Growing from installing 10km of high-pressure pipeline from a gas field in the 1920s to becoming a leading global contractor in pipelines and associated facilities, Spiecapag is celebrating 100 years of constructing gas pipelines in 2023.
The Australian Pipeliner sat down with Spiecapag Managing Director John Walsh to talk about the significant milestones over the past 100 years, the changing landscape of the industry and where the company is heading.
100 years is a long time. Where did it all start?
In the late 1800s and early 1900s our founding company SPIE was best known for constructing electrical metro tram lines and railways. In fact, that’s the origin of the name – the “IE” is for industrialisation and electrification.
In 1923, it expanded into other infrastructure projects, building France’s first high-pressure gas pipeline. While it was only a 6-inch line running about 10km, the pipeline connected France’s first onshore gas field development at Vaux en Bugey to the nearby town of Ambérieu-en Bugey.
Over the decades, SPIE continued to play a major role in European oil and gas pipeline construction, and in 1977, it merged with CAPAG, another well-known pipeline constructor who had been active in pipeline construction since the 1930’s and became SPIE-CAPAG. Eventually, we dropped the hyphen.
What are some of the highlights over that period?
Our reputation is being the constructor who gets the challenging projects built.
Looking back at projects across the world, the 42-inch and 46-inch AGT pipelines for BP (BTC and SCP) in Georgia and Azerbaijan (2002-2006) saw Spiecapag crews crossing mountains at 2500m altitude in temperatures as low as -30 degrees C, and over very steep terrain.
Subsequent projects such as the Trans Adriatic Pipeline in Albania and Greece, as well as the recent Coastal Gas Link pipeline across the Rockies in Canada, show we don’t shy away from a challenge.
Coming back into our region, just to Australia’s north, the 1990’s Kutubu oil pipeline and the 2013 PNGLNG gas pipeline opened up hydrocarbon export in Papua New Guinea (PNG). These were built through some of the most varied and challenging terrain imaginable, and at a time when there was no supporting infrastructure or road networks in PNG – true pioneering construction.
Back home in Australia, how long has Spiecapag been operating here?
Our first project here was the Sydney-Newcastle Pipeline in 1982, where a major focus was minimising the environmental impacts on the Hawkesbury River. Since then, we have seen lots of open trenching and trenchless construction projects across the country. There were plenty of other challenges, and many working on the project will remember the rocky sections and some of those steep sections with large boulders.
We delivered several other large projects including the 756km Tenneco pipeline (South-West Queensland Pipeline) in the 1990s, which was memorable for its hundreds of kms of rock. Other milestone projects include the SEA Gas pipeline in 2004, entailing 687km from Victoria to Adelaide, which was commissioned and online just days before an incident at Moomba cut the original gas supply line to Adelaide.
How does the company continue to adapt and innovate 100 years on?
Being a leader from the early years, and able to remain at the forefront of the industry certainly helped, as does our global presence, which can open exciting doors for our staff to work on. Many innovative approaches to project construction learned on one continent have been quickly applied elsewhere, and have continually honed our methodologies.
Many of us can imagine a not-too-distant future involving hydrogen and other future fuels, and we are seeing projects designed with larger and heavier pipelines, pushing the welding away from manual and into auto welding. That plays to our strengths.
We have been delivering large auto-welded gas pipelines for over 30 years and understand the stringent requirements and the logistical challenges to build pipelines to this standard.
We also play an active role in pipeline standards and research. It makes sense to understand and participate in how pipelines are likely to be designed in the future, because that allows us to be ready for when they are built.
You mentioned future fuels, is this where do you see the industry heading?
I don’t think anyone can say with certainty where the industry will be heading short-term, but gas is certainly part of that.
On other fuels, there are trends, but also lots of challenges to be resolved, and which technology proves the greatest scalability, affordability and reliability is yet to be confirmed.
That said, longer term we can see greater volumes of gases being used in low-carbon mobility and increasing use of emerging non-hydrocarbon fuels.
Supply and demand could drive an increase in import terminals to ease shortages seen on the east coast, specifically in the southern states, although government intervention through artificial price controls is having an impact on that. Without oversimplifying it, it makes sense that Australia continues to play to its strengths while incubating future export industries and net-zero technologies such as carbon capture and sequestration, and demonstrates its support for gas exploration and production, as consistency on that front will send the right signals to investors.
Longer term there is an ever-growing number of hydrogen and/or ammonia projects all around Australia taking advantage of cheap renewable energy and the potential high value export markets in our region.
Throughout all of this, our population continues to grow, and that means that not only energy needs to be transmitted, but also water, and Australia has plenty of challenges on that front too.
It’s a fascinating time for our industry, and we are excited to be part of that. We prize our local and global experience building all kinds of pipelines for utilities and dom-gas/LNG, and hope that will serve our clients well as we explore this path in the coming years, decades and, dare I say it as we celebrate our first 100 years, centuries ahead.
What are some of the trends that are impacting the industry?
We are currently weathering a perfect storm – An aging workforce departing the industry combined with a post COVID-19 boom resulting in an influx of new staff, which results in a skills shortage and has the potential to impact project safety. Working through this is an unerring focus for us.
The workforce challenge is compounded by how the hydrocarbons sector is negatively perceived in some quarters, reducing the potential graduate pool. We are thankful that our global presence allows us to draw on highly experienced experts from around the globe to support our projects and mentor the next generation of pipeliners in Australia and our region.
While uncertainty can be caused by many factors, in pretty-much all scenarios in the global fuel mix, Australia can continue to play an important role in producing low-carbon fuels. That said, there is a cycle to our industry, and short-term dips in investment have always been a factor, so we are thankful to be active across several sectors including energy, water, utilities, and future fuels, using a variety of methodologies including horizontal directional drilling. This allows us to retain and develop the skilled teams we need to deliver major projects as well as continue to develop capable staff.
What are the company’s values and how do they guide business decisions?
Our vision is centred on the concept of “Build Better Together”, the same concept that drives our parent company, VINCI Construction.
Build: We share a passion for building, finding solutions and delivering infrastructure for communities. This guides us in developing our staff, utilising cutting edge innovation, and sharing our experiences to improve.
Better: Our constant focus on continual improvement because you can always find a better way to do the job.
Fostering a culture of autonomy and trust, empowering the projects to make the decisions that are needed.
Together: Because people come first. Whether it is focusing on our employee’s safety and teamwork, or our clients to ensure positive outcomes, or the wider community, delivering a legacy that lasts long after the project construction has completed.
Our communities in Australia and our region, are growing, and these three simple words will work well to serve our ambitions as a company, an industry, and a broader community. Let’s Build Better Together the world we live in.
This article featured in the July edition of The Australian Pipeliner.
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