Pipeline Plant Hire’s Gerard O’Brien and business partner Global Pipeline Equipment’s Mat Dridan tells The Australian Pipeliner how the company’s VacLift equipment has been utilised by operators across Australian pipeline construction projects for the last 20 years.
The Australian continent is home to some of the driest inhabited areas on earth, which makes access to safe and reliable water supplies vitally important, especially for remote communities,” says Pipeline Plant Hire’s Director, Gerard O’Brien.
Using its position as a leading supplier of plant machinery and construction services, the company has been central in providing long-term solutions to tier 1 companies and civil clients to facilitate a robust water infrastructure for over 30 years.
As existing water pipelines are expanded, transportation of large volumes over greater distances without suffering loss via excess evaporation is required.
O’Brien says that one example of this is the Wentworth to Broken Hill Pipeline – a project that saw VacLift equipment facilitating a record-breaking rate of pipe laying.
“Based on our extensive, hands-on experience in pipeline construction, we were able to identify the benefits of safety and productivity associated with the use of VacLifts,” he says. “The vacuum pipe handling equipment creates distance between workers and the pipe itself, reducing the risk of injury and dramatically reducing the cycle time for each pipe movement.”
Global Pipeline Equipment’s Mat Dridan explains that this time reduction results in each pipe movement taking mere seconds, as opposed to the minutes required by other methods.
However, Pipeline Plant Hire’s services don’t stop there.
“Working with manufacturers, suppliers, and our customers, we continue to provide improvement and innovations wherever we can,” says O’Brien.
The company provides fully integrated solutions to enable customers the most efficient operations on each project.
For example, the capacity to provide an excavator fitted with an integrated VacLift unit mounted on the counterweight of the excavator provides operators with maximum lift capacity.
“We have also developed a VacLift attachment that can be used on a customer’s own machine using auxiliary hydraulics to power and control the machinery,” says Dridan. “Additional safety features including the equipment only lifting or releasing pipe from a grounded position, which makes it almost impossible to drop the pipe, safeguarding the personnel, equipment and the pipe.”
The VacLift is a vacuum lifting attachment that works by sucking pipe lengths into the grasp of an attachment – called the “shoe”. While more traditional methods run the risk of damaging pipe coating, vacuum lifting utilises rubber seals that prevent damage while lifting.
VacLift also reduces cycle times compared to more traditional rigging methods, reducing overall expense in terms of timelines and man-hours required. The VacLift cycle time is under 40 seconds, whereas conventional methods fall between five to 10 minutes per pipe. Traditional methods are also inherently riskier, as personnel are closer the hazards when attaching and detaching the slings or hooks.
“Removing people, slings and hooks from the pipes, allows the VacLift operator to lift and, for water pipelines, lay the pipe,” says O’Brien.
Dridan says that every pipeline company’s success hinges on its ability to complete jobs without any injury to personnel.
“We have invested millions of dollars in making pipe handling safer,” he says. “In doing so, we have enabled tens of millions of safe pipe movements, without so much as a ‘paper cut’ attributed to our equipment.”
Pipeline Plant Hire has one of the largest ranges of equipment in the Australian market.
“All of our equipment is designed and manufactured in Australia,” says Dridan. “The range includes small units used to feed poly pipe, fusion welding machines lifting hundreds of kilograms each, and large units capable of lifting large diameter, high-pressure steel pipe at weights that can exceed 12 tons.”
“With the combined development of our rear mounted vacuum lifts, patented throughput of vacuum at the rotator, expanded range in pipe diameter per shoe and many other proven technical advantages, we have contributed massively to efficiency gains in the pipeline industry.”
With Pipeline Plant Hire’s ability to provide everything from buckets, rock breakers and augers, to material adaptors, beams and shoes, the company has positioned itself as a go-to provider that can cater for all project needs.
For more information visit Pipeline Plant Hire.
This article featured in the March edition of The Australian Pipeliner.
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