portfolio (2012-2009)

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Danny Cameron

A U S T R A L I ASSENGINEERS

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The development of Engineers Australia’s eChartered – page 36

FEATURES

Pipes and Pumps 46

Process Control 54

Building the new route through the Hunter

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27ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | FEBRUARY 201226 ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | FEBRUARY 2012

COVER STORY – HUNTER EXPRESSWAY COVER STORY – HUNTER EXPRESSWAY

The Hunter Expressway is the biggest road project

currently under way in NSW. Split into two sections,

the project is being delivered by two different groups.

Danny Cameron visited the works and filed these reports.

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Fills

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The Hunter Expressway is lo-cated in NSW, about 140km north of Sydney. It joins the north-south F3 Freeway with the New England Highway,

heading west off the F3 Freeway about 20km south of the current F3-New England Highway junction. It will form a new bypass route that will result in a number of benefits for regional traffic flows as well as long haul traffic.

The expressway will provide a more direct route to the Port of Newcastle from the Hunter and central west region. The travel time between Newcastle and the Upper Hunter is expected to be reduced by nearly 30 minutes in peak times. This will serve the heavy vehicle industry in the region like Hydro, whose Hunter aluminium smelter lies adjacent to one of the interchanges, and whose trucks currently travel on the local road net-work. It will also serve the commuters working at the mines to the west of the expressway.

The new road will provide an alter-native entrance into the Hunter wine country, and will also service traffic choosing to travel the inland route be-tween Sydney and Brisbane instead of the Pacific Highway. Current bottlenecks along the New England Highway in the towns of Maitland and Rutherford are expected to ease significantly once the expressway is open.

The project involves building a 40km four-lane expressway link and is currently the largest infrastructure project under way in NSW. Included in the works are 53 bridges, including 800m of high bridges through the Sugarloaf Range; six grade separated interchanges located at the F3, Buchanan, Kurri Kurri, Loxford, Allandale and Branxton; $20 million of adjustments to utility services; and a 1km rebuild of South Maitland railway, including a new railway bridge.

The expressway is being built under two contracts. The eastern section (F3 Freeway to Kurri Kurri) is being built under an alliance contract with NSW Roads and Maritime Services (RMS),

formerly known as Roads and Traffic Authority; Thiess; Parsons Brinckerhoff; and Hyder Consulting. It is about 13km long and includes building three viaducts through the Sugarloaf Range.

The 27km western section (Kurri Kurri to Branxton) is being built under a design and construct contract with Abigroup Contractors. This section has been designed for Abigroup by the SMEC/SKM Joint Venture.

Work started on the eastern section in August 2010 and on the western section last April. The project is scheduled to be completed by December 2013, weather permitting. Once completed, the entire project will be opened to traffic at the same time.

It is being funded with $1.5 billion from the federal government and up to $200 million from the NSW government. With good progress currently being made on the project, the federal gov-ernment brought forward $200 million in federal funding late last year. Federal infrastructure and transport minister Anthony Albanese said the early payment was recognition of efforts from all those associated with building this new road.

“After a little more than 12 months of construction this long awaited new piece of infrastructure is already beginning to take shape, with the entire project on track to be completed within the next two years,” he said.

Federal member for the Hunter Joel Fitzgibbon said the road being built will support the region’s growth for the next three decades.

“The pace on the project has been remarkable and I thank the contractors for their good work,” he said.

Project overview

Federal member for the Hunter Joel Fitzgibbon onsite.

Jonathan Davies, production manager of sub-alliance partner VSL, in front of the gantry his team has assembled to erect the girders.

The scene is set for the launch of the gantry that will build the viaducts in the eastern section of the Hunter Expressway, constructed by Thiess in the alliance with Parsons Brinckerhoff, Hyder and NSW Roads and Maritime Services.

Sub-alliance partner VSL has carried out the assembly of the gantry and will supervise the building of the decks for the three twin viaducts, with a total length of 800m.

When I visited the site in early January, the gantry was fully assembled and load tests were being carried out before the launch of the gantry out to the first pier, over a steep ravine about 35m deep.

Three viaducts ranging from 27m to 36m in height will be built in the Sugarloaf Range and will span vegetated coastal foothills of spotted gum and ironbark forest as well as alluvial tall moist forest.

“The terrain is pretty rugged through the Sugarloaf Range and the bridge through this section was originally designed to be built using the incremental launch method,” Thiess’ project director for the Hunter Expressway Alliance Peter

Chatburn said. “But that would have meant the span lengths would have been reduced to between 40m and 50m. With project constraints like the topography and the old under-ground mines, as well as limiting the clearing of flora, the balanced cantilever method was the preferred option. The bridges now have spans of 75m which has an environmental benefit to both Aboriginal heritage and flora connectivity.”

Jonathan Davies, production manager of sub-alliance partner VSL, said: “This method limits the number of piers required and the amount of land needed to be cleared, and the gantry has been brought in specially.”

The total gantry contains around 1000t of steel when fully assembled and is 165m long, 16m high, and 6.4m between the chords. It has been transported down from Brisbane where it was used during the building of the new Gateway Bridge. With room onsite for assembly, Davies said that by placing heavy lift towers and strand jacks between the trusses, the gantry weighing 750t could be preassembled at ground level and then lifted onto its supports.

“This is one of the ways we are limiting the amount


Gantry set for action on eastern section

ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | FEBRUARY 2012

COVER STORY – HUNTER EXPRESSWAYCOVER STORY – HUNTER EXPRESSWAY


COVER STORY – HUNTER EXPRESSWAYCOVER STORY – THE HUNTER EXPRESSWAY COVER STORY – THE HUNTER EXPRESSWAY

Clockwise from bottom left: Thiess’ specially adapted batch plant for mine fill work; inside the precast facility; the assembled gantry ready for launch; and, an aerial view of the precast facility and storage yard.

of work at heights, improving the safety of workers on site,” he explained.

The segments for the bridges are being built in the alliance’s precast yard, built specifically for the project next to the site office.

Critical survey controls in the precast facility were re-quired to manufacture match cast segments, where each segment needs to match the segment before it. The precast yard building sits on foundations to ensure the most stable conditions possible. Within the building, each segment mould has its own survey control tower – large diameter concrete columns, set up so surveyors can come in every morning and measure heights and positions to make sure

moulds can be set to millimetre precision. Further within the shed, reinforcing steel awaits assembly

in a jig before being lifted into the mould, along a produc-tion line progressing through a daily schedule of work.

“Around 3pm each day, the concrete pouring will start into the two column segment moulds before moving onto the three deck segment moulds,” said David Long, the alliance’s manager for the precast yard. “With 566 deck segments and 168 column segments, this will be a constant process as the deck installation for Viaduct 3 starts this month.”

Access to the site is by a series of temporary roads. There have been more than 10km of access roads designed and

built across the project. Some of these roads are temporary and will be removed at the end of the project, while others are permanent. Access roads will be used to transport the heavy deck segments from the precast yard to the location of the viaducts and have been built with full road geometry, incorporating standard and cross falls, widths and grades.

“The project has a number of complexities”, said Chat-burn. “The tight clearing limit has driven innovations such as the use of ecoflex walls on access tracks and the use of reinforced soil walls across the project, rather than using embankments with batters.”

The need to stabilise the old mines beneath the major structures, for example, underneath the viaducts and the

F3 interchange, has added further complexity. Early in the work program, mine maps from the 1900s

were analysed, and drilling investigations carried out to confirm the information on the mine map.

“Directional drilling is not something which is normally done, because most sites allow you to drill vertically in a grid, but due to the topography and the limited clearing we have had to limit the drill sites to particular areas, and from these locations directionally drill into the mine voids,” Chatburn said.

Mine tunnels up to 110m underground were found throughout the region around the F3 interchange and through the Sugarloaf Range. The use of down hole video




Coffey Information will commence work with Abigroup this month after being awarded a $2.3 million concrete testing contract for the western section of the Hunter Expressway late last year. Coffey Information was also appointed by Thiess

to deliver approximately $6 million of materials testing and analysis services to the Hunter Expressway Alliance on the eastern section of the project.

Business development manager Matt Morley said: “Our new testing designs and systems enable major highways to be constructed confidently to precise design specifications and within tight time frames.”

The contract with Abigroup requires an onsite laboratory that has been built and will commence operations this month. The laboratory will employ more than 17 workers full-time to support the project and the company will also use a large permanent testing facility in Warabrook, which can support any overflow work from the project.

Morley said a previous contract with Abigroup on the Woomargarma project found new efficiencies in testing.

“We reduced our testing times by 35% by trialling a more efficient laboratory design, and are now leading the industry in efficiency,” he said.

For the eastern part of the project, the company will provide laboratory testing services including construction materials conformance and quality control testing during the construction phase.

Major projects manager Stuart Kelaher said: “This win is a result of the emphasis [the company] has placed on education and demonstrating how quality materials testing and informa-tion services can provide better infrastructure outcomes – saving time and money for all parties.

“We’ve worked hard at managing quality through train-ing, applying lean methodologies to our labs and processes, and have a major projects division that specialises in project managing these jobs for our clients.”

There are strict flora clearing conditions on the expressway project as it cuts through highly vegetated communities, minimising the overall footprint of the project .

monitoring equipment showed mine conditions ranging from long, open tunnels complete with pit props and rail lines through to areas where the mine roof had fully or partially collapsed.

To ensure long term stability of the major bridge structures, all mine voids below these structures have been filled. This has involved direction drilling of over 1500 boreholes to a total distance of 150km and injecting some 200,000m3 of grout.

The 1MPa grout mix being used is a mix of flyash, water and cement. The flyash has been sourced from lo-cal powerstations. The grout mix is made in two mobile concrete batch plants that have been established onsite. The batch plants have been specially adapted by Thiess to blend the grout mix. The grout is then pumped through a temporary pipeline, across the site from the batch plants to the drilling locations. Each pump line is up to 1km long.

Down hole video cameras monitor the process to confirm the mine voids are successfully filled. Further verification is carried out by taking core samples from the mine voids and running down hole geophysics surveys. This work is being carried out by sub-alliance partner Keller Mine Fill and is on target to be completed by April, weather permitting.

Once the mine fill work is complete, the drilling sites are then reused as pier sites and for functional purposes such as stores, site sheds or holding yards, once again in a bid to limit the number of cleared sites through the

sensitive environment. Out of the Sugarloaf Range and along the less steep

terrain, cut and fill is employed to balance the road to-pography. In the eastern section, early designs estimate around 1.9Mm3 will be cut and 1.6Mm3 of fill would be used.

In some of the cuts, the Hunter Expressway Alliance is encountering poor material which would normally be unsuitable for earthwork purposes. Rather than spoil this material, it is being placed in encapsulated fills. For use in the encapsulated fills, water is added to poor quality material to maximum moisture levels to ensure it does not shrink or swell.

