Peter joined the industry fresh out of university. He started work on his maiden project just twenty years ago, a 24-inch hot tap on a Class 600 line for Petroleum Refineries Australia, which at the time was jointly owned by Esso and Mobil.

Shortly after in 1991, Peter was snapped up by Worley (now WorleyParsons) where, in 2003 after 12 years, he took over as the National Pipelines Manager. His experience in the pipeline industry covers onshore gas pipelines and compressor stations in rural Australia and oil and gas pipelines in PNG and Asia.

“In the early 90s with WorleyParsons I was doing a lot of gas compression projects on the various Bass Strait oil platforms so I got to know the Solar machines intimately. This lead to onshore pipeline compressor station design, with the first major project being an upgrade to the Wollert compressor station and design of a new station at Euroa. I was exposed to international pipelines in the mid-90s with the design of an oil pipeline in Brunei for Shell.”

Peter has also worked on the PNG Gas Project in its most recent incarnation, which brought him to Brisbane.

“I am still involved in this project in its current form as the PNG LNG Project. My role is to ensure that we have the right team and resources on the project, especially in relation to the depth of pipeline experience within the project management team,” he notes.

Peter says that he considers his most satisfying project to be the Tasmania Gas Pipeline. In his two-year stint on the project, Peter was involved from the initial feasibility studies to engineering support through the construction process.

“From the time of our initial feasibility studies and onward, it was a major effort absorbing all my working time plus some more. It was interesting in that it was the first major gas pipeline in Tasmania, resulting in some challenges with approvals and land owners,” he says.

With its demanding onshore and offshore components the 734 km Tasmania Gas Pipeline was certainly one of the most complex projects recently developed. Additionally, the project involved crossing 11 of Tasmania’s rivers, the longest of which was 2,046 m overall and reached 86 m below the surface of the Tamar River.

As Peter notes, “The project was not without conflict but overall I think we delivered a good result. Once I became involved in pipelines, there was no turning back!”

Building on foundations with APIA

There also appears to be no turning back with Peter’s involvement in APIA, at the urging of a senior mentor at WorleyParsons, Bruce Andrews who was President of the Association in 1998/99.

“Bruce is very committed to the Association. He introduced me to APIA and I started attending functions and conventions and saw the value of the Association to the industry hence the value in supporting APIA.”

Bruce’s legacy also deepened Peter’s involvement in the Association.

“When I took over from Bruce as the manager of the WorleyParsons pipeline group in Australia, I also became the APIA representative. Bruce had held a seat on the Board for many years and I felt strongly that I should continue the tradition and support APIA at Board level. It requires a significant commitment of time and effort but I think the rewards more than compensate for the effort.”

Peter highlights corporate governance as one of the major areas where his time on the APIA Board has been particularly enriching, and he singles out working with Mark Harper as President as contributing to this.

However, being the Association’s Treasurer and ultimately accountable for its financial performance comes with its challenges.

“The most challenging aspect is finding any errors in the way the accounts are managed! The Secretariat and especially Steve Dobbie does an excellent job in managing the finances so every two months when I review the accounts, I struggle to make further suggestions for improvements!” he says, adding that “Hopefully I am adding some value to the process.”

Managing growth at WorleyParsons

The challenges as Treasurer are in some ways analogous to the challenges Peter faces in his role as National Pipelines Manager at WorleyParsons: managing growth while maintaining high standards.

WorleyParsons has indeed been managing an unprecedented rate of growth recently, achieving at least 60 per cent increase in overall profit annually over the last few years. Additionally, the company has successfully completed a number of high profile mergers and acquisitions.

“However, each one has been strategic in addressing a need in our business and positioning ourselves for the future. The Parsons E&C acquisition brought in a mega project capability as well as providing greater geographic coverage. The Colt acquisition was very significant to our pipelines group in that it virtually doubled our size and provided a much larger group of technical experts in the various aspects of pipelines. The Colt WorleyParsons Geomatics group is very strong and is now managing GIS and automatic generation of alignment sheets on some of our major pipeline projects around the world. Colt’s significant involvement in the oil sands industry was a major driver as the US is increasing its reliance on oil from the Canadian oil sands projects”.

