Please outline your involvement in the Australian pipeline industry thus far.
I started in the industry as a graduate mechanical engineer in 1995, so I am coming up to 20 years in 2015.
I started my career at Alltype Engineering Services, a small fabricator/constructor based in Naval Base, Western Australia, who did work for gas and water pipelines as well as various industrial and power generation customers.
I worked there for five years before moving to a company called HPS, a larger, diversified, multidiscipline construction contractor in 2000 as a Project Manager.
HPS was acquired by Enerflex in 2005 and I remained with Enerflex until the end of 2014, totalling 14 years.
I also did a year working a 4/4 rotation out of Pakistan for BHP Billiton as a Senior Mechanical Engineer involved in the construction of a large domestic gas processing plant with associated inlet and sales gas pipeline infrastructure.
In what positions have you worked during your career? Did you specialise within a particular sector of the industry?
Believe it or not I started from day one as a Project Manager! Well, that was the role I was employed to undertake – it was some time later before I was actually performing it as I should have.
It was a very steep learning curve but on relatively small dollar value projects back then.
I worked through doing some engineering and design works, project engineering, estimating and construction management.
Back in my early days on site I would assist the trades teams with some basic technical assistant work and general helping hand.
Some of these activities (under supervision of course!) included hand digging, Denso pipe wrapping, dogging and rigging, grinding, paint touch up and even crane driving at one point.
I was quasi site manager and technical assistant.
The works undertaken were varied from water infrastructure, minerals processing and power station utilities, through to offshore works on rigs and FPSOs, as well as subsea componentry and military vessels.
These were the benefits of a small company doing many small projects for a vast expanse of the industry.
In the early 2000s I moved into HPS, a larger company that had me undertaking site management, then project management before moving into estimating, tendering and business development.
The projects then were much larger and running multiple projects in parallel was an exception, not the norm.
In 2009 I moved into general management, focused on business and commercial drivers and 2011 was the first year I undertook a managing director role.
Have you worked overseas on pipelines throughout your career?
Generally my career has been around production processing, compression and pipeline facilities – the above ground stuff.
I did support the pipelining efforts for the Zamzama project in Pakistan for BHP Billiton, which is the stand out overseas project.
Please outline which Australian pipelines you have been involved in throughout your career, and in what capacity.
It was interesting reflecting on this question as at some point I have been involved with nearly every owner/operator in Australia and most pipelines in some form or another.
The majority of scopes have been capacity upgrades via compression facilities (greenfield or brownfield expansion), facility offtakes involving supply, metering and pressure reduction, MLV installations and pipeline looping works.
The pipelines have included the Dampier Bunbury Pipeline (DBP) and numerous offtake laterals; Goldfields Gas Transmission line, Parmelia Gas Pipeline, Telfer Gas Pipeline, Nifty Pipeline, Midwest Pipeline and most other APA lines and laterals in Western Australia; the Moomba to Adelaide Pipeline, Moomba to Sydney Pipeline and QSN Link and SEA Gas in South Australia; the Eastern Gas Pipeline and Tasmania Gas Pipeline in Victoria and New South Wales, the Colongra Storage Pipeline in New South Wales, Carpentaria Pipeline, Queensland Gas Pipeline and various coal seam gas flowlines and sales gas lines in Queensland.
It would take me a map and some time to count all of them.
What do you think are the challenges for the industry now and in the future?
Right now the main challenges are the change from CAPEX to OPEX phases of investment for the resources sector of Australia.
With commodity prices falling and new investment waning, competition is going to be tight and available work scope versus capacity very skewed, compared to the industry of the last 10 years.
Going forward, the price of gas as a diesel alternative or as a production input feedstock or consumed item will be competing with overseas buyers and is likely to rise across the board.
Increased pricing usually means less uptake by end users and likely less investment in major new pipelines or capacity expansion.
On the flip side, if demands rise despite pricing, marginal projects will start developing.
What has been the best – and most difficult – aspects of the industry?
I think the people in the industry are great, always willing to help, teach and engage with one another.
Relationships often get strained at some point in any working environment but at the end of the job, everyone is happy to have a beer with one another and move onto the next job.
The best jobs are those with the most relaxed schedule and robust budgets.
The toughest are the ones on very aggressive timelines or extremely tight budgets.
The pipeline industry constants are remote area works that have their own challenges involving access, climate and various other conditions.
The toughest jobs are those where there are large expectation gaps and understanding between the stakeholders – an issue that has become more prevalent in recent years.
What’s your advice to new people coming into the industry?
My advice is to get your hands as dirty as possible early on and get a practical understanding of what happens in the field, in the fabrication shops, and in the engineering phase.
Family situations later in life often make extended periods of time away tougher for more people so when you are younger, whilst not easy, it is often easier to cope with the situation.
There is no substitute for hands-on experience so gather as much of it as you can in as many diverse areas as possible.
Who are some of the notable industry names you have worked with?
I have had the fortune and privilege to have worked with many pipeline industry members and colleagues.
Working on the contracting side of the industry, particularly the facilities side, you get to work with everyone from owners and pipeline constructors through to the full range of suppliers and subcontractors.
Probably the stand out name for me in the pipeline industry from the construction side is Kevin Wolfe of Monadelphous KT, whom I first met in 1996.
As a young engineer on site, KT bailed me out of some trouble in the early days and over the years we had many opportunities to work together, especially on the development and proposal phases.
Notable jobs included the Tasmanian Gas Pipeline, various offtakes and lateral pipelines and the DBP Stage 4 looping works undertaken in a consortium with KT/Nacap and Enerflex.
How much involvement have you had in APIA and its committees?
I have been a fairly active participant in APIA since introduction to it in 2003, when I attended my first convention in Darwin.
Since then I have participated in seminars, dinners and conventions all over Australia, particularly Western Australia and Queensland.
I attended the foundation YPF gathering in Canberra in 2006 when it was just an idea and became a member of the foundation YPF WA committee. Later I joined the WA Chapter Committee of APIA in 2007 and served a repeat term totalling four years.
In 2007 I also presented a paper entitled “˜Pipeline Capacity Optimisation’ at the APIA Annual convention, which still is fairly memorable for those who attended that session.
Either within your company or within the broader industry, have you been involved in any leadership positions?
Starting my career in a project management role pretty much has had me in one form of leadership position or another for the last 20 years.
Prior to starting work, I coached a gridiron team where I managed to gather some experience in building and leading teams.
Outside of project management, I helped build our Business Development, Marketing and Estimating team from two people in 2001 to a peak of around 25 personnel in 2010, with high retention and low turnover and commensurate growth in business turnover.
Business-wise, moving into the Managing Director role had me in a leadership role with a workforce that peaked at over 750 personnel in 2012, inclusive of white, grey and blue collar employees.
Leadership involves supporting, coaching and mentoring more than actually executing work and that transition is certainly a tough one to make.