When completed, it will transport coal seam gas (CSG) to a series of field compressor stations, with associated water from the extraction process stored in holding ponds or piped to water treatment plants.
It’s a large-scale project that has kept Murphy Pipe and Civil (MPC) pipe crews busy for nearly three years, and this month The Australian Pipeliner caught up with the construction contractor’s Director Tony O’Sullivan to gain an insight into what it takes to construct a pipe network of this magnitude.
The Queensland Curtis LNG (QCLNG) Gathering Network has been a major project for MPC, how much pipe has been laid to date?
MPC first started installing polyethylene (PE) pipe back in April 2012 and since then we have laid around 3,500 km of pipe across the Surat Basin’s CSG fields.
To put that into perspective, it’s 180,000 multi-diameter pipe lengths running from the Gold Coast to Darwin. To accommodate these pipe diameter variations, which range between 110-630 mm, we have had to modify our installation methods significantly to ensure we can install them in the most efficient manner possible.
How have you modified your installation methods and did they deliver positive results?
We utilise a combination of approximately 50-50 of conventional trench and bury methods using excavators, as well as trenchless technology using our fleet of Spiderploughs.
It’s a method that has proved successful as it allows our plough crews to gain significant productivity rates when working on long, linear routes, but also allows our excavator crews to use traditional methods when encountering hard rock or river and road crossings.
Both these installation methods have merit and work well, but it’s when you use them in unison and apply each one to situations that provide optimum efficiency, that you get the best results.
You recently modified your fleet of ploughs to accommodate larger PE pipe – why did you do this and what was the result?
Up until 2013 our ploughs used a successful looped system to install dual and single pipe from 110-315 mm.
But as the CSG industry developed, it began seeking an installation method that could handle larger polyethylene pipe between 450-630 mm.
Our research and development team believed it could be achieved and removed the looped pipe system and instead developed an “˜over-the-cab’ pipe system.
This new installation system enables us to accommodate larger pipe and in a world-first last year, our plough crew successfully laid 630 mm PE pipe using the “˜over-the-cab’ system.
This ploughing system has really streamlined our installation of all pipe diameters, and the new design recently received international recognition at the Pipeline Industry Guild Awards in the United Kingdom where it won the innovation category.
Installing 3,500 km of PE pipe is a big task; at what rate does the pipe go in to the ground to achieve this sort of outcome?
Using a combination of both conventional methods with excavators and new plough technology has delivered great results.
Last year our plough crews achieved what is believed to be a world PE pipe record when they installed 17.8 km in a single 12-hour shift.
I admit it was a perfect storm of conditions with a big, long, linear run, but looking back over the past 28 months we have done extremely well and have installed on average 4 km of pipe every single day, through the use of excavators and ploughs.
But pipe installation is just one part of the productivity puzzle, and crews from MPC’s subsidiaries Australian Fusion Welding and UPT, our pipe testing and valve calibration company have put in just as much focus and effort into their pipe welding and pipe testing tasks.
Since we started, Australian Fusion Welding crews have welded in excess of 200,000 pipes and UPT crews have tested more than 92 per cent of the completed gathering network – one of the largest test sections being a 220 km pipe system.
The QCLNG Gathering Project spans a lot of area within the Surat Basin. Has this been a challenge MPC has had to overcome?
The short answer is yes, it has been a big challenge, but one which I am pleased to say we have dealt with successfully.
Every pipeline company loves a big, long, straight pipeline with a start and end point.
However, the CSG industry in the Surat Basin is not set up like this.
The network we are working on for Queensland Gas Company (QGC) covers an area of around 16,500 sq km and spans across three work fronts that are at times up to 350 km apart.
This type of project requires a lot of logistical management for transport, accommodation, access to and flexibility of plant and equipment, and constant communication with other contractors working on parallel or interconnecting pipe projects.
How many crew members does it take to construct a pipe network of this size?
Our crew size is dependent upon what new CSG fields are opening up and need to be connected to the network, but at any one time we require a workforce of around 450 on the ground, with a peak of around 800.
Many of our team are locals or team members who have moved their family to the region.
What have been your biggest successes during the last three years working on the QCLNG Gathering Project?
Without a doubt it has been the massive effort that our teams have put in day in, day out.
I’m very proud of what they have achieved over the years. It’s a massive job and they have really stepped up to the plate and played a big part in the development of Queensland’s CSG industry.
And while I love the fact that we have a very productive crew, I am even more pleased that we have a very safe crew that possesses a strong culture of speaking up if they think something might be unsafe.
We have introduced a number of innovative safety initiatives to reduce the potential for a workplace injury, particularly with regard to driving, which accounts for our biggest safety risk due to the large amount of travel our team does each month.
I think these safety initiatives, combined with our strong culture, are paying off and is why our safety record sits at half the industry average with our team recently achieving 3 million man hours on the project without an lost-time injury.
On the back of this, MPC recently won two consecutive QGC Safety Awards which was a really great outcome and recognition of the effort put in by crews.
Where to from here?
Well, we still have some way to go, so our crews will be busy for some time.
We have developed a good working relationship with QGC so I look forward to strengthening that further.
We are also working closely with other CSG developers who are beginning to prepare similar types of gathering networks across the region, so we are endeavouring to provide them with the benefit of the learnings we have gained along the way in what is a relatively new resource industry.
MPC complete pipeline construction on Comet Ridge to Wallumbilla Project
Murphy Pipe and Civil construction crews that worked on Santos’ Comet Ridge to Wallumbilla Pipeline Loop Project near Roma broke the company’s record for pipeline welding.
The crew of 350 started works on the 120 km steel gas pipeline project earlier this year and put the foot firmly on the production pedal with 2.8 km welded in a single day.
To put those production efforts into perspective, the 70-man mainline crew welded 156, 18 m pipes in a single shift – or one pipe every four minutes.