Mr Metcalfe arrived in Australia from Canada in 1982 and started working for Delhi Petroleum in Adelaide. He quickly found himself sent to Melbourne to work on the Jackson oil field project, then back to Adelaide. After this, Delhi sent Mr Metcalfe to Sydney and by 1986, he was living in Darwin and working for NT Gas, (partly owned by Delhi’s parent company CSR).
Having worked in oil and gas production and in gas processing plants in Canada, Mr Metcalfe had his first real pipeline assignment during the NT Gas project starting in 1984, and since then pipelines have represented the majority of his work.
In explaining how he became an industry consultant, Mr Metcalfe said that after Delhi Petroleum had been sold, he left the humidity of Darwin and returned to Adelaide in 1988 to begin trading as a consultant for the industry. “I kept busy that way until 1993, when I moved to Perth and went back on staff with Clough Engineering. After time there and on the Goldfields project with CMPS, I decided staff employment was not for me and went consulting again in 1996.”
Contracting strategy changes
Mr Metcalfe says that, on arrival in Australia, he was somewhat taken aback by some of the ways of doing business in the country, which were different from his experience in Canada. He says that he found the business methods of the Australian industry to be more adversarial than he had been used to, in terms of both interaction between different companies, and between companies and unions.
He noted an evolution of contracting strategies over the years from EPCM to EPC and then various styles of Alliance and now ECI; which to him seemed like a long trial and error process for something as important as how we do business with each other.
Mr Metcalfe says that he is encouraged to see a growing recognition of the importance of contracting strategy in achieving successful project outcomes. Whereas previously, following the directives of bankers and legal advisors has too often resulted in projects being delivered late or over budget, Mr Metcalfe says that project proponents are now undertaking less adversarial ways of working with suppliers and contractors.
However, he warns “Evolving relationship-style contracting strategies can deliver projects on time and within budget only if the project management skills applied to run those projects are improved as well. If you start with the wrong budget and schedule then you are unlikely to meet those targets.”
Safety
Another evolution that Mr Metcalfe has noted during his time in Australia has been the increasing sense of responsibility for the safety of pipeline workers and for the protection of the environment.
He says that awareness has grown in the industry about the concept of safety, and there are now very few companies who do not take the issue seriously. “We are steadily improving our focus on safety in the pipeline workplace and now we measure our performance in terms of back strains and broken limbs when once it was fatalities.”
Today, Mr Metcalfe sees inconsistencies in methods for measuring and reporting performance statistics in monitoring safety as an important issue to be addressed.
Opinions and concerns
Mr Metcalfe says that the most important thing that he has learnt during his career in the pipeline industry has not been specific to pipelines at all. He says that he has gained a greater appreciation of the value of people and their varied expertise when combined to form a team effort, regardless of the industry.
He says that sometimes companies pride themselves on the value of their assets, their market share, their systems and procedures, and other tangible things that may attract investors or customers, but lose sight of the fact that it is the people in the organisation, with their variety of experience, who provide the true value.
“Some of the most satisfying work I have done has been as a participant in teams of people, each of whom was respected for their particular expertise, the sum of which was able to achieve great outcomes and enjoy doing so,” Mr Metcalfe says.
At the same time, Mr Metcalfe notes the importance of technical governance within organisations. Having worked as a consultant for many years with a wide variety of clients, he is becoming concerned about the lack of attention to technical governance in some organisations. “In the past, I have had the very good fortune to work for a few older guys who genuinely deserved the title “˜Chief Engineer’ but the importance of such a role seems to have faded today.”
“I have also developed a greater appreciation for the inputs of key personnel in the contracting and supply organisations, and realise that to be successful, this industry must acknowledge and leverage the expertise available from these people.”
Mr Metcalfe also worries about the de-skilling of the Australian pipeline industry’s engineering workforce. “There are signs emerging that at least some organisations are working to arrest that trend, but for many it seems that the cheap and easy ways offering short term gains are still preferred…I fear it will take some major negative event to focus attention on this important area.”
In his view the biggest challenge facing the pipeline industry has been to maintain the false impression that the industry can deliver on all its promises given current workloads and lack of skilled workers. Mr Metcalfe says that, in the short term, better planning and co-operation to make best use of the available human resources is needed.
