The first era occurred from the time the first gasworks were erected in Melbourne in about 1860 to the formation of the Gas and Fuel Corporation of Victoria in 1951, and the building of the first refineries in the state about this time.

The second one covered the period during which Victoria’s three modern refineries were commissioned and the first high pressure long distance gas and oil pipelines were laid.

The third stage took place as a direct result of the development of Victoria’s large gas and oil fields discovered during the second half of the 1960s in the Gippsland Basin in the east of the state.

The Australian Pipeliner eluded to the first two eras in an article entitled ‘Building Victoria’s pipeline system’ in the October 2006 issue, and detailed the third era.

The following is an edited version of two articles in the September and December 1972 issues of The Australian Pipeliner written by M. A. (Maurie) Stratton, then Executive Officer at the Ministry of Fuel & Power. They give a comprehensive and telling insight into the first two eras of pipeline development in Victoria.

1860-1950

Three of the most notable companies established between the 1850s and 1880s were the Ballarat Gas Company in 1857, the Geelong Gas Company in 1858 and the Metropolitan Gas Company in 1877.

The original pipes laid from the various gasworks in Melbourne and other centres in Victoria to customers from approximately 1860 to the period of the First World War were made of cast iron. These were thick, heavy, well-made and relatively resistant to corrosion

The joints were packed with lead and hemp. In a number of cases these joints were reinforced with clamps when the pipes were upgraded to carry higher pressures as gas loads developed.

Generally gas mains were laid by the gas companies using their own labour, equipment and expertise.

The pipes used were both imported and locally made and generally similar to those used for water, drainage and sewerage. Scoops drawn by horses, and picks, shovels, rakes, etc., wielded by hand were the principal tools used to dig the trenches and restore the disturbed areas.

The oil industry was also to become a catalyst for the pipeline industry. For the first 50 years of its growth in Victoria it was primarily a marketing industry. It was not until the early 1950s that the first large and modern refineries were built in the state.

The Vacuum Oil Company, now known as Mobil Australia Ltd, was established in Melbourne in 1895 and the present Royal Dutch Shell Group commenced operating at Williamstown in 1901.

With the erection of oil loading and discharging facilities, firstly on the western bank of the Yarra River and then at Port Melbourne, came the laying of transfer lines from the loading jetties to the tank farms and a flurry of short distance pipelines in the area was laid over the years.

The most suitable means of transporting petrol and other petroleum products between the wharf discharge facilities of the farms were pipelines, these transfer lines were the forerunners of the transmission pipelines in the oil industry in Victoria today.

No special legislation was required by various companies to carry out the pipelaying operations as the tank farms were erected on privately owned land and the discharge facilities and transfer lines were located Crown land.

To summarise, the pipeline industry in 1950 was poised to enter the next pipelining era. Since about 1860 about 2,500 miles of gas mains had been laid throughout the Melbourne metropolitan areas and in a number of country centres.

1951-1966

The second era of pipelining in Victoria occurred during the 1950s and the first half of the 1960s.

During this period two very important events in the production of energy in Victoria occurred. Three major refineries were established and the Gas and Fuel Corporation of Victoria was incorporated as a public authority.

In 1949 Standard Vacuum erected a small refinery at Altona — Victoria’s second one — and shortly afterwards decided to expand it into a full scale, modern type plant. As a result of this a new terminal was required.

The site chosen was Williamstown where facilities were installed and tanks were erected at the newly restored Gellibrand pier and a number of transfer lines were laid from the pier to the refinery at Altona, a distance of over four miles. This system of transfer lines included an 18 inch crude oil pipeline — the largest yet laid in Victoria — together with a number of smaller diameter products lines.

In 1952, the first cross country pipeline to convey either gas or oil in Victoria was laid from Corio to Newport. This line, 33 miles long and 8 inches in diameter, was the longest pipeline yet laid in the state, the first one to be laid across open country and the first one to be authorised by special legislation.

Another notable aspect of this pipeline was that it was one of the first to be laid in Victoria by a pipelaying contractor using techniques and mechanised equipment of the type then being evolved in the USA.

Earlier in Victoria, a number of companies which had specialised in laying drainage and water lines for many years began to take an interest in the laying of gas pipelines. Among the first of these companies were Morgan Drainage Pty Ltd and Keogh Bros, both of which had considerable knowledge of tunnelling and trenching through rock and had acquired specialised knowledge of the problems relating to pipelaying in Melbourne’s western suburbs.

