Perth Metropolitan Area Pipeline Surveillance Project

Project Description

The project requires management of a patrol along the Parmelia Pipeline for APA to protect people and infrastructure from a disturbance of this high pressure gas transmission pipeline.

The 416 kilometre (mainline) Parmelia Gas Pipeline (PGP) is a transmission pipeline that transports gas from the Perth Basin gas fields near Dongara (south of Geraldton), the Carnarvon Basin (via the Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline) and APA’s Mondarra Gas Storage Facility. It also interconnects with the ATCO Gas distribution network in the Perth metropolitan area. The PGP has a mix of network, retail, electricity generation, as well as oil and aluminium refinery customers in the Perth area and the southwest of Western Australia.

Abaxa engaged with APA, to manage this patrol to the required high safety standards of Australia’s leading energy infrastructure business. Abaxa understood the risks associated with working in and around underground utilities and had many years of experience working with third parties to protect infrastructure. Bringing this experience to the project, coupled with the largest capacity in Western Australia in technical experts, Abaxa collaborated with APA to understand the requirements of the project and then proceeded to train our team resources to high risk patrol requirements of the project – including specialist field and safety training, specific company inductions, software enhancements and training for “Real Time’ monitoring logs and complete vehicle improvements to specification for the patrol route including 4WD terrain, aerial identification of the approved vehicle to APA, and HSE monitoring.

Abaxa managed the project resources through challenges with access to rural sites, lone worker, uncontrolled bush site conditions that were off road requiring 4WD driving, managing awareness and attention to detail on the surveillance route to ensure small changes are noticed, escalated and managed to protect the pipeline and public.

A key focus of Abaxa’s was planning for and managing team fitness for work and fatigue due to route length and the project requirement for attention to detail and small changes in environment to protect the asset. This was managing through proactive planning and scheduling, with shift rotation to ensure fitness for work and fatigue management for optimum results in on-site attention and safety.