By global standards, Australia is a long way from anywhere – making the decision to relocate a big one, although for some the decision was easy. Solar Turbines’ Quentin Stewart made the move to Australia in 2005, having worked for Solar Turbines in different roles in the United States and the Netherlands. Mr Stewart says “Without a doubt, Australia is most likely the best place in the world to live and work. When I was offered my current position with Solar in Australia, it only took me about two nanoseconds to emphatically say “˜Yes…I’ll go!'”
Roger Woodman first became involved in the industry in 1967 in the UK. He applied for a job with CJB Pipelines, who were involved in building a 36 inch gas pipeline to transport North Sea gas into the UK. “I was duly hired and spent my days walking up and down the spread collecting time sheets, pay queries, reporting on plant locations, and being the eyes and ears of the costing department,” Mr Woodman remembers. “Apart from the unreliable weather, it was a great education. I also met a young Quantity Surveyor known to many Australian pipeliners – Jeff Shepherd.”
Mr Woodman decided to come out to Australia with his wife in 1970.
Jeff Shepherd began his pipeline career with constructors John Brown in the UK after working as a civil engineer in West Africa. “I accepted a position to work on a pipeline spread without fully realising what it was all about. As I drove to the site I saw pipe strung out and it seemed to go on forever – very different from drainage works!”
Mr Shepherd recalls that at that time construction was labour intensive, with the contractor’s spread boss generally being a big tough man having worked his way up through the ranks. “Engineers were considered a necessary evil,” he says.
“The way of life attracted me, there was a camaraderie and rivalry between our crews as well as other spreads. The work is easily measureable and people enjoyed working hard and being acknowledged as being the best.”
Mr Shepherd was invited to come and work in Australia for British Industrial X-ray, who had the NDT contract for all spreads on the Moomba to Sydney Pipeline through a joint venture with ETRS.
For many, Australia was only meant to be a short-term stay. GHD’s Barbara Jinks completed a degree in offshore engineering, specialising in pipeline design and construction. She came to Australia from Scotland for a six month stint in 1993 and has not left, and CNC Project Management’s Ian Spence says that his dream of experiencing life and work in Australia is seeing him into his fifth year with no rush to leave.
Career opportunities are another factor that entice workers to make the move. Mr Spence notes that much infrastructure is already in place and the oil and gas industry is declining in his homeland of Scotland, whereas Australia’s pipeline industry is expanding rapidly to meet the demand of growing markets. As such, coming to Australia as a graduate was an exciting prospect.
Bredero Shaw’s Nick Ritchie, originally from Canada, was transferred from Malaysia to Australia to work on the Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline Stage 5A Expansion Project. Mr Ritchie says “It was a great change and opportunity to develop my career.”
Croatian-born Milan Sarapa worked for a Croatian gas transmission company as a pipeline operations engineer before leaving Croatia 15 years ago. He has since spent 6 years in New Zealand before settling in Brisbane in 2001. Mr Sarapa says that his move was sparked by an excellent career opportunity, but it was the city, the weather, and the Australian mentality and way of life that has kept him here. For Mr Sarapa it is simple: “This is home now.”
Susan Jaques still considers Calgary as home, even though she’s been away for 13 years, first coming out to work on the proposed Papua New Guinea to Queensland Pipeline. She is quick to note that she cheers for Australia in all sports, except when Canada is playing. Ms Jaques originally worked for TransCanada Pipelines as a Pipeline Engineer, and remembers being sent out to site for four months within a month of joining the company.
For others, home is where family is, and it was family that brought Kenyan-born, Scottish-educated Steve Dykes to Australia in 1979, when his family relocated to Australia after the political situation in Kenya deteriorated following the death of President Kenyatta. After completing a mining degree with a major in petroleum at Queensland University, Mr Dykes got his first job as a graduate with AAR Minad in Roma, and ended up working on the Roma to Brisbane and Darwin to Amadeus pipelines. “Pipelines have since been a key ingredient in my appetite for the oil and gas and energy sectors,” says Mr Dykes.
Whatever the catalyst for the move, it is clear that each pipeliner has had some very rewarding experiences and met many memorable characters as part of Australia’s pipeline industry.
Getting a foot in the pipeline industry door
Mr Spence was a new graduate looking for work when he went to the Wimmera Machinery Field Days in Victoria, bumping into a lady whose job was to get skilled migrants into the area. He ended up working on the 8,800 km Wimmera Mallee Pipeline Project (WMPP).
Mr Spence recalls his first conversation with the project director. “He said “˜You realise that you’ll be down the bottom of the food chain and doing a lot of ground work?’ and I asked him if he took one sugar in his tea or two – and it went from there.”