“Encapsulated fill is unusual, but it certainly isn’t something that hasn’t been done before,” Chatburn said. “Creating zoned embankments allows us to use the poor-quality material rather than wasting it and having to import replacement material.”

In one of the cuts viewed during the site visit, blasts had been conducted that morning and numerous dozers and crushers were working together to condition suitable fill material.

Here, the alliance was trialling the use of two hybrid excavators which each include a battery powered electric generator and diesel engine. Advice from Hyundai is that the machinery reduces fuel consumption and emissions by 25%.

Testing materials on the project

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Since starting work last April, Abigroup has already com-pleted extensive earthwork and has now moved more than 1.6Mm3 – around half

of the earthwork required on its section of the project.

The earthworks involve 28 cuttings, the largest of which is 380,000m3, and 28 fills, the largest of which is 615,000m3. Along some of these fill sections the company said the building of many rein-forced soil walls has required substantial planning and management to meet the project program, both in terms of the onsite resources and manufacture and delivery of precast wall panels.

The earthworks are part of a pro-gram of works which also includes building about 27km of four lane divided road, four interchanges and associated ramps, five twin bridges, including twin bridges over the Main Northern Railway, plus eight transverse

bridges over the expressway. Fauna fences and underpasses, access roads, drainage structures, landscaping, noise attenuation structures, property adjust-ments and rest areas are also being built.

Challenges on the project include working in areas subject to mine subsidence and acid sulphate soils, as well as project constraints specifying strict clearing limits within the sig-nificant tracts of native vegetation. The company said the road work design optimises both horizontal and verti-cal curvature, while minimising the footprint of clearing and disturbance to sensitive areas surrounding the project.

Abigroup Hunter Expressway proj-ect director Cameron Silverthorne said the tight clearing limit constraint has meant the team has also had to be innovative with the management of stockpile sites and basin designs to mi-nimise footprints within the restricted allowable clearing areas.

“This has involved changing designs; working with close neighbours to carry out work outside the road corridor; and consultation with Aboriginal stakeholders,” he said.

Before awarding the contract, Roads and Maritime Services had acquired a Section 90 Aboriginal Heritage Im-pact Permit for the project. However, detailed design identified many areas outside the boundaries of this permit.

“This has presented a number of approval and stakeholder challenges for the project team due to the recent introduction of the NSW government’s 2010 Aboriginal Heritage Codes of Practice,” Cameron explained. “Also, as work progresses, new sites are con-stantly uncovered.”

The project team has engaged a specialist to assist in processing the new sites within legislative require-ments to minimise impacts on project timeframes.

Cameron said the extra site and archaeological investigations, as well as the detailed Aboriginal registration and consultation requirements, have involved numerous meetings and site visits, and the development of close working relationships with many local Aboriginal communities.

The project team has also encoun-tered old mines along its section of the project and is performing its own mine void filling program around the communities of Greta and Kurri Kurri, also using grout containing fly ash from local powerstations.

Cameron said the use of fly ash and bottom ash produced by coal-fired power generation was an accepted en-gineered fill and concreting ingredient in the construction industry.

For other concrete being used for the bridges and piles on site, various concrete mix designs are being used.

“The biggest issue with the con-crete mixes is maintaining the plac-ing temperature below the limits of the specification during the summer months,” said Cameron. “Chillers will be installed at the batching plant to cool the mix water, and concrete pours are planned for earlier in the day when the

air temperature is cooler.”The twin bridge over the Main

Northern Railway at Branxton has specific criteria for the pier concrete mix design to counter the effects of thermal cracking in the two 350m3 pier wall concrete pours. The specific requirements are a lowered maximum placing temperature of the concrete of 29°C; shrinkage limits on the mix design; a lower cement binder content within the mix; and a time restriction between casting the pier base and wall, as well as additional curing measures.

Precast concrete is a major com-ponent in building the 22 bridges in the western section and all beams are being made by Australian Precast Solutions, a wholly owned subsidiary of Abigroup.

Aside from the twin bridge over the Main Northern Railway, which is being built with a composite closed steel box girder beam and concrete slab deck, many of the other bridges are being built using precast beams up to 1.8m deep and 39m long. The largest bridge is around 114m long, and has four spans 28.2m long and 11.5m wide.

Work is well under way on 18 of the

22 bridges. The lifting of the first bridge beams occurred in December at both Camp Road and Anvil Creek, setting a milestone for the western section of the project.

Cameron said: “The project has a very tight timeframe and bridges are being built concurrently to maximise the use of resources and to efficiently manage timeframes and cost, as well as quality outcomes.”

Abigroup uses several suites of soft-ware to help with the task management, planning and logistics capabilities of machinery on site. These technologies provide real time information, allow-ing a dynamic review of the processes on the project. Information is delivered to the office via two-way data systems using a combination of 3G, Wi-Fi and satellite data transfer.

Cameron said: “Software is playing a major role in improving the ability of staff to take design information onto site and interact with that information through its GPS integration. Hand held units are becoming more accessible, allowing a broader range of employees to have access to design information in an electronic format, guiding them in the daily work tasks.” n

An aerial view of work around the Allandale interchange which will serve as one of the entries into the Hunter wine country.

In December a milestone was reached on the western section when the first bridge girder lift was completed on the project.


Western section treads lightly

across sensitive country

45ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | JANUARY 201244 ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | JANUARY 2012

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CONFERENCE

30 May - 2 June 2012

Adelaide Convention Centre

Adelaide, Australia

Passing the Baton - Engineering Australia's Future

The Centre for Engineering Leadership and Management and Young Engineers Australia will present the 2012 Engineering Leadership Conference (ELC 2012). This stimulating and substantial conference is the major biennial professional event in the Australian engineering industry. ELC 2012 will deliver a dynamic and thought provoking combination of high profile speakers and challenging presentations for experienced engineering leaders and those progressing into leadership roles.

The conference theme is Passing the Baton - Engineering Australia's Future, and four important sub themes will be explored over the course of the two day conference - Pathways to Leadership, Transitions in Leadership, Leadership in Industry and Engineering a Better Society.

www.elc2012.org

Skills for successionby Danny Cameron

“So you realise you are now a CEO candidate,” Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) then chief execu-tive Paul Dougas said in one of

his first conversations with Santo Rizzuto, when he was appointed to the position of general manager of the mining and metals division of SKM in 2008.

SKM has four business units and it was clear that at the time all four general managers were candidates in a structured leadership and development program that exists within SKM.

After Dougas announced in December 2010 that he was stepping down from the chief executive role, the position was ad-vertised to the global market. Rizzuto said it is testament to the strength of SKM’s leadership and development program that he and the other general managers were there with a chance for the CEO role right to the end of the appointment process.

On 1 October 2011, he was appointed SKM’s fourth chief executive officer since its foundation as a private, employee-owned company in 1964. SKM is a “lead-ing projects firm, with global capability in strategic consulting, engineering and project delivery”. It has some 7000 people working from more than 40 offices around the world serving the buildings and in-frastructure; mining and metals; power and energy; and, water and environment business units.

When asked about his career pro-gression, Rizzuto said: “There is no one formula for development. When I started my career I couldn’t see myself being anything other than a technical electrical engineer – a technocrat.”

Early in his career, he was involved in heavy industry, mining and power work. At one stage he was appointed chief engineer within a project company, a role he said he enjoyed for the many technological challenges.

When he was 33, one of his managers told him they wanted him to get involved in the commercial side of a project.

“I was confounded why he even con-sidered me, but once I took the role and got my feet under the table, something in me just clicked.”

From there he became a divisional manager, and started looking at the development side of business which

included strategic planning. He realised the technical side of engineering was enjoyable and he could go back to it if he wanted, but he was learning that the commercial side was just as enjoyable and rewarding.

“The business-side of engineering is much more challenging because it isn’t as deterministic as sizing a high voltage cable,” he explained. “There is no hand-book on where the business is going to go in the next ten years – this mystery is the thing I find most challenging.”

To develop the skills for this new en-deavour, he did a lot of self-learning by reading the literature of the day – books about management structure and busi-ness concepts.

“There is one every year now, but back then there were only half a dozen really interesting books that people espoused and I learnt that way,” he said.

Shortly after joining SKM in 1997, Rizzuto led the firm’s initial foray into South America, working on a number of projects in Chile, Bolivia and Argentina.

During this time he participated in the company’s inhouse learning and develop-ment program.

“You start with our Future Leaders program, which puts you alongside ex-perienced people, coaches and mentors and you are shown different facets of the business early in your career.

“There is a whole sequence you go through and eventually you end up on the Leadership Excellence journey which caters for more senior people. This is the last step you take inhouse before you go outside for more development.”

In 2000 he relocated to Santiago to establish SKM’s Chilean operations which culminated in the acquisition of Minmetal in September 2005, one of Chile’s largest engineering and construction manage-ment firms.

It was during this period that he com-pleted management certificates through Deakin University Chifley School of Business, via distance education.

“However, the biggest investment in my executive education came four years ago when I completed the Advanced Management program through INSEAD – a five-week residential program with great networking opportunities.”

On each of these steps in his career, Rizzuto said it is also about pushing beyond your comfort zone.

“When you push yourself outside your comfort zone you see how you can evolve. The evolution of the human race is made up of episodes where we operate outside our comfort zone,” he explained.

Rizzuto noted a recent trend to smoth-er and protect young engineers from taking too much responsibility in projects early in their career. He questioned why there tended to be an industry-wide wari-ness against letting younger engineers into the fray a lot earlier.

“One of the arguments is that projects are more complex and there are com-pliance issues and complexities which all make it harder to let somebody less experienced take charge,” he said. “But if you have the right support mechanisms in place around them, then it is not a case of sink or swim.”

Throughout the industry he sees a great pool of “grey haired wizards” that are still taking all responsibility for projects believing they are doing so because they can’t do it any other way. At the other end of the age spectrum he sees the younger pool of engineers who want nothing more than to have a go.

“The older guys don’t have time to mentor because they are too busy doing the job, so it is a classic case where the senior guys can’t stop to sharpen the saw because they have too many trees to cut down. It is a self-defeating process and someone has to step in and break that loop.”

Rizzuto wants senior engineers to take a step back and get the best of the

younger engineers to step up. By taking less responsibility, the senior engineers will have more time to provide support, training and mentoring.

“This is something we have to con-sciously do as an industry, and we will have to educate our clients about this process, even though many clients have fallen into the same situation. Both par-ties need to take a chance.”

Santo Rizzuto became only the fourth CEO of SKM since the firm’s foundation in 1964.

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Managing differences before they turn into disputesby Graeme Peck

The duration and complexity of many construction projects create fertile ground for uncertainty. Differences of opinion between the contract parties

frequently arise on both technical and legal issues. If not quickly resolved, these can lead to expensive and drawn-out disputes over a complex mix of legal, technical and factual issues. These problems are magnified with the scale of a project, but are not limited to large projects.