However, neither of these two companies had laid long distance pipelines across country and the contractor for the Corio to Newport pipeline — Taylor Woodrow, who had also been involved in the pipelaying of the Shell Refinery at Corio — was the first one in this particular field.

No additional long distance pipelines were laid until 1955 when the Gas and Fuel Corporation of Victoria commenced construction of the Morwell — Dandenong — West Melbourne 18 inch transmission pipeline to convey Lurgi gas from the gas making plant at Morwell to the West Melbourne gasworks — the largest in Victoria.

The Lurgi line marked a new era in Australian pipelining. It was 101 miles long; the 18 inch diameter pipe was made from Grade A mild steel and was designed to operate at a maximum pressure of 400lbs per square inch.

The pipe was pressed by Mephan Ferguson in Melbourne from Australian made steel supplied by Australian Iron and Steel Pty Ltd, a BHP subsidiary located at Port Kembla. The line was laid by the Gas and Fuel Corporation using its own staff, with local workers in each of the areas through which it passed being hired to carry out the excavation work. The Corporation imported excavators, side booms and welding equipment from the USA for the job and trained its own welders.

About this time another development was taking place — the Gas and Fuel Corporation began taking advantage of new techniques and economics in the manufacture of towns gas by increasing considerably the percentage of gas derived from petroleum products.

Contracts were arranged between the refineries and the gas utilities for the latter to buy the refinery gas which was of high quality and improved the calorific value.

This gas, which was blended with other gases to produce towns gas, had to be transported by pipeline from the three refineries to gasworks or blending plants of the utilities. Between 1955 and 1966, lines were laid from the PRA refinery at Altona to works operated by the Gas and Fuel Corporation, from the Shell refinery at Corio to the Geelong Gas Company, and lastly, in 1966, from the newly erected BP refinery at Crib Point to the Gas and Fuel Corporation blending plant at Dandenong.

As a later development, liquefied petroleum gas was also used to improve the calorific value of towns gas and a number of pipelines were laid to bring this product to the various gasworks or blending stations for adding to the towns gas stream.

It is interesting to note during this particular year work commenced on five major pipelines within a 50 mile radius of Melbourne and this was the forerunner of much bigger things to come within three years.

BP laid an 8 inch white products line to new tank farm at Dandenong, the first on the eastern side of Melbourne and the Gas and Fuel Corporation built two 24-mile long pipelines — one 12 inches in diameter to convey refinery gas to the blending plant at Dandenong, and the other of 4 inches in diameter to carry liquefied petroleum gas to its new distribution terminal at the same site.

The lines were laid by Leighton Constructions which sub-contracted all but the civil works to a company known as Welded Pipelines Pty Ltd. The larger diameter pipe was supplied by Humes Ltd and was the longest line laid in Victoria to convey this product.

A number of other important pipelines to improve the gas supply to various areas were laid in the Melbourne metropolitan area by the Gas and Fuel Corporation and to a lesser extent by the Colonial Gas Association during this era, but these were mainly of medium diameter and fairly short in length.

One of the last occurrences of significance in pipelaying in the pre-natural gas era resulted from the Corporation’s decision in 1964 to lay a 51 mile, 18 inch diameter ring main north from Dandenong through the eastern and northern suburbs to its West Melbourne works.

The first section of this pipeline was laid in 1965 by the Corporation using day labour but the next three sections were built by pipelaying contractors. The first was laid in 1966 and 1967 by Australian Pipelines Construction, a recently formed division of Australian and overseas interests.

The last section of the northern ring main was laid in 1969 as a natural gas line and when the entire 51 mile length had been completed it was used as the main transmission line for natural gas around the northern part of Melbourne.

The first duplication of an existing long distance pipeline occurred in 1965 when the Shell Company commenced construction of a second pipeline from the refinery at Corio to its storage and distribution facilities in the Newport area.

This pipeline is significant from two other aspects. For the first time in Victoria high tensile, X52 pipe was used and a synthetic, jacket type, emulsion ‘polypayre’ made by Dicks Asbestos London, was used for coating the pipe. The pipe made by Sumitomo of Japan was also one of the first to be imported from that country.

1967 onwards ‘The Natural Gas Era’

With the discovery of natural gas in Bass Strait, pipelining in Victoria boomed and the story of that boom is covered in the October 2006 edition of The Australian Pipeliner in an article titled ‘Building Victoria’s Pipeline System’.