For Mr Woodman, getting his first pipeline gig in Australia took a little initiative.
“When I arrived in Perth I had no job and so finding work became a priority. It was a Saturday morning, and the West Australian was running an advertisement for staff for a 40 km proposed white oil products pipeline from the BP Kwinana Refinery into Kewdale marshalling yards outside Perth. Applications were to be made in writing to Red Ru Pipeline Construction at a Perth Post Office Box number. I wanted to get things moving without waiting for the postal system, and found out that the Parmelia Hotel was the best pub in town. I thought I would see if anyone from Red Ru was staying there. Two hours later I was drinking champagne and talking to the company’s owner Ron Nicholas.”
Mr Nicholas was quick to enlist Mr Woodman, leaving him with a cheque for $10,000 and instructions to set up a bank account, procure 2,000 timber skids cut and delivered, and fence off a yard on the site of the old railway station at Jandakot for a depot.
Mr Woodman says “He then got on a plane for Mackay in Queensland and disappeared into central Queensland, where he was building the original Eungalla Dam to Moranbah Water Pipeline.
“On 1 January 1971 he reappeared, accompanied by three or four Canadian welders, and a bunch of fairly rough, tough pipeliners, and we set to and built 40 km of 8 inch oil pipeline.”
Mr Dykes got a taste of Australia’s pipeliners early on when he was building his first pipeline – a 2 inch, 1.6 km long gathering system pipeline to tie in a gas well in Roma. His operations manager Bruce McCaul rang him up and asked why the pipeline wasn’t finished a couple of days after he had given instructions for the work to start.
“We used 44 gallon drums to support the pipe as it were welded together. The trench was dug by backhoe and the completed pipeline was swung into the trench using a Caterpillar D4 dozer sideboom. I operated the sideboom wow, what a way to do things! Obviously you couldn’t do that now, but the quality of the workmanship was equal to that of today because we had a real pride in what we did.”
Global skills helping to build Australian pipelines
Skilled workers from around the globe have worked on some of Australia’s most critical pipeline projects, bringing much-needed skills, and taking away invaluable learning experiences.
Ms Jinks gained much experience during the three years she worked on the 1,380km Goldfields Gas Transmission Pipeline, located in Western Australia. She says “It would have to be the most interesting and exciting project in Australia for me. I saw the process from route selection through design and construction to pre-commissioning. A lot of it was new to me and I learned a lot.”
She recalls that the pipeline was constructed through varying terrain and communities, each section with unique design, logistics and construction requirements. “The locals I met along the way in remote stations and small communities were wonderful, and like no-one I had met before, being a Scot. Some of the women living in the bush that I met are the strongest women I know and I am still in contact with a few today.”
Mr Shepherd is proud of the pipeline projects he has worked on over the course of his career in Australia, thirty years of which was spent at McConnell Dowell.
“The Jackson to Moonie Pipeline was the first project where we achieved an average of 5 km per day. We welded 300 pipes per day – previously my senior management and I believed that 180 joints per day was a good average. This pipeline revolutionised production expectations,” Mr Shepherd says.
The Kutubu Pipeline, built in Papua New Guinea as a joint venture between McConnell Dowell and Spie Capag, involved a workforce of 13 Frenchmen, 72 Australians and 850 PNG nationals. Mr Shepherd says “It was possibly the most difficult pipeline in the world to construct. It was this project that fully-established McConnell Dowell as an international contractor.”
Another career highlight for Mr Shepherd was the 850 km Mount Isa Pipeline, which was built at an average speed of 7 km per day, with over 600 welds completed per day – a great achievement.
“The straight and level flat terrain and the co-operation of client and contractor all helped to enable this project to be built so expeditiously. Records were set with 29 km being lowered in a day. It was a fantastic crew: our T-shirt said it all; “˜Simply the best’.”
Mr Spence returned to the Wimmera Mallee Region this year following the commissioning of the WMPP and was proud to see water in the river and green grass in the towns. “To be involved in a project that has provided security to thousands of farmers, given communities their recreational water bodies and ovals back, and provided environmental benefits to the Wimmera River and its tributaries – and to have seen such immediate change – is pretty special.”
Mr Sarapa says that his first big pipeline project was the North Queensland Gas Pipeline. During that project he worked with some legends of the pipeline industry, and saw the introduction of some groundbreaking methods for construction and hydrotesting. Mr Sarapa recalls that this was his first experience with pipeline construction the Australian way, including life along the right-of-way and in the camp.
“At one point, I was called onsite to make an engineering call on whether a section of pipeline was correctly installed. As I was doing the site inspection a few construction superintendents, inspectors and others were standing on the side of the trench waiting quite intently for my decision. After satisfying myself that all was OK, I held just a moment longer for extra effect, and turned to them to announce in my Croatian accent “˜She will be right mate’.”