The dispute board (DB) concept was developed in the 1970s in the US to address disputes quickly and efficiently. It has since been progressively developed and adopted by many organisations, including the World Bank, the International Federation of Con-sulting Engineers, all multilateral develop-ment banks and the European Union.

The Dispute Resolution Board Founda-tion (DRBF) was established in Seattle in 1996 and is now represented in over 40 countries where the dispute board con-cept is being used and actively promoted. The Dispute Resolution Board Australasia (DRBA) was established in Sydney in 2003. It is hosting the DRBF’s 12th International Conference, titled “The benefits of dispute boards to major projects – Proactive dispute resolution”, in Sydney on 3-5 May (see box).

The inclusion of DBs in construction contracts probably provides the most suc-cessful and efficient tool yet devised for conflict management in construction proj-ects. The available recorded and anecdotal evidence indicates that 98% of projects utilising DBs (now numbering more than 2000 worldwide) have been completed without reference beyond the DB, regardless

of the applicable legal and cultural systems.There is a growing awareness that the

DB concept has wide application in any commercial contract with elements of uncertainty.

Alternative dispute resolution (ADR) is regularly incorporated within contract conditions. It embraces processes such as mediation, conciliation, expert determina-tion, mini-trials and negotiation. These are mainly reactive processes initiated after a dispute has started. There is no opportunity to assist with the improvement of interparty relationships and/or the management of issues as they arise to avoid disputes.

While a DB process is often classed as an ADR process, it is proactive rather than reactive, and this substantial benefit differentiates it from other ADR processes.

A DB comprises one or three (depending on project size) independent experts se-lected by the contracting parties. Appointed at the commencement of a project, the DB

is provided with regular update reports on progress and undertakes regular visits to the site and joint party meetings. The DB’s firsthand project knowledge allows it to assist the parties in addressing and resolving issues as they emerge.

The DB concept reflects basic commer-cial common sense, such as:• encouraging the parties to articulate

issues as they arise• promoting discussion and resolution of

issues by the parties while the work is in progress

• providing a quick and simple method of resolving any issues the parties are unable to resolve by discussion.

The value of Australian and New Zealand DB projects completed or under way is now approaching $10 billion, most having commenced since 2005 after the formation of the DRBA. The Australasian industry statistics to date are an excellent example of the reported international experience:• No DB project has involved any reference

beyond the DB• 80% have been completed without a

single referral to the DB, compared with an industry norm for projects without DBs of less than half that percentage completed without off-site dispute reso-lution processes being invoked

• 86% of DB projects have finished on or ahead of time compared to the industry norm of less than 50% for similar value projects without DBs

• The majority have also been completed within the owner’s budget.

The contracts included above have involved major road, rail, bridge, port, process, and manufacturing projects. There are presently 15 DB contracts under way in the Aus-tralasian region utilising both three-person and one-person DBs. At least six other DB contracts are scheduled to commence this year with a combined value exceeding $1 billion, and there are several major projects currently in design where the responsible parties have indicated they are seriously considering the inclusion of DBs in their contracts. n

Graeme Peck is the past president of DRBA, is DRBF country representative for Australia and New Zealand, and chairs the Organising Committee for the DRBF’s 12th International Conference.

Dispute resolution conferenceThe 12th International Conference of the Dispute Resolution Board Foundation will be held on 3-5 May in Sydney. It is the first time this conference will take place in Australia.

Titled “The benefits of dispute boards to major projects – Proactive dispute resolution”, the conference will focus on “the innovation of dispute boards and the experience and lessons learnt by practitioners operating across a number of different cultures and legal systems from around the world”.

Keynote speakers will include Nick Greiner, chair of Infrastructure NSW; and Geoff French, president of FIDIC and managing director of URS-Scott Wilson.

The conference will also offer an advanced training workshop on dispute boards.For more information on the conference go to www.drba.com.au/conference.

Graeme Peck … “The dispute board concept reflects basic commercial common sense.”

Centre for Engineering Leadership and Management Developing and promoting business leadership and management in commercial and public enterprises

Sydney Division James Phillis

MIEAust CPEng [email protected]

Victoria Division Ed Custeau

FIEAust CPEng [email protected]

Queensland Division Simon Orton

RPEQ MIEAust CPEng EngExec [email protected]

South Australia Division Tom Mosquera FIEAust CPEng [email protected]

Western Australia Division Dr David Mofflin [email protected]

Tasmania Division Henk Kremer FIEAust [email protected]

Newcastle Division Chris Scanlon

MIEAust [email protected]

Canberra Division Mike Evans

FIEAust CPEng EngExec [email protected]

Northern Division Gary Boyle MIEAust [email protected]

National Board Chair: Dr Bronwyn Evans FIEAust EngExec

Members: John Phillips FIEAust CPEng EngExec Dr David Cruickshanks-Boyd FIEAust EngExec

Roland Slee FIEAust David Hudson FIEAust

Doug Gillott FIEAust CPEng Dr Mark Toner FIEAust CPEng EngExec

Gunilla Burrowes FIEAust

Secretariat Engineers Australia National Office, Canberra: John Anderson FIEAust CPEng EngExec – [email protected]; Sheryl Harrington – [email protected]

Rewiring old habits is a personal crusade for Rizzuto. He also plans to challenge the current working norms within SKM in terms of workplace flex-ibility and diversity.

On workplace flexibility, he said: “My view has been to move away from the concept of work/life balance, because that seems to imply that you have this little seesaw that you can balance on, so I have tossed away the seesaw and gone for an approach called work/life integration.”

Work/life integration was about un-derstanding that jobs border on vocation – it is a part of who you are, so you need to find a way to integrate it with your outside life. Rizzuto gave an example of the concept of integration – an employee who was wondering whether to stay on at work for another hour to clear his inbox.

“I said to him: ‘You have a laptop, you have broadband, why don’t you go home at 5PM, spend time with your family, and if you really feel you need to clean the inbox, then clear it after you spend two hours with your family.’ That is work/life integration.”

As a case-in-point he spent his first day as CEO of SKM at home.

“I am endeavouring to lead by ex-ample by saying I can lead a 7000 person

workforce working from home a day a week or whenever it makes sense,” he said. “Don’t think that your desk in your office, in that particular corner on that particular level of that particular build-ing is your be-all-and-end-all of effective management of your business. If the job allows you to do it, or you can restructure the job to allow you to do it, then why wouldn’t you?”

He said this touches on a lot of issues within gender diversity and increasing fe-male representation within the workforce.

“There is a whole issue on part-time work and increasing workplace flexibility and we have to go there because we are doing ourselves out of 50% of the work-force, simply because we are stuck in an old way of doing business.”

To that extent, he is encouraging his senior management team to redesign their workflows, challenging them to bid for projects with the assumption that the job could only be completed by people working part-time.

By working with this assumption from the start: how the job is going to be delivered, mapping out the workflows, bidding for it that way, and then when the project is won, completing it that way, Rizzuto said that only then can you

start to change your internal processes.“We are investing in time and money

into programs and development around diversity issues over the next couple of years because that is the only way I see we will make the quantum shift to drive a completely different cultural approach to working, not just with respect to gen-der issues but all the other areas in the diversity portfolio.”

In consideration of driving the stra-tegic direction of SKM, he said: “I am framing SKM’s strategic direction around three points: 1) the business case, 2) the technical challenges our people can strive to solve, and 3) where we can make a big difference to society.”

Wrapping those three together, he saw SKM’s future expansion in the emerging nations – in parts of Asia, parts of Latin America, and parts of Africa.

“The step I want to take is that SKM must create a legacy. When we complete a project, for example in West Africa, we want to go an extra step beyond the normal corporate social responsibility agenda. The legacy could be that we help the local education take a step up, or we support new healthcare schemes. SKM and its people want to work where we will make a positive and enduring impact.” n

FEATURES Mining Corrosion control

The issues surroundingcoal seam gas development

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42 ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | APRIL 2011

COVER STORY – COAL SEAM GAS

Coal seam gas is set to become a major energy resource for Australia, but as the industry ramps up

its exploration and production, aspects of the industry are becoming cause for concern among the

community. These aspects include access to land for bore holes and gas pipelines, management

of the massive amount of associated coal seam gas water and the use of hydraulic fracturing to

facilitate flow in the coal seam. This cover story outlines the proposed technologies involved and

the issues that surround this burgeoning industry.

42 ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | APRIL 2011 43ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | APRIL 2011 43

COAL SEAM GAS – COVER STORY

to seaChallenges for the coal seam gas industry

from seaM


45ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | APRIL 2011


44 ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | APRIL 2011

Within the vast coal reserves in geological seams beneath Aus-tralia, a previously untapped

gas reserve is being explored and devel-oped, quickly emerging as the newest big resource market for the country.

Coal has a long history in Australia and historically, some underground coal mines have had to deal with the danger of the methane generated and stored within the matrix of a coal seam. Follow-ing developments in the US and Canada, however, energy companies are realising the potential to tap into this methane.

The former Queensland Department of Employment, Economic Development and Innovation explained that from 2000 onwards, the coal measures in the Walloon subgroup of the Surat Basin in southern Queensland became the focus for emerg-ing coal seam gas companies, when it was realised that “an analogy existed with the lower ranked coals in the Powder River Basin in the US which was producing commercial quantities of gas”.

The success of the Queensland Gas Company (QGC) Argyle 1 well in 2000 demonstrated that the Surat Basin could become a significant coal seam gas pro-

ducer. Extensive exploration and develop-ment activity culminated with production commencing in early 2006.

In NSW, AGL’s Camden Gas Project started producing commercial quantities of coal seam gas in 2001, and currently supplies 6% of the NSW gas market from 130 gas wells tapped into the Sydney Basin.

The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) chief executive Belinda Robinson said: “As an end-use product, coal seam gas is the same as conventional natural gas and can be used for the same purposes such as electricity generation and in natural gas appliances, such as heaters and stoves.”

With governments encouraging a transition from coal to gas it is envis-aged that gas has an important role to play around the world, particularly one transitioning to a low carbon economy. The US Department of Energy explained that CO2 emissions from gas-fired plants are reduced relative to those produced by burning coal given the same power output “because of the higher heat content of natural gas, the lower carbon intensity of gas relative to coal, and the higher overall efficiency of the [gas-fired]

plant relative to a coal-fired plant”. For example, plant operator and Queensland electricity generator CSEnergy said its gas-fired Swanbank E produces 50% less greenhouse gas emissions than the average coal-fired plant.

Where is coal seam gas found?Geoscience Australia said Australia has significant coal seam gas resources, mainly associated with the major coal basins of eastern Australia.

