With major projects in the pipeline and sights set on new markets, 2025 looks set to be a bumper year for Pro Pipe Services.
Pro Pipe Services will celebrate seven years in business in December this year.
And what better way to do it than with a move to a new facility and the unveiling of ambitious plans for 2025.
In less than a decade, Pro Pipe Services has become one of the nation’s leading and biggest providers of hot tapping and line isolation services in the pipeline industry.
In mid-October, the Australian-owned company completed the move to a new facility in Keilor Park, Victoria.
The move involved the removal of offices, removal and relocation of an overhead crane, and the installation of plenty of storage, as the business took in more equipment.
Company Director and Owner Joe Buttigieg highlighted the importance of the new facility and what it means for Pro Pipe Services moving forward.
“It’s a bigger facility which allows us to store more equipment,” he said.
“We have a storage agreement with one of Australia’s largest pipeline companies, and they are acquiring more equipment, which requires more space.
“It also gives us more flexibility to be able to provide all maintenance services, equipment repairs, and more.”
Busy 2025 in store
With the company’s facilities expanding alongside an increasing workload, the company is also exploring the possibility of growing its team.
“Every indication is that workloads are going to increase so we may have to look at expanding our team,” Buttigieg said.
He also revealed the business has already secured works in Sydney, Central Queensland and Perth, that they will be executing in the first quarter, as well as a backlog of work in NSW, South Australia and Victoria in the last quarter of 2024.
“We will finish off the year just as busy as we started and will see continued growth,” he said.
This will be followed by some “significant projects in the pipeline” towards the middle and late next year.
Exploring new markets
Buttigieg said that Pro Pipe Services also has its sights set firmly on cracking a new market in 2025.
“Ninety per cent of our work is on gas, whether it’s transmission or distribution,” he said.
“We’ve also started leveraging aluminium smelters, and we just completed a job at Portland Aluminium Smelter, which was very successful.
“We now also have an opportunity to work on a major water project.
“For us, it doesn’t matter what’s in the pipe – as long as it’s a pipe we can work on it,” he said.
“Whether it’s compressed air, gas, water, slurry, or anything like that, as long as it’s a pipeline, we can tap into it, we can isolate it, and we can perfrom the service and alteration that is needed.”
This year proved to be a groundbreaking year for Pro Pipe Services as the company completed projects in Western Australia, a previously untapped region.
With an increasing amount of work from customers in Perth, Buttigieg said the project they executed earlier this year has led to further jobs in the last few months, with more booked for early 2025.
Pigging project highlights power of partnerships
Recently, Pro Pipe Services worked with a pipeline operator that was conducting pigging on a pipeline in Melbourne.
“An important part of the project was to reduce the amount of emissions being let out into the atmosphere,” Buttigieg said.
To do this, the project team turned to Zevac, a company known for providing one of the industry’s most versatile gas/liquid capture and recovery technology.
Pro Pipe Services contacted Tremco Pipeline Equipment to hire a Zevac machine, and Sales Manager Brett Trembath was more than happy to supply it.
“This is the exact perfect application for this machine,” Trembath said.
“This is its wheelhouse.”
Trembath recalled receiving a call from Pro Pipe Services requesting a machine capable of evacuating a large number of pig traps.
“I said this is exactly what it’s meant for,” he said.
“So we had a chat, got all the dimensions, did some calculations, and I contacted Zevac.
“They gave us some rough drawdown times, and we managed to go back and say this will be perfect for your application.”
Pro Pipe Services hired the machine from Tremco Pipeline Equipment and, thanks to easy-to-understand instructions and expert training, were able to perform the service without a hitch.
Roxy Mounter, Vice President of Sales for Zevac, said the project was the perfect opportunity to showcase the machine’s potential and power.
“Our niche is really the frequent intentional venting that occurs day-in, day-out in the industry,” she said.
“So, it’s not the big pipeline drawdowns but everyday maintenance work, where people will have previously vented the gas or flared off liquids, is really a sweet spot for the Zevac.
“I think the ease of use is really shown with this project here.
“With a simple checklist and guidance, the Pro Pipe guys were good to go to use the machine.”
Buttigieg also highlighted the machine’s ease of use, and the confidence it gave the Pro Pipe Services’ team.
“With Brett’s help there, and help from Zevac, we were able to take the instructions and read through it, and it was quite a simple tool to use. It’s not overly complicated,” he said.
“With some good guidance from Tremco Pipeline Equipment, we were able to execute that project, and it’s been successful.
“We’ve done several runs now where the customers have had a launcher that was full of gas that they wanted to remove and without emitting it to atmosphere, we’re able to connect the Zevac machine and compress that gas into the new line, and therefore reducing the amount of emissions, providing a cleaner option and reducing the carbon footprint on the environment.
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This feature also appears in the November edition of The Australian Pipeliner.