Mr Dykes was Project Manager on the 286 km Bonaparte Gas Pipeline project, completed from Wadeye to Ban Ban Springs in the Northern Territory in 2008. He says that the project team overcame lots of challenges including the pressures of a high profile project. “We had the challenges of meeting very stringent environmental conditions after the project became declared under the Commonwealth Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. We had several horizontal directional drills, including one drill of 1.6 km distance, and the requirement that the pipeline be constructed within one dry season, with high humidity conditions at the start and end of the dry,” he said. “It was crucial to meet the schedule to ensure sufficient gas supplies from the Blacktip field to meet the power generation needs of the Northern Territory as the Amadeus reserves were depleted, which we did successfully,” he added.
Australia’s pipeline projects are unique
All cite the terrain and climate as being some of the big differences in pipeline construction in Australia.
Mr Shepherd recalls his first impressions of pipeline construction in Australia, after he moved from British Industrial X-ray to a management position with Australian Pipeline Construction.
“Leaving Sydney to fly to site was an eye-opener. Gazing out the window I was able to see dust coming from a RoW crew, after 20 minutes of flying I could see a pipe stringing crew, and another 20 minutes later a welding crew – I was awed by the distance and remoteness.
“The project was run out of work camps, based on eight man dongas, two men to a room with communal ablution blocks – a far cry from lodgings in the nearby town in UK.”
Mr Woodman noticed very early on that there were differences in the way pipelines were constructed in Australia. “Probably the more noticeable personal differences were the fact that in Australia we were not continually combating mud by being confined to gum-boots, or controlled by the vagaries of the weather. On the construction side, the pace of construction was much higher, assisted by the relative lack of bend requirements and crossing tie-ins, when compared with the much more restrictive terrain of the United Kingdom.”
Ms Jinks says “The significantly larger distances that pipelines traverse in Australia requires unique skills and practice to co-ordinate men and equipment.”
Mr Spence agrees, saying that the scale of pipeline construction is very different, with Scotland typically having larger diameter pipelines over much shorter distances. “Scotland also has a lot more rock and it tends to rain a lot, although I’m sure pipeliners would tell you that pipelining always brings the rain wherever you go!”
Being welcomed into the industry
Mr Stewart found that, unlike Europe or North America, the gas pipeline industry in Australia is relatively small and as a consequence most firms and individuals who are active in the pipeline business are well-known within the industry. He notes that while business in the Australian industry is conducted in a very professional and competitive manner, ongoing business is a result of proven performance and personal business relationships.
He says that to build those personal business relationships, events are invaluable. “My most memorable and fun experiences in the Australian pipeline industry have been the APIA fancy dress dances at the annual conventions,” he says.
Mr Ritchie thinks that the ability for pipeliners to communicate and work together in the industry is key to its success and has immensely enjoyed being part of APIA and Young Pipeliners Forum (YPF).
Ms Jaques also feels that her times at APIA dinners and conventions have been her most memorable moments. She has been committed to fostering personal business relationships, being actively involved in industry committees and speaking at events. “I’ve been fortunate to make some terrific alliances with people in the industry at APIA events, people I probably wouldn’t normally cross paths with very often in day-to-day work.”
In 2004, Ms Jaques presented a paper entitled “˜Define a pipeline engineer’ to the APIA Brisbane dinner, which was a catalyst for the development of the YPF and the pipeline engineer training program. “It is very satisfying to me,” says Ms Jaques of her contribution to Australia’s pipeline industry.
Pipeliners as global citizens
While pipeline construction projects will always differ across languages, terrains and climates, Ms Jaques was keen to point out that pipeliners from around the world have certain similarities.
“The pipeline industry seems to attract and retain a certain type of personality. It seems we need a) to be able to get along in some unique circumstances such as camp life, b) a heightened awareness of and respect for cultural and environmental issues, more so than other industries like gas plants and ports, given the linear cross-country nature of our assets, and c) a logistical intelligence – while digging a ditch to install a pipe doesn’t seem terribly difficult, the logistics of the linear asset, and the speed of construction require a “˜wider’ view beyond what is required for a plant or mine site.
“I found these characteristics to be exactly the same in both Canada and Australia – the quality of the people in the pipeline industry is remarkable.”
Mr Woodman agrees, “Pipelines have taken me to Papua New Guinea, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Myanmar, South Africa, Mozambique and the UK, amongst other places, and they have all been a lot of hard work, but the people have been, almost without exception, great characters- and it’s been fun! I’d do it all again if I was allowed to!”