The Australian Mines Atlas (www.australianminesatlas.gov.au) said coal seam gas was initially sought within the Permian coal seams of the Bowen and Sydney Basins. However, since the early 2000s exploration has targeted the rela-tively shallow depths of the lower rank coal seams of the Jurassic-age Surat and Clarence-Moreton Basins in Queensland and NSW. Coal seam gas exploration is also under way in Victoria, Tasmania, South Australia, and Western Australia.

“Economic demonstrated resources are estimated to be 16,590PJ, but total demonstrated resources exceed 46,590PJ. Total identified resources of coal seam gas are estimated to be around 168,600PJ,”

Geoscience Australia said.ABARE’s latest long-term prediction

said gas consumption in Australia is projected to increase by 3.4% per annum to reach 2575PJ in 2029/30. Its share of primary energy consumption is projected to rise to 33% in 2029/30.

Lucas, a company that specialises in engineering infrastructure and drilling services to the coal and oil and gas sectors, said: “Most of Australia’s coal seam gas is in NSW and Queensland. With the gas reservoirs of the Cooper Basin in South Australia now declining, the east coast of the country has been looking for new sources, and coal seam gas is meeting that demand.”

The Queensland government said it has Australia’s largest onshore reserves of coal seam gas in the Bowen and Surat Basins, “enough to adequately supply growing domestic demand and LNG export oppor-tunities and ensure the long-term supply of competitively-priced gas in Australia”.

From these two basins alone, some $66 billion of coal seam gas projects have now been approved and are currently being developed. The three LNG project proposals that have cleared Queensland

and federal approval processes are:• The APLNG project, a 50:50 joint

venture between Origin Energy and ConocoPhillips, worth $35 billion.

• The Gladstone LNG (GLNG) project, backed by Santos, Petronas, Total and Kogas, worth $16 billion.

• The Queensland Curtis LNG project, backed by BG Group and Queensland Gas Company (QGC), worth $15 billion.

Land accessThousands of exploration and produc-tion wells are being drilled up and down the east coast of Australia in search of coal seam gas, which lies in geological structures beneath land privately owned by landholders and farmers. It is the ac-cess to this energy source that has been causing much of the community concern.

Queensland government advice states: “Natural resources, including underground resources such as coal, petroleum or coal seam gas, are owned by the people of Queensland and are not the property of individuals or com-panies. The Queensland government manages these resources for the benefit of all Queenslanders.”

In Queensland, coal seam gas produc-tion companies are granted an authority to prospect (ATP) by the state minister for mines and energy, across any land identified as potentially holding energy reserves. The area authorised under some ATPs can be as large as 7500km2. A com-pany granted an ATP is allowed to access any property within the area.

While a company holding an ATP is allowed to explore and produce resources from any private land, the Queensland government has made it clear that af-fected landholders are entitled to know what activities are being undertaken, have input and receive compensation for those activities.

In NSW the process is similar, though NSW Industry and Investment stated that an exploration licence “does not entitle the holder to enter any of the lands in the area covered by the licence without a prior access arrangement with the landholder”.

New land access laws came into effect in Queensland on 29 October 2010 for the petroleum and gas, greenhouse gas and geothermal energy sectors. A key feature of these laws is the requirement for the resources sector to comply with

EDR 33 328GALILEE BASIN

CANNING BASIN

EDR 2182MULGILDIE BASIN

SDR 45STYX BASIN

EDR 15 433CALLIDE BASIN

EDR 25 540TARONG BASIN

SDR 7598IPSWICH BASIN

EDR 322 118SDR 12 118

BOWEN BASIN

EDR 63 758SURAT BASIN

EDR 40 888SDR 1132

CLARENCE-MORETONBASIN

EDR 1277GLOUCESTER BASIN

SDR 63 176ARCKARINGA BASIN

EDR 415SDR 404

LEIGH CREEKEDR 11 437

PERTH BASINEDR 12 674SDR 5849

COLLIE BASIN

EDR 6032TASMANIA BASIN

SDR 722LAURA BASIN

EDR 315 502SDR 67 664

SYDNEY BASIN

EDR 10 518SDR 146

GUNNEDAH BASIN

EDR 22 334OAKLANDS BASIN

SDR 4205POLDA BASIN

Abbot Point

Hay Point and Dalrymple Bay

Newcastle

PortKembla

Kwinana

NORTHERN STVINCENT BASINEDR 23 305

MURRAY BASINSDR 34 497

EDR 5086SDR 8887

OTWAY BASIN

LONGFORD BASINSDR 807

EDR 356 919SDR 462 027

GIPPSLAND BASIN

EUCLA BASINSDR 2592

BREMER BASINSDR 2181

PERTH

SYDNEY

DARWIN

HOBART

ADELAIDE

Brisbane

Gladstone

MELBOURNE

150°140°130°120°

10°

20°

30°

40°

AERA 5.1

0 750 km

Economic DemonstratedResource (EDR in PJ)

Recoverable black and brown coal resources

Sub-economic DemonstratedResource (SDR in PJ)

Black coal basin

Brown coal basin

Coal export port

Source: Geoscience Australia

Geoscience Australia’s map indicating the major coal basins around the country.

Geoscience Australia’s map of gas developments around Australia.

GRAPHIC:GeosCIenCe AustRAlIA 2011

GRAPHIC:GeosCIenCe AustRAlIA 2011

BASS BASINConventional Gas Produced: 47

Conventional Gas Remaining: 528

BONAPARTE BASINConventional Gas Produced: 647

Conventional Gas Remaining: 26 119

BOWEN BASINConventional Gas Produced: 647Conventional Gas Remaining: 441CSG Produced: 93CSG Remaining: 5524

GIPPSLAND BASINConventional Gas Produced: 8216Conventional Gas Remaining: 8641

COOPER/EROMANGA/WARBURTON BASINS

Conventional Gas Produced: 6549Conventional Gas Remaining: 911

AMADEUS BASINConventional Gas Produced: 410


PERTH BASINConventional Gas Produced: 709


CARNARVON BASINConventional Gas Produced: 14 388


OTWAY BASINConventional Gas Produced: 484


SURAT BASINConventional Gas Produced: 287Conventional Gas Remaining: 36CSG Produced: 40CSG Remaining: 9778

CLARENCE-MORETON BASINCSG Produced: 0CSG Remaining: 298

GLOUCESTER BASINCSG Produced: 0CSG Remaining: 176

SYDNEY BASINCSG Produced: 5CSG Remaining: 67

GUNNEDAH BASINConventional Gas Produced: 2

Conventional Gas Remaining: 12CSG Produced: 0

CSG Remaining: 336

ADAVALE BASINConventional Gas Produced: 9


CANNING BASINConventional Gas Produced: 0Conventional Gas Remaining: 7

BROWSE BASINConventional Gas Produced: 0


PERTH

SYDNEY

DARWIN

HOBART

ADELAIDE

BRISBANE

MELBOURNE

AERA 4.1

0 750 km

150°140°130°120°110°

10°

20°

30°

40°

Gas pipelineGas pipeline(proposed)

Gas resources (in PJ)

Past production

Coal seam gasresources

Conventional gasresources

Gas basin

Gas processingplant

Source: Geoscience Australia

by Danny Cameron



47ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | APRIL 201146 ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | APRIL 2011

a single Land Access Code. The laws aim to ensure that landholders will be fairly compensated for activities on their land and that companies must take steps to minimise impacts on the existing land and business operations.

However, this isn’t enough for some active landholders, who don’t want resource companies on their land. Last month, the Western Downs Alliance threatened to blockade QGC from accessing a number of properties sur-rounding the Tara estate. The alliance said: “The blockade will last as long as QGC attempts to continue with the pipeline which they want to build to link with several gas wells inside the estate.”

On the Western Downs Alliance website, the group wrote that for the diverse com-munities that occupy the Darling Downs “this industry and its associated pollution has the potential to severely damage the long-term, and in many cases even the short-term viability of these communities”.

On Monday 21 February ABC1’s Four Corners journalist Matthew Carney re-ported from this and other communities in Queensland and NSW that are being affected by the rapidly growing industry. Farmers told of their feelings of “violation and frustration; their belief that they are losing control of their properties and their ability to plan for the future”.

“Imagine you are running a successful farming operation; then one day a man from the gas company arrives with news that a coal seam gas field lies beneath your feet. From there three wells are sunk, then another 18. And then a proposal for another 30, turning your property into a thriving gas field, while threatening the viability of the working farm,” ABC1 said in its promotion of the program. “Down the road, the neighbour sells after 48 wells are sunk into his property.”

On the program, a farmer told Carney: “It’s really frustrating. We have taken on extra debt to fund our farming business and we are powerless to stop people accessing it and abusing it.”

Coal seam gas exploration and produc-tion companies try to alleviate this with extensive community consultation and the establishment of community liaison committees. The resource companies say the two can coexist.

In February, the Queensland govern-ment also established an LNG specific department (lng.industry.qld.gov.au). The unit will deliver regionally-coordinated compliance and monitoring, and mediate in complaint resolution.

Also in February, then NSW minister for primary industries Steve Whan an-nounced the completion of a compre-hensive review of the operating charter for Community Consultative Commit-tees (CCC) for significant mineral and petroleum exploration projects in the state. Whan said the review was aimed at strengthening community representation on these committees.

As a result, new CCCs will now in-clude up to six representatives from a range of local community groups, such as the Business Chambers of Commerce; community action group/alliances; local indigenous communities; major land user groups or associations (eg horse breeders, winegrowers); local water user associa-tions; and tourism associations.

Whan said the purpose of a CCC is to provide a forum for open discussion between the exploration company, the appointed community representatives and relevant government agencies.

“Ensuring the community is kept in the loop at all stages of exploratory activities in the mineral sector is crucial to achieving a successful balance between the energy needs of the people and the interest of local communities at a grass roots level,” he said. “What is equally important is fostering good working relationships among committee members and to act as a conduit to help the company to improve communication, education and notification with the general community.”

In the NSW town of Gloucester, where AGL is proposing a coal seam gas develop-ment, the company said it was committed to establishing and maintaining open two-way communication with the local community. AGL has engaged engineering and environmental consulting firm GHD to assist with the community consultation.

On the Queensland Curtis LNG proj-ect, QGC stated in a detailed response to Four Corners: “The Queensland Curtis LNG project has involved direct discus-sions with more than 4000 people over two years from 2008, and particularly involved landholders. QGC has a continuing public consultation program, particularly with landholders across Queensland Curtis LNG project tenements.”

The company said it does not enter properties without landholder consent and has never taken a landholder to court. QGC said it was in continual discussion with more than 900 landholders about access to their properties and of this total, currently had agreements with more than 600 of them.

The sourceUp to 1000m beneath the land, the geo-logical structure of a coal seam can be viewed as both a reservoir and a source for the economic recovery of gas.

On its website, Australian energy com-pany Santos explains that because coal has many fractures and a large internal surface area, it can potentially hold large volumes of gas.