The most recent acquisition of Intec Engineering has, like other expansions, expanded both the capabilities in deepwater projects and further consolidated the ability of WorleyParsons to service customers in the Asia Pacific region.

Peter notes: “Intec was also a major boost to our pipeline capability bringing in the deep water experience as increasingly the industry is going to have to go further offshore to develop remaining oil fields.”

Trends in the Australian pipeline industry

Reflecting on the industry as a whole, and his experiences so far, Peter highlights that the main change that has had the most impact on the pipeline industry is the privatisation of many pipelines followed by a series of ownership changes.

“With government ownership, there were large in-house engineering departments using conservative design practices and over-sizing new pipelines for future demands. Nowadays pipelines are designed to contracted throughputs with little appetite for speculation on future growth.

“I think this is necessary in the financial climate that we operate in today,” Peter adds.

“But it is not always efficient when we are expanding capacity on a pipeline that was only recently built.

“Design pressures have risen to mostly Class 900 and wall thickness is specified to meet the particular threats identified so pipelines today are generally more efficient delivering more gas at a comparatively lower cost.”

Climate change and the pipeline industry

More generally however, Peter notes that although the industry has been through a period of rapid transformation, it is on the cusp of even greater change which will be predominantly driven by climate change issues.

“The renewable energy industry has a lot of ground to cover to take over from coal so increasingly people are coming to the realisation that gas will play a major role as the bridging fuel. Coal cannot be phased out overnight so we will need to store the carbon emissions from coal fired power stations and that will mean major CO2 pipelines will be required.”

In addition, Peter notes the growing significance of the coal seam gas industry, which is most developed in Queensland and has the most potential for further development to become the major gas source to the eastern seaboard.

“Queensland is also the base for a lot of the pipeline work happening in PNG and the drought has forced the most recent water pipeline projects through. The Queensland market should continue to grow strongly driven mainly by coal seam gas so I cannot see any lessening of activity in the next five years and potentially beyond.”

Both the coal seam gas and broader environmental issues like the drought are increasing the value of water and water pipelines. He suggests that gas pipeline design and construction practices are likely to be adopted by the water industry.

“The gas pipeline industry has worked hard to be able to deliver pipelines at lower cost that can carry more product. It makes sense to apply these practices to the water pipeline industry creating higher pressure water pipelines with fewer pumping stations utilising fully welded construction techniques.

“Climate change is driving the need for water pipelines to be built. APIA needs to stay a step ahead of these changes and stay relevant to its members. Anticipating some of these changes, and being a key input to the debate and policy that results, is the major challenge facing APIA.”

The broader role of APIA and the pipeline industry

When we asked Peter what role he thought APIA could play in neighbouring New Zealand and Papua New Guinea - which don’t have specific pipeline-focussed industry associations - he responded that APIA has a significant role.

“Both countries use our standard to a certain degree and both countries have major projects involving pipelines coming up. NZ is finding alternatives to replace the reliance they have had on the Maui field and PNG is set to commercialise their vast gas reserves.

“That being said, our name shows that we are representing the Australian pipeline industry and we don’t want to lose focus on the issues affecting the Australian industry.”

With the increase in technical complexity of frontier fields and consequently pipeline design and engineering, Peter notes that one of the major issues affecting the Australian industry is the need for more comprehensive training and mentoring, not only for new pipeliners but also experienced pipeliners from overseas.

“I am a strong supporter of the current APIA initiative to introduce a comprehensive pipeline engineer training program. Even experienced pipeliners from overseas need training on Australian standards and the particular challenges facing pipeliners in Australia.”

For new pipeliners, he has one piece of advice: “Be passionate and committed in what you do. We spend a good amount of our time working, and personal satisfaction only comes from knowing yourself and being recognised by others that you have done as good a job as you can do. This is one of the rewarding aspects of the pipeline industry in that there are a large number of people that obviously care about the industry and are proud of what they do.”