on southern sections had minor delays caused by rain from Cyclone Olivia, however GGT were confident of having gas available to Kalgoorlie in September 1996.

On 6 September 1996, GGT advised that the pipeline commissioning had advanced to the stage that the entire pipeline was filled with gas just twelve months and six days after the first pipe was welded in August 1995. GGT began initial gas deliveries to Kalgoorlie in mid-September 1996. Bruce Ride, GGT Manger congratulated the GGT project team and its various contractors for coming such a long way in such a short time.