In its GLNG Environmental Impact Statement Santos said that in some coal seams, the volume of gas adsorbed in the coal can take up to 20 years to be released from a productive coal seam.

APLNG explained in its Queensland-based project description: “The level of gas that can be produced from a coal bed depends on the thickness of the coal, gas content, permeability and the depth of the coal seam. In Australia, coal seams that can produce coal seam gas economically are usually 200m-1000m below the surface.”

Coal seam gas forms by either biologi-cal or thermal processes.

“During the earliest stage of coal-ification (the process that turns plants

into coal) biogenic methane is gener-ated as a byproduct of microbial action. Biogenic methane is generally found in near-surface low rank coals such as lig-nite. Thermogenic methane is generally found in deeper higher-rank coals. When temperatures exceed about 50°C due to burial, thermogenic processes begin to generate additional methane, carbon di-oxide, nitrogen and water,” the Australian Mines Atlas explained.

In a coal seam, the gas is adsorbed to coal in a water saturated environment. When a potentially productive coal seam is dewatered by physical means, the pres-sure drops and the gas desorbs from the coal and travels into the fractures (cleats) of the coal.

Origin Energy explained on its website that when the cleats are interconnected

and permeable, gas and water can flow freely through them and up through a production well. In some cases, this per-meability is raised by hydraulic fracturing.

Opening up the seamHydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as “fraccing”, is the process of injecting liquid at high pressure into a bed of rock to increase the geological fracturing within that layer of rock.

A more fractured rock means more potential pathways for liquid and gas to travel. When considering liquid and gas flow in rock for industries such as geothermal energy or oil and gas exploration, fraccing is used to increase the productivity of a layer of rock.

Before designing a fracture treatment for a well, the first step is to measure the proper-ties of the various rock layers, including any contained fluids. These properties are then used to design the fracture treatment. By designing the fracture treatments and ac-counting for the properties of the sequence of rock layers and by monitoring the fracture during the injection, the fracture size can be controlled. In some cases, it is desirable to

have the fracture grow through more than one coal seam in order to extract gas from several seams.

In coal seam gas hydraulic fracture treatments, one well at a time is typically fractured, usually by several separate injec-tions targeting specific seams in the well. The volume of hydraulic fracturing fluid pumped varies depending on the size of fracture required and the rock permeability. Typically, the volume ranges from 50kL-200kL of fluid and sand.

Sometimes a small fracture is used to connect the wellbore to the coal (10m-50m size), or a very small fracture might be formed as a way to measure the insitu stress (1m-10m size). In lower permeability coals, the fractures are designed to extend further into the seam, around 100m-300m from the well.

In a hypothetical example, if a well in-tersects four seams that are each fractured separately, then each fracture treatment might involve 150kL of fluid injected over 20-25min. Each treatment would be followed by several hours of testing and data collection before the next one starts. During this period, pressure data would be recorded, followed by flowing back the well to relieve pressure. Most of the fluid flow-ing back after an injection is the fracturing fluid originally injected. Once the well is put on production, this progressively gets diluted by formation water.

For its coal seam gas exploration, Aus-tralian energy company Santos said it uses a specifically blended fluid that was “99.51% water and beach sand”, charged with prop-pants. In the oilfield glossary, proppants are described as sized particles mixed with fracturing fluid to hold fractures open after a hydraulic fracturing treatment. These can be “naturally occurring sand grains or specially engineered proppants, such as resin-coated sand or high-strength ceramic materials like sintered bauxite”.

The compounds in the 0.49% of the blended fluid are not specific to the coal seam gas industry and Santos said “they have many common uses such as in swim-ming pools, toothpaste, baked goods, ice cream, food additives, detergents and soap”. They include non hazardous substances like potassium chloride and a drilling fluid additive of low toxicity known as Fracseal Fine. The materials safety data sheets (MSDS) for the compounds used by Santos can be found at http://www.santos.com/coal-seam-gas/hydraulic-fracturing.aspx.

On its website Santos explained that to fracture a seam it injects this fluid down a well at high pressure to force passageways into the coal seam. The company said it has been using this technique for decades in the Cooper Basin and in southwest Queensland.

Queensland minister for energy and water utilities Stephen Robertson said: “It is estimated that since 2000, around 5% of coal seam gas wells drilled in Queensland have been fracced, although this propor-tion is expected to increase as coal seam gas production increases.”

CSIRO has established a branch of its petroleum engineering team that special-ises in hydraulic fracturing techniques. The hydraulic fracturing team has developed “new understanding of hydraulic fracture mechanics using an integrated approach based on theoretical development, ex-perimental investigation and application of results, in partnership with industry”.

“Ensuring the community is

kept in the loop at all stages

of exploratory activities in the

mineral sector is crucial to

achieving a successful balance

between the energy needs of

the people and the interest of

local communities at a grass

roots level.”

“Most of Australia’s coal seam gas is in NSW and Queensland. With the

gas reservoirs of the Cooper Basin in South Australia now declining,

the east coast of the country has been looking for new sources, and

coal seam gas is meeting that demand.”



Initial tests of Myrtle 3 in 2009 indicated a low flow rate of gas from the well and QGC decided to use hydraulic fracturing on the well to determine whether the flow rate could be enhanced. About six weeks after the fracturing process in mid-2009, QGC’s monitoring indicated that the Walloons and the Springbok formations were connected where the Myrtle 3 well had been drilled.

However, QGC stated: “Water flow from the Springbok aquifer to the Myrtle 3 well has been relatively minimal and monitoring has not indicated any impact on Springbok aquifer water quality or levels. This was not a catastrophic failure in well design or operation. It is capable of being rectified and steps are under way to do so.”

University of Newcastle Professor Garry Willgoose, who has also worked as the adviser to the Broke-Bulga Community Consultative Committee for the AGL coal seam gas project in the Hunter region (re-cently wound-up to be replaced by a larger regional CCC), explained on ABC local radio that the geology and hydrogeology at any location is unique and the production and exploration at any well needs to be examined on a case-by-case basis.

At the surfaceAt the surface of a production well, gas

companies will install a well pump to extract water, a gas-powered driver for the pump, a system to separate the water from the gas, metering facilities and a flare stack.

The separated gas and the water are then piped to a centralised compression and water treatment facility. In some cases low-to-intermediate nodal rotary screw compressors may also be required to get the gas from the production well to the central facility.

Water treatment and managementAs the gas is derived by completely de-watering a coal seam, water management is to become an important component of the growing gas production industry.

In typical gas field set-ups it is envis-aged that the water separated at the well head will then be piped to a central water treatment facility.

The Queensland Department of Mines and Energy said current analysis suggests about 110ML of water is produced for each petajoule (PJ) of gas, however this varies across different basins. For example, the ratio of water to gas produced is greater from Surat Basin fields than for those in the Bowen Basin. Also, the water produc-tion varies over time – it starts out high when the gas wells are brought online and declines over time.

The Queensland government has said that 3250PJ/a of coal seam gas would

49ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | APRIL 201148 ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | APRIL 2011

On its website CSIRO said: “The hy-draulic fracturing group has carried out experimental programs in coal and in hard rock that have included physical mining and mapping of the created hydraulic frac-ture geometry. The mapped fracture data was used to study how hydraulic fractures grow through rock – including how they interact with, and cross, natural fractures.”

There has been much recent press about the chemical and hydrogeological concerns surrounding hydraulic fracturing. These two issues of concern are repeatedly cited in articles, community meetings and protests around the country.

In the Four Corners program, concerns focused on one fraccing exercise at a well known as Myrtle 3.

Anne Bridle, a neighbour to the prop-erty on which Myrtle 3 was drilled, asked for the material safety data sheets for the chemicals used during the fraccing exer-cise. The ABC program said she “noticed the safety data sheet for the chemical THPS was American, incomplete and 10 years out of date”. The program said 130L of THPS was used in the Myrtle 3 exercise.

Visiting the Dow Chemicals web-site, you find that THPS is “a biocide containing the active substance tetrakis (hydroxymethyl) phosphonium sulfate (THPS) … a slimicide for gas and oil field applications, as well as for water-

treatment uses”. Dow Chemicals product information further explains: “THPS is inherently biodegradable, which suggests the chemical will be removed from water and soil environments, including biological wastewater treatment plants. In addition, the compound is susceptible to other deg-radation processes, including hydrolysis, photolysis, and oxidation.”

In QGC’s response to Four Corners, the company said the contractor responsible for hydraulic fracturing on the Myrtle 3 well advised that it was fully compliant with the National Industrial Chemicals Notification Assessment Scheme.

QGC stated: “QGC does not believe any of its facilities pose an unacceptable risk to the health and safety of people or that it is operating other than in accordance with best industry practice. We believe that any chemicals utilised in this process, in the quantities used, are safe.”

Another chemical point of contention often cited in articles and by the commu-nity is the use of petroleum compounds containing benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene and xylenes, known as BTEX, during frac-cing exercises. BTEX compounds have been used in overseas oil and gas opera-tions and caused particular concern due to groundwater contamination in the US.

While Queensland minister Robertson said BTEX petroleum compounds were

not used in Queensland coal seam gas operations, the state government decided to enforce the issue and last October banned BTEX from coal seam gas operations.

Last December, the NSW government said it would examine banning the use of BTEX chemicals in situations which may pose a risk to groundwater.

NSW premier at the time Kristina Keneally said: “BTEX chemicals are not currently used in any hydraulic fracturing activities in NSW – but the idea of banning these chemicals is certainly something we are investigating.”

The hydrogeological concerns of frac-cing mainly revolve around aquifer con-nectivity between beds of rock, and the risk of increased interconnectivity once the rock bed of interest has been fractured.

For example, the Four Corners pro-gram raised the issue surrounding the bore known as Myrtle 3, an appraisal well to test the gas production potential in the Walloon coal measures – around 500m underground.

Describing the geology in its response to Four Corners, QGC said: “The Springbok aquifer is a sandstone formation that lies slightly above the Walloons. Thickness of the Springbok and Walloons formations varies across the Surat Basin with the formations generally separated by an im-permeable layer of shale, siltstone or clay.”

An aerial shot of the gas fields in an area south of

Chinchilla and near the Tara residential estate in central Queensland,

taken in September 2010.

PHoto: AAP ImAGe/suPPlIed

A sweeping view of the Darling Downs in central Queensland where coal seam gas development is under way.

COAL SEAM GAS – COVER STORY

PHoto: WIkIPedIA/mAGPIe sHooteR


50 ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | APRIL 2011 51ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | APRIL 2011


PHoto: Cs eneRGy

PHoto: GlAdstone PoRt CoRPoRAtIon

CS Energy said its gas-powered Swanbank E powerstation in central Queensland produces 50% less greenhouse gas emissions than the average coal fired powerstation.

Work has commenced on the major expansion of Gladestone Port and

Fishermans Landing to cater for the LNG export facilities recently

approved by the federal and state governments.

