“I was based at Fitzroy with Paddy Fitzpatrick and Bob McGowan and one of my first jobs involved some project clean up work on the Lurgi pipeline. That was about the time Esso-BHP found oil and gas in Bass Strait and the Bolte Government hired Canadian specialist Chas R Hetherington & Co to run the studies on how Victoria should best use its new gas. Being a graduate engineer, I got seconded from the Corporation as a number cruncher for Hetherington’s team.

That was my first real exposure to pipeline studies and Dr Hetherington suggested that if I ever turned up in Canada he would make sure I had a job. I went to Europe for a couple of years as a young bloke driving buses and skiing and ended up in Canada with a Jaguar, a pair of skis and almost broke. Arriving there I rang Dr Charles about that job. He took me on and I think I went to work the next day. I have essentially been in the pipeline business ever since.

I was involved in various Canadian studies for a year or two but decided to come back to Australia where I took a position with BHP Oil & Gas on their LPG transportation side. After a few months I returned to Canada where the skiing was better only to find that the Hetherington group had been absorbed into Pan Arctic Gas. However, Dr Hetherington introduced me to Harvey Wylie, a famous Canadian footballer, who was locally running US consultancy Pipe Line Technologists (PLT) and strangely, he hired me immediately in the Calgary office.

That was 1969 and I moved around various pipeline projects in Canada plus some tasks in the frozen tundra and Arctic locations. PLT were then awarded a planning engineering contract in Alaska and I moved to Anchorage to be involved in front-end field work on the then proposed Trans-Alaska pipeline.

I spent time on the North Slope as this was the first big environmental pipeline. The experience was invaluable and I was then transferred to Houston to join the Alyeska Pipeline design team for over two years. I led some of the special permafrost above ground configuration development and design phases. That was a real milestone project for me. Years later I even named my farm in the Otways “Alyeska” after that key experience.

From Houston, PLT transferred me to Europe and I was involved in various projects, the first bringing oil onshore from Anglesea Island across the Snowdonia National Park in Wales. That was the most interesting project being a 36 inch pipeline with strict environmental rules. We had to identify where every surface rock was and each had to be put back in place with the moss on the same side as when it was taken up.

Taking up residency in The Hague for a couple of years I was involved in a number of projects in both Germany and Holland, mainly product pipelines plus some offshore work for the Frigg field in the North Sea and for Shell in West Africa.

I was then assigned to Kenya for the front-end engineering and design (FEED) phase of the Mombasa to Nairobi Product Pipeline. One particular incident of interest sticks in my mind about this project. On the way back, during a task in Iran, there was some serious hostage trouble involving the Shah. I remember the US military taking us off the top of our hotel in Arwas by helicopter.

It was the mid-1970s when PLT repatriated me back to Australia and Stuart Wickens was still in charge. I came in as his Engineering Manager, just after PLT had wrapped up the WAG Pipeline. Keith Lidgerwood was involved in those days so we set about rebuilding the PLT-Pipetech name in various small projects around Australia and New Zealand. Actually, New Zealand turned out to be a great success with most of the gas lines from Taranaki engineered by Pipetech along with the Refinery Auckland Pipeline products system.

This was also the era of the Moomba to Sydney Pipeline. I still remember an ex-Hetherington colleague, Neil Story, being with Williams Brothers in Tulsa and he told me of another young Australian working with him named Andrew J Lucas. Andy was actively trying to promote Williams Brothers to get involved with his old firm McDonald Wagner and Priddle for the Moomba to Sydney Pipeline. But when William Brothers went to Sydney they tied up with CMPS. Stuart Wickens then tied up with MWP to form Pipetech-MWP.

Williams Brothers-CMPS, with Grahame Campbell at the helm, was the key projects group as we entered the 1980s and I was then heading up PLT-Pipetech. With John Barker and Brian Trevena on board projects for Hartogen, Bridge and Magellan, the group continued to grow. I headed for Western Australia and managed all the FEED of the Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline and then brought Bev Dickerson into the fold, delivering several State Energy Commission of Western Australia projects.

In those days PLT was part of the Kaneb Group and in 1985 the downturn saw PLT sold off to the Dutch, who had very little interest in Asia Pacific. Hence PLT and I parted company and I joined Canada’s Novacorp with Wayne Thompson. Wayne was in Singapore and needed some help putting the Petronas PGU Pipelines together and I joined Nova as its Australian manager. Nova wanted to expand its business in the region and was fairly successful in Malaysia, plus bought an equity in the Moomba to Sydney Pipeline. Soon after, Nova and TransCanada merged and they exited the contract engineering business.

In 1989, I got together with John Grill and we jointly pursued the acquisition of the remnants of PLT. This was to complement the subsea and structural capability of Wholohan Grill and the recently purchased process track record of Worley Engineering. That’s how I got involved in the whole Grill/Worley machine and built my bit of equity in the business.

In 1990, we kicked off PLT again as Pipe Line Technologists – a division of Wholohan Grill under my wing – and immediately gained some project traction in Indonesia and with SGPU and Tenneco in Queensland. In 1994, we decided to bring everything under the Worley name, and PLT became the Pipelines and Terminals division of Worley. I remember being nervous at losing the name, but I was absolutely wrong. The extra grunt of the organisation and its good reputation, particularly on North West Shelf and Bass Strait projects, meant that we were able to leverage and grow in parallel.

So that’s basically how I came into the Worley family and thus the WorleyParsons story stands on its own feet, as you know. I think we were about 112 people when I joined and we are around 30,000 now. That wraps through to 2002 when we listed the company on the Australian Stock Exchange, followed by the key Parsons and Colt purchases in 2004 and 2007 respectively.

It has been a fascinating ride and I continued to run the pipeline business to 2004–05. I then handed the division over to Peter Cox and I thought I might semi-retire. That didn’t quite happen and these days I spend most of my time looking after Pipeline Select, WorleyParson’s front-end development group across our worldwide locations. I don’t hire or fire anybody and I don’t keep the score but I do get involved in some fascinating new project opportunities in some hairy locations.”

Bruce also contributed much to the pipeline industry through his work with the APIA. Bruce was a committee and Board member for eight years, President of APIA 1997–98 and recipient of the APIA Annual Award for Outstanding Service to the Australian Pipeline Industry in 2006.

Bruce still has passion for the industry as evidenced by his happy and high humoured demeanour during the interview in his office. Bruce also still has his Alyeska llama farm at Apollo Bay where he ‘relaxes’, working all his available weekends. Bruce and his wife Liz have also managed to fit in some world travelling plus various grandparenting duties. We hope they continue to do so for many years to come.