“In the longer term, we must develop and implement training and knowledge transfer programs before those who currently have the needed expertise get so old and grumpy that they are no longer interested in helping younger pipeliners to learn.”
When asked how employers might retain workers, Mr Metcalfe notes that he himself has twice made a conscious decision to become self-employed, but advises employers to speak openly and honestly with their employees and learn what motivates each one, and to fashion incentives around the employees’ answers.
“It’s not hard to identify career paths with higher profile and better remuneration in our society. No one grows up wanting to be a pipeliner because few are aware that the industry even exists. “˜Out of sight, out of mind’ is both a benefit and a curse for pipelines. Who is out there advertising careers in the pipeline industry using terms that most potential applicants can even relate to?”
Future outlook
Mr Metcalfe says that the rehabilitation or acceptable de-commissioning of deteriorating pipeline assets will become more important. Often the value in some ageing pipelines is not the pipe in the ground, but the approved access to the surface land corridor. Mr Metcalfe notes too that the de-commissioning process can no longer be brushed off with a “˜drain it and let it rot’ mentality.
Mr Metcalfe is confident that Australian engineers and contractors will continue to use their innovative capabilities to improve various aspects of the industry. In particular, he points to the ways in which gas pipeline engineers can influence water pipeline design and construction given the recent focus on water pipelines to shore up drought-ridden areas of Australia.
“From a technical perspective, I recognise that current water pipeline engineering using bell and spigot joints and cement lined steel pipes has a very sound technical basis, however there must be some way of speeding up the construction process using lighter materials and different jointing techniques, hopefully doing so without needing so much sand for backfill.”
There has been increasing interest in recycled water pipelines and pipelines for water produced from coal seam gas, and Mr Metcalfe says “We will build them better and faster if we get smarter with the design and construction.”
When asked if more research is needed to develop even higher pressure pipelines to provide greater delivery efficiencies, Mr Metcalfe disagrees and considers that research into higher steel grades and more efficient management of loads to minimise wasted compression power would be more beneficial.
“A colleague once demonstrated fairly convincingly that the optimum pressure for transmission of natural gas is about 12,700 kPag. There is always a trade-off involving pipeline diameter, operating pressure, and compression requirements, and compression always costs more to install and run in the longer term.”
He says “Even if it was more efficient to transport gas at much higher pressures, the additional infrastructure requirements to reduce that pressure at point of delivery would limit such transmission pressures to only the largest pipeline projects.”
Mr Metcalfe also points to some challenges that he feels need to be addressed for the future.
Firstly, he says that some pipeline owners see their pipelines only as an infrastructure revenue stream and attempt to offload associated risk to others. Mr Metcalfe says “That’s fine and good business for them, but it is not in the longer term interests of asset integrity or the wider pipeline industry.”
Mr Metcalfe says that the challenge here is for those pipeline owners to better understand “not only the business in which they have invested but also the relationship between asset integrity and experienced personnel.”
Secondly, when asked about challenges that face Western Australia’s gas sector in the wake of the Varanus Island incident, Mr Metcalfe asserts that the incident highlighted issues with the State’s gas supply, rather than with the State’s gas transmission industry.
“The problem was that Western Australia had only one major point of supply for domestic gas. The claim that there was a shortage of gas might well be better expressed by admitting that there was a shortage of gas commercially available for sale at domestic prices, compared with gas commercially contracted for sale at much higher LNG feedstock prices.
“The failure was on the part of the Western Australia Government to ensure that a single supply point failure would not plunge the State into economic chaos, which is exactly what happened.”
Mr Metcalfe says “It would be a significant pipeline failure indeed that could not be repaired within several days.”
Reflecting on the Australian pipeline industry’s past and recent events, including the issues that have been prevalent over his 25 years of experience, Mr Metcalfe believes that the next few years will be a very busy time for the industry.
Ted Metcalfe has spent nearly thirty years in the design, construction, and operation of onshore oil and gas production facilities and pipelines, with experience both in Canada and in Australia. He trades as Metcalfe Engineering Consultants Pty Ltd and offers services to clients in the Australian pipeline industry in areas of concept development, contracting strategies, project management, and engineering studies.
Ted is based in Melbourne but is available to travel as required. He can be contacted on 0419 047 449 or at tedmetcalfe@bigpond.com