“An adaptive and

precautionary management

approach will ensure

that as we develop our

understanding of the

industry’s impacts on

water resources, this new

knowledge will be taken

up in approval processes

and improved management

practices.”

be produced at full capacity. On simple analysis then, the Queensland coal seam gas industry at full capacity could expect to be dealing with up to 357.5GL/a. For comparison, the Victorian desalination plant will be Australia’s largest and will be capable of producing 150GL/a.

But on a podcast promoting last month’s Coal Seam Gas Water Manage-ment conference in Brisbane, Willgoose said the biggest problem is getting reliable estimates of water produced by the coal seam gas extraction process.

“Right now we don’t have enough infor-mation on the quantities and qualities of the water over the life time of the extraction. [Water management] is a suck-it-and-see approach which leaves the community slightly uncomfortable,” he said.

It is a concern that is widespread, with the federal government’s own Water Group citing significant concerns about the general level of uncertainty associ-ated with the coal seam gas proposals in the Surat Basin, and the inability of proponents to accurately quantify their individual and collective impacts over the life of their projects.

The Water Group voiced the concerns in an assessment of the potential impacts of two proposed coal seam gas develop-ments in southeast Queensland. The federal government group said it was concerned about “the volume of ground-water to be coproduced with coal seam gas, particularly impacts on groundwater systems and their structural integrity, pressure and volume impacts on Great Artesian Basin (GAB) aquifers; changes to the water chemistry of GAB aquifers; the very significant recovery times for groundwater systems to return to pre-coal seam gas conditions once extractive operations cease; the uncertainty around impacts on surface water hydrology; land subsidence; and broader impacts on the Murray-Darling Basin.”

Last December, federal environment minister Tony Burke released a report investigating the effect of coal seam gas operations in southeast Queensland on surface and groundwater systems in the Murray Darling Basin. The study was conducted by Professor Chris Moran, director of the Centre for Water in the Minerals Industry, part of the University of Queensland’s Sustainable Minerals Institute.

While easing concerns about the po-tential changes to regional groundwater balances in the main alluvial systems of this part of the Murray Darling Basin, saying

they would be relatively minor, the report recommended an adaptive management regime supported by monitoring and man-agement of groundwater systems.

“The study states that transparency of information is important to assist the community, government and industry to benefit from the full range of resources in the region. I have required the coal seam gas companies to make public their detailed plans for water management and monitoring,” Burke said.

The federal minister has also estab-lished an expert panel for advice in regard to coal seam gas water management. In particular, he said, this expert panel will help set drawdown limits for targeted aquifers, and thresholds for which man-agement actions should be initiated, such as the repressurisation of aquifers by such actions as reinjection, in the event that thresholds are exceeded.

The National Water Commission concurred and commissioner Chloe Munro called for industry, governments and planners to adopt a precautionary and more integrated approach to manag-ing water-related impacts of coal seam gas developments.

“An adaptive and precautionary man-agement approach will ensure that as we develop our understanding of the indus-try’s impacts on water resources, this new knowledge will be taken up in approval processes and improved management practices,” said Munro. “We recognise that if not adequately managed and regulated, the industry risks significant, long-term and adverse impacts on surface and groundwater systems.”

In recognition of this concern, both the NSW and Queensland governments have recently sought to strengthen their regulation of the industry.

On 19 December, the NSW govern-ment announced that it will introduce new rules for coal seam gas exploration licences. Significant reforms were en-acted in Queensland through the Water and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2010 (Qld), which commenced on 1 December 2010.

In Queensland, two parts to the reforms relate to the extraction of groundwater. First, the amendments expand the exist-ing regulatory framework for managing the impacts arising from the extraction of groundwater on adjacent water supply bores and natural springs. This makes particular reference to impacts on water levels and water quality. The second part introduces a new regulatory framework

for managing the release of coal seam gas water to town drinking water supplies.

So, the management of all this coal seam gas production water is seen as the greatest challenge. The Queensland government said the primary purpose of its industry water management strategy was to “ensure that salt from coal seam gas activities does not contaminate the environment and to encourage beneficial reuse of water”.

Willgoose said the extracted water is typically half the salinity of seawater and so usually requires treatment.

In most of the current coal seam gas project Environmental Impact Statements it is envisaged that desalination plants will be set up through the gas fields to treat the coal seam gas production water by reverse osmosis (RO).

All companies are investigating how they are then going to deal with the treated water, as well as the concentrated waste brine. For the treated water, some are looking at aquifer recharge by reinjection, others are looking at beneficial reuse for town water supply or agricultural pur-poses. For the concentrated waste brine, the Queensland government has set the hierarchy of management as: 1. Reuse – chemically processing to create useable or saleable salts/products; 2. Underground injection of brine; 3. Disposal of brine into the ocean; and 4. Solid salt disposal into a waste disposal facility.

QGC is currently building a major water treatment plant near the town of Chinchilla, about 160km northwest of Toowoomba, so the treated water from some of its fields can be used in agri-culture and industry, as well as possibly supplementing the existing town water supply. A consortium of GE Water and Laing O’Rourke Construction has won the engineering, procurement and con-struction (EPC) contract worth more than $200 million for the Kenya Water Treatment Plant with the capacity to treat up to 19GL/a.

Laing O’Rourke will build the plant and GE will provide technical expertise and process equipment, including advanced ultrafiltration, ion exchange, reverse osmosis, and brine concentration technol-ogy, as well as initial services when the plant is operating.

Laing O’Rourke infrastructure general manager Stephen Wilson said the project was technically complex, involving con-struction of a central water treatment plant and a relocatable water treatment plant, as well as associated infrastructure.

COVER STORY – COAL SEAM GAS COVER STORY – COAL SEAM GAS

52 ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | APRIL 2011 53ENGINEERS AUSTRALIA | APRIL 2011

COVER STORY – COAL SEAM GASCOVER STORY – COAL SEAM GAS

Associated infrastructure will include a 33MW gas-fired power plant to run the reverse osmosis process, and ponds and pipelines related to the water treatment facilities. SunWater will build the 20km pipeline from the water treatment plant to the Chinchilla Weir where the water can then be used for agricultural purposes, or for town water supply. The water treat-ment plant is due to be commissioned by mid-2012.

Santos said it will be investigating two main treatment processes for coal seam gas water. On its website the company said coal seam gas water quality varies by region but is typically brackish in qual-ity, circa 100-10,000mg/L total dissolved solids (TDS), sodic, and high in bicar-bonate, making it unsuitable for many uses without treatment. For its GLNG project, Santos expects to prefabricate 2.5ML/d capacity modular RO plants. The company is also investigating altering the balance of the water.

The company has been studying the beneficial reuse of coal seam gas water by establishing an irrigation project at its Fairview and Springwater stations near Injune in Queensland. The first stage of the project involves drip-irrigating 240ha of legume forage crops (leucaena) and two million locally adapted native tree spe-cies (initially Chinchilla white gum) with treated water over a 2000ha area. In the study, Santos said the movement of water and salts is being continuously monitored to provide data for ongoing research and early warning of any unacceptable trends.

The company expected that the project would produce enough high-quality forage for 1500 head of cattle, and potentially up to 400m3/ha of saw logs for milling when the trees are ready for harvesting in 25 years.

In results to date, the company said: “We have proved that it is not a problem of salinity, rather it is a sodium management issue to be addressed. Sampling and moni-toring needs to be an ongoing priority, but

comprehensive field work over extended periods of time demonstrate conclusively that this water can be managed and used very successfully.”

In another water management project, Santos had established an agreement with family-owned agribusiness Mount Hope Station, “representing a partnership between a landholder and coal seam gas producer to use water for enhancing an agribusiness while also enabling coal seam gas production”.

The four-year project involves the con-struction of water treatment facilities and associated water infrastructure. It will look at centre pivot irrigation of a 72ha area, subsurface drip irrigation of a 30ha area, and irrigation of an additional 133ha area surrounding these irrigation areas.

From the same coal seam gas fields, Santos is also partnering with CSIRO and URS to study the potential of injecting treated water into aquifers in the Roma area. The study is part of the National

Research Flagships program. The Roma Managed Aquifer Recharge Study will explore the feasibility of using coal seam gas water to augment town water supplies for the Maranoa Regional Council.

Last November, Santos water strategies manager Shaun Davidge said: “Water from the current Gubberamunda Formation aquifer, which has been the traditional source of Roma’s water supply, is used for a significant feedlot as well as for industrial and urban suppliers in the region. Pressure in the Gubberamunda aquifer has been declining for several years as a result of urban, industrial and stock-watering usage. We believe that introducing a new treated source of water could have a positive effect on the pressure levels of the aquifer, as well as bring up the levels of water storage, which will contribute to the sustainability of the Roma water supply.”

During the trial injection test, about 1ML/d will be injected into the aquifer, and if the scheme is approved, this rate could increase to 3.6GL/a.

The central processing facility – Gas separation and compressionWhile the water is separated and travels from the well head to get treated in one pipe, the separated gas travels in another pipe to the central facility where the gas is compressed up to a maximum of 15.3MPa and fed into the gas transmission line to travel to the respective powerstation or port facility.

Major components of the central pro-cessing facility often also include an initial gas filtration phase as well as a dehydration facility to dry the gas to the transmission pipeline dew point specification.

In the Surat and Bowen basins, the transmission pipeline is expected to be some 300km-400km. It is expected that the high pressure steel gas transmission pipeline will be buried along the route and the land rehabilitated above the pipeline.

Along the route, scraper stations are required for inserting pipeline mainte-nance tools to ensure pipeline integrity.

Mainline valves are also required. These are buried valves with an above ground bypass valve and blowdown pip-ing. These are used for isolating sections of the pipeline and venting gas to enable maintenance, or isolation in case of an incident. They are spaced approximately every 50km.

In Queensland, QGC has shortlisted Nacap and McConnell Dowell for pipeline construction. The APLNG project said a joint venture between McConnell Dowell

and Consolidated Contractors Company has been contracted to build the mainline.

The portside processing facilityThe coal seam gas arriving at the portside gas treatment facility typically has a make-up of 95.45% methane, 0.03% ethane, 0.02% propane, 4.0% nitrogen and 0.5% carbon dioxide.

QGC contracted Bechtel for the front-end engineering design as well as the engineering procurement and construction of its LNG facility. Bechtel has also been ap-pointed the engineering, procurement and construction contractor for the GLNG plant project and the APLNG project.

Powering the processThe process of converting coal seam gas to liquefied natural gas (LNG) is energy intensive. In the GLNG Environmental Im-pact Statement, Santos said the total power requirement for its portside facility would be 25MW per treatment train, increasing to 75MW total when all three trains are in operation. This electricity will be generated by gas turbine generators within the facility.

Acid gas removalOn its website, Santos explained the first step in its process was to remove the carbon dioxide and any trace sulfur-containing compounds, collectively known as “acid gas”. The coal seam gas enters a CO2 absorber where it is in contact with an amine solu-tion. The amine solution picks up the “acid gas” and is then stripped of the acid gas in a regenerator, where the acid gas is vented, while the feed gas carries along the process treatment train.

DehydrationFollowing along the outlined process in the GLNG Environmental Impact Statement, the feed gas enters a dehydration unit, which chills the gas to condense and drop out most of the water. It then proceeds to a three-bed molecular sieve to remove the final traces of water to a dew point of -100°C.

Mercury removalThe feed gas then travels through two sulfur impregnated carbon beds to remove trace amounts of mercury in the gas. Santos said this was purely a precautionary measure to prevent corrosion of the brazed aluminium heat exchangers located downstream, as they had found no measurable traces of mercury in gas analysis to date.

Nitrogen removalTo meet sales specifications, nitrogen must

also be removed from the gas. By letting down the pressure of the gas, a vapour rich in nitrogen can be extracted and vented at a safe location.

LiquefactionThe main purpose of the onshore facilities though is to liquefy the gas into LNG to make it easier to transport. The gas is cooled to around -161°C, significantly reducing it to 1/600 of its original volume.

Santos explained that it uses a refrig-eration process whereby refrigerants are expanded and compressed in closed loop systems to achieve the cold temperatures.

In the front end engineering design, Santos decided to use the ConocoPhil-lips optimised cascade process, originally developed in the 1960s. It uses three re-frigerants – propane, ethylene and methane circuits – cascaded to provide maximum LNG production. Each circuit uses two 50% compressors with common process equipment.

For another proposed project in Queensland, LNG Limited is looking to use its own optimised single mixed refrigerant liquefaction technology. The technology is an enhanced LNG liquefaction process that the company said was “more simple, cost-effective and efficient than traditional LNG processes. Its advantages over traditional methods include better plant efficiency that leads to a 30% saving in processing costs compared with traditional methods. At the core of the process is a simple single mixed refrigerant cycle enhanced by the addition of ammonia refrigeration,” the company said in its notice to shareholders last November.

StorageThe LNG produced through the liquefaction process is now at a temperature of -161°C and can be stored in a double-walled full-containment storage tank at a pressure slightly above atmospheric.

Around Gladstone Port in Queensland, it is expected that a number of storage tanks each holding 125,000m3-200,000m3 will typically exist portside. In each tank, a system has been designed to recover vapour produced in the storage tanks due to heat gain and return it back to the facility for reliquefaction.

LoadingEven in the loading process, much of the vapour produced due to heat gain can be routed back for reliquefaction. Once loaded onto specially designed ships, the LNG can be exported to consumers around the world. n


Protesters blockaded Queensland Gas Company’s Kenya gas plant near Tara in central Queensland last November.The protesters are part of the Lock the Gate campaign objecting to mining exploration companies entering their land.

PHoto: AAP ImAGe/CHInCHIllA neWs

CHARGINGIN

SPANISH COMPANIES ARRIVEFOR DESALINATION PROJECTS

n ELECTRICAL CONTROL/COMMUNICATIONS

n PIPES

18 Water engineering australia aPril 2009

DESALINATION

Work will soon commence on the Adelaide desalination plant in South Australia, after the project received final approval last month. Multinational consortium

AdelaideAqua has been named as the preferred bidder for design, construction and operation of the plant. AdelaideAqua includes two joint ventures: (1) between Spanish company Acciona Agua along with companies McConnell Dowell Constructors and Abigroup Contractors to undertake the design and construction of the desalination plant and (2) between Acciona Agua and United

Utilities Australia to undertake the operation and maintenance of the plant. Together, the AdelaideAqua consortium will design, build, operate and maintain the plant for 20 years.

Meanwhile in Western Australia, Water Corporation chief executive officer Sue Murphy announced late last year that the Southern SeaWater Alliance (SSWA) is the preferred consortium to build and operate the state’s second seawater desalination plant near Binningup in the southwest. The SSWA is formed by Span-ish companies, Técnicas Reunidas and Valoriza Agua along with

Two major desalination projects in Australia have become notable for the inclusion of Spanish companies in the preferred bidder consortia. With a rich history of desalination projects in their homeland, it is the first foray for the European companies into the Australian market.

COVER

theSpanish arrivalBy Danny Cameron

19Water engineering australia aPril 2009

DESALINATION

construction company AJ Lucas and engineering consultancy WorleyParsons.

These two projects mark the arrival of companies from the Span-ish water industry, and in particular the desalination industry, into the Australian market.

Maria Gorriti Gutiérrez-Cortines, the Trade Commissioner of Spain in Sydney, said the vast experience in the design and con-struction of desalination plants has made Spain a leading producer of desalinated water in Europe and America, as well as the largest user of desalination technology in the Western world.

Spain has over 700 desalination facilities, which all together pro-duce more than 2GL/d. As part of a Spanish government strategy to secure more water for the country, eight large-scale desalination plant contracts have been awarded in the past two years alone as the government works to cater for its home population of 44 million residents, along with its number one industry (tourism) – predicting a further 60 million tourists spending time in the country each year. Twenty new desalination plants are currently being built along the Mediterranean coast of Spain which will more than double Spain’s desalination capacity.

Gutiérrez-Cortines said: “Spanish companies now make up the largest percentage of competitors on the international arena for the design, engineering, construction and operation of new desalination plants around the world.”

The Trade Commission of Spain highlighted the abilities of Ac-ciona Agua, Aqualia, Cadagua, Cobra, Drace, Técnicas Reunidas, Tedagua, Telvent and Valoriza Agua as some of the major Spanish companies in the water treatment sector looking to get involved in the Australian market.

Spanish expertise in desalination has developed from the mo-ment the Diaz Rijo brothers started up a multistage flash distil-

lation desalination plant – the first of its kind in Europe, on the island of Lanzarote in the Canary Islands in 1964. The government of Spain then commissioned its first large-scale desalination plant on the island in 1970 and during that decade began favouring reverse osmosis as the preferred process.

Spanish companies have since become pioneers in the use of reverse osmosis technology for the delivery of potable water, and in the implementation of new technologies in reverse osmosis facilities worldwide.

According to Acciona Agua, the proliferation of reverse osmo-sis technology in desalination plants in Spain makes it the most developed country in the world for reverse osmosis plants that provide water for human consumption.

It is this expertise in reverse osmosis that was cited by South Australian premier Mike Rann when he announced the preferred bidder consortium for the state’s desalination project.

“The companies involved in the AdelaideAqua consortium have significant experience in constructing and operating desalination plants around the world, in particular in the application of leading edge reverse osmosis technology,” Rann said.

SA Water chief operating officer John Ringham said Adelaid-eAqua’s success in the bidding process was for reasons including the commitment to the delivery program, the quality of the technical submission, the price, the whole-of-life costs, the innovation and energy efficiency, the strong compliance with SA Water’s specifica-tions and environmental performance requirements and the ability to meet the approved risk profiles specified by SA Water.

“Equally important was the commitment of AdelaideAqua to meet the overall project program for first water delivery in De-cember 2010,” Ringham said.

The Spanish involvement in AdelaideAqua is by way of Acciona

Cartagena II is one of two 65ML/d seawater reverse osmosis plants in Murcia, Spain, built on a 15-year design-build-finance-operate basis. The phase I plant was constructed by a consortium of Acciona Agua and Befesa. Phase II was constructed by a consortium of Acciona Agua and Degrémont.


DESALINATION DESALINATION

plant for the Water Corporation. With the experience of having already built one desalination

plant in Perth, the Water Corporation has ensured that it has placed its own key people in the design and construct process by becoming a part of the alliance.

“There was a big emphasis on the level of buy-in that the Water Corporation could have as an informed client. It was an important consideration during the selection process,” Nick Churchill, project director for the Water Corporation in the Southern Seawater Desalination Project explained to Water Engineering Australia.

The plant will be designed with a capacity of 150ML/d (50GL/a), expandable to 300ML/d. The expansion will be a five-year option available to the Water Corporation.

In selecting the preferred bidder in the SSWA, Churchill said the Water Corporation was looking for companies that had experience in process design and construction, as well as extensive experience in the longterm operation of the plants.

As the project is being delivered by a joint venture alliance, the experience will be spread across the project, and people from each company will be involved across the board in various roles. AJ Lucas is largely considered the local construction firm with extensive water industry experience and will bring local knowledge, contracting and industrial relations to the party. WorleyParsons is the facilities engineer with experience on the Perth desalination plant, and will assist in bringing this local design context and standards to the process design.

The Spanish joint venture of Técnicas Reunidas and Valoriza Agua bring the core reverse osmosis design and construction ex-perience, and will operate as the lead constructor. While Técnicas Reunidas has extensive experience in industrial process construc-tion around the world, Valoriza Agua has been designing and running reverse osmosis water supply plants for many years.

“The reverse osmosis design, construct and operation experi-

ence of the Spanish is something we want brought to the fore in the alliance, and for this to be matched to the local partners,” Churchill said.

One of the lessons learnt by the Water Corporation during the development of the Perth desalination plant was the transition phase from design and construct to operation and maintenance. All partners of the SSWA design and construct phase will remain as active members of the alliance for a period of five years of plant operation. The plant, which will be owned by the Water Corpora-tion, will then be operated by the alliance for a further 20 years.

“We believe this will ensure that whole-of-life considerations will be built-in to the project and all parties will work toward the best possible outcomes,” Churchill said.

“It was also sought that the plant would not be remotely de-signed, and instead be designed here in Perth so experience and knowledge could be shared,” Churchill said from the new office housing the design staff currently working on the detailed design for the project. “That was one of the attractive elements of the SSWA proposal.”

As a result, a number of Spanish designers have relocated to Perth for the project.

Valoriza Agua project engineer Marc Riera is one such engineer now based in Perth. He explained to Water Engineering Australia: “Valoriza Agua and Técnicas Reunidas (mother companies of Val-oriza Water Australia and Técnicas Reunidas Australia, respectively) have strong design offices in Spain. Nevertheless, for big projects, we create specific design offices.

“That is the case for Southern Seawater desalination plant. We have created a design office in Perth, in which personnel from the four companies in the consortia, and from Water Corporation, form an integrated design team. Valoriza and Técnicas’ central of-fices in Spain will give support when required by the team in Perth.”

At peak construction, the alliance expects to have approximately

A 100ML/d seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant in Skikda, Algeria, was designed, built and is now operated by a consortium featuring Valoriza Agua. The plant supplies water to a population of around 500,000.



140 people working at either the Perth design office or the site office. The workforce onsite is expected to reach close to 300 at peak construction.

Riera said that Valoriza Water Australia and Técnicas Reunidas Australia are entering the Australian market as “complete providers of water treatment plants, in procurement, design, construction and operation”.

“Valoriza was attracted by longterm expectations of the Austral-ian water market and, more specifically, by the attractive and open conditions in which Southern Seawater desalination plant was tendered by Water Corporation of Western Australia. We hope that this contract is the beginning of a successful growth of Valoriza Water Australia in the water market,” Riera said.

Valoriza Agua, belongs to Sacyr Vallehermoso – the parent com-pany with a turnover in 2007 of €5.76 billion (A$11.3 billion) and a gross profit of around €1 billion (A$1.96 billion). The company has more than 17,000 employees, most of whom are in Spain.

Valoriza Agua is currently involved in three seawater reverse osmosis desalination plants in Algeria and the second largest seawater reverse osmosis desalination plant in Spain. The Spanish plant in Águilas-Guadalentín is being delivered under a BOOT (build-own-operate-transfer) contract, with 15 years operation. The plant has the capacity to deliver 180ML/d.

The company has also built more than 40 brackish water reverse osmosis desalination plants in Spain, mainly for irrigation purposes and drinking water supply along the Mediterranean Coast, with capacities ranging from between 1ML/d and 25ML/d.

With more than 100 plants, Valoriza Agua is one of the main companies within the water technology sector in Spain.

Its Spanish partner in the SSWA is engineering specialist Téc-nicas Reunidas.

Chief executive of Técnicas Reunidas Juan Llado said the com-pany largely specialises in installations for the energy industry. It is

a general contractor that provides engineering, procurement and construction services for industrial and power generation plants, particularly in the oil and gas sector. Since 1959, the group has designed and built over 1000 industrial plants worldwide. Interna-tional projects account for 70% of the company’s annual turnover, mainly in Latin America and China, yet this is the first foray for the company into the Australian water industry.

To date, it’s movement into the water industry has only been minor, with the 2007 financial report stating income of €106 million (A$208 million) from its infrastructure branch. This is compared to Técnicas Reunidas reported sales of €2.478 billion (A$4.85 billion). The company said it expects to maintain, and even increase, its total order books in 2009 from the €4.71 billion (A$9.23 billion) of pending orders on its books at the end of 2008.

Técnicas Reunidas has had its own research and development di-vision, located in Madrid, Spain since 1971. The centre is equipped with laboratory facilities featuring pilot and demonstration plants designed to be adapted to different process configurations. The research and development division focuses on developing new processes and the technological as well as economical improvement of existing ones, applying techniques and procedures of disciplines such as hydrometallurgy and electrochemistry. The company said that the fundamental objective of the division is the upscaling from laboratory testing to industrial scale operations.

Using the combined research and development talents within the alliance, the second desalination plant in Western Australia is set to become an industry leader by using microfiltration as the pretreat-ment option, as distinct from a dual media pretreatment process.

“This plant will push innovation in terms of the optimisation of membrane technology,” project director Nick Churchill said.

The 150ML/d plant is scheduled to be at full operation by the end of 2011. It will feature a reverse osmosis “split hybrid” innova-tive system, with minimised energy consumption. l

Abengoa companies Befesa and Codesa, ACS company Cobra-Tedagua and Sacyr Vallehermoso’s Sadyt make up the Geida consortium, which was awarded the 25-year build-own-operate contract for the Skikda plant in April 2004.



Agua. From origins dating back to 1862, the parent group Acciona (www.acciona.es) was formed and renamed in 1997, following the merger of Entrecanales y Távora with Cubiertas y Mzov. The parent group is now one of the leading Spanish corporations, with sales of €12,665 million (A$24,995 million) in 2008 from operations in more than 30 countries. It has a workforce of over 41,000 em-ployees. The company states that it is a pioneer in “development and sustainability providing integrated services and products in the key areas of infrastructure, renewable energy and water”.

Acciona Agua is a branch of the parent organisation and is a “total water solutions provider with design engineering, procure-ment, construction and operations and maintenance experience”. Acciona Agua has been involved in over 70 reference projects in desalination worldwide, which together output a total capacity of over 1.7GL/d. It has A$1 billion of work under construction and contracted operations revenue of A$4.4 billion.

Ringham said Acciona Agua “brings vast experience in world-wide desalination plants and access to proven suppliers of special materials for desalination”. The Spanish company cites itself as “a pioneer in the development of reverse osmosis desalination plants, working with plants that have changed through three generations of membranes over 30 years”.

Specific desalination plants the company has been involved in include the Tampa Bay plant (Florida, US), the second largest desalination plant in the world located in Torrevieja (Spain) and the Beckton Desalination Plant which is the first desalination of brackish water in the UK.

These examples use an innovative, high efficiency (high recovery) two-pass system for the reverse osmosis membranes. Acciona Agua

said this results in lower energy consumption than the conventional system and provides significant savings in the “whole-of-life” operation cost of the plant.

The desalination community has been looking at the Tampa Bay plant in particular as an example of how to resurrect a failed project. In what is now the largest seawater desalination plant in the US, the original plant produced some water, however, the design was deficient, causing costly filters to clog too quickly. Tampa Bay Water shut down the plant in June 2005. Acciona Agua and its partner in the US, American Water, began to develop a solution to take control and remediate the failed facility. Both companies went through three years of upgrading the plant and improving the system processes. The plant has now been operating success-fully for about a year.

“We think this is a piece of work that shows the reliability that we want to offer to the clients – not just on how to fix an existing plant, but to deliver quality and cost effective water for the long term,” Acciona Agua Australian development director José Maria Ortega said.

Arriving in the Australian market as a part of the team for the AdelaideAqua consortium, Ortega said: “Australia is a very interest-ing country for us, and moving into the market here is a strategy for the group, chiefly because it is a developed country with a safe business environment and the level of competition here is still growing. Within that, we believe we can add value.”

Entry into the water industry through the desalination project was viewed as the right opportunity because, Ortega said, “desali-nation is a major part of the water sector and one where we can deliver innovative, robust and cost effective solutions”.

Inside the reverse osmosis building of Cartagena I. It is one of over 700 desalination plants in Spain that together provide more than 2GL/d of desalinated water for drinking and irrigation.



He explained that no matter where in the world a desalination plant is to be built; all the plants will have unique configurations.

“Each location has its own variables including temperature, salin-ity, chemical composition etc, so the solution must be customised. This is one of the key success factors for us – we have over 70 references from reverse osmosis plants over the world, and these have given us a lot of experience that we have learnt from. It has given us a wider view of technical solutions that can be applied to each plant, so customising is easier.”

Ortega also said that the company has access to an extensive amount of internal research and development: “Our research capa-bility has given us the knowledge of how waters behave in specific environments, for example at different levels of temperature, or different levels of pressure. Our research helps us find the right solution so the design is optimum.”

“We have also developed quite a few different relationships with a number of key suppliers that give us knowledge of what is around. This knowledge allows us to combine those elements and provide customised solutions to each client,” Ortega continued.

Coupling this knowledge into the design, construction and operation of the plant, Acciona Agua said a feature of the Adelaide project will be that “all the engineering is to be done from end-to-end by our inhouse engineers and local Australian engineering companies”.

Acciona Agua is responsible for the process design and has engi-neers now based in Adelaide, but the main part of this component is to be developed by the engineering team in Spain.

Ortega said: “We will have nearly 20 people in Adelaide and another 20 people will be involved from the offices in Spain – in

Madrid, Bilbao and Barcelona. While we are an international company, most of the experience is still held in Spain. In Adelaide we will combine all that knowledge pool with a local exposure. In the design component, the workload will be shared to make all the knowledge and capabilities transferrable.”

Complementary work and assistance to comply with Austral-ian standards and documental control will be subcontracted to Australian engineering companies.

The construction phase of the desalination plant is expected to create around 800 jobs during peak construction activity. SA Water said there is a commitment by the AdelaideAqua consortium to recruit locally for trades, supervisors, engineers and design office staff to the extent of 75% of the resources required for the project at its peak.

SA Water said it expected that the process design, mass, energy and chemical balance diagrams will be prepared and certified over-seas. The majority of detailed design, procurement specifications and drawings will be prepared in Adelaide by local teams with some supervision and oversight by process design personnel. SA Water has set project objectives to also ensure a high level of effec-tive knowledge transfer to SA Water in all aspects of the project, including the operations phase.

“One of the things that differentiates Australia from the rest of the world is the level of involvement of the clients – from our level of experience it is much more active, which is a very good system because it will deliver a better product,”Ortega said.

The level of involvement by the client was also an important consideration in Western Australia during the selection process for the design, construction and operation of the second desalination

Inside the second largest desalination plant in the world, located in Torrevieja, Spain, and built under a 15-year design-build-operate contract by Acciona Agua. The plant delivers 240ML/d to the populace around Alicante, Spain.

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From the editor

Welcome to the last issue of Sustainable Engineering Australia for 2011.

This issue contains some great links to further reading on topics such as the added value of green buildings, creating a real paperless office, and attempts to recycle hard hats and desalination membranes.

This emagazine continues to evolve with every issue, and is a great pleasure to create. Please continue to provide feedback so we can make the experience best for all.

Enjoy your reading,

Danny Cameron Editor

3 Setting the standard in Sydney

5 New ranger base built on partnership

8 Striving for paperless place

10 Savings in sustainable design

12 Improving the desalination process

15 VIDEO: Activate 2011: Sustainable social innovation

2

new ranger base built on partnership in daintree

A new ranger base was opened in

September at Shipton’s Flat in the

Daintree, Queensland, marking completion

of a two year corporate-community partnership

developed and facilitated by the Centre for

Appropriate Technology (CAT) and Engineers

Without Borders (EWB).

The Bana Yarralji Bubu Ranger Base will be home

to an Indigenous Ranger and Conservation program

which is currently under way with ten rangers.

After original planning with CAT, EWB gained

significant support from Aurecon for pro-bono design

and construction management. The project also

received backing from Arup and Sinclair Knight Merz,

which provided both staff time and financial support.

The project received funding from a combination

of federal and Queensland government sources.

This is an edit of an article that first appeared in the October

2011 issue of Engineers Australia magazine, produced by

Engineers Media.

5

setting the standard in sydney

In the development of the Barangaroo commercial office towers in Sydney, the building information modelling

and services consultancy contracts have been let to Norman Disney & Young (NDY) by Lend Lease – the

developer and design and construct project manager.

The development is targetting 6 Star Green Star Office Design and As Built (v3) and NABERS 5 star plus ratings

as a minimum.

NDY will work with the architects and design team to integrate the original development concepts prepared by

Lend Lease into the building form, including innovative features such as a water-based cooling system; a 100% fresh

air, non-recirculatory supply air system; and glass fronted lifts, cooled by air from the air conditioned office floors.

“Barangaroo will provide a new industry benchmark, setting the standards for years to come,” said NDY Sydney

director Richard Pickering. The Barangaroo development is looking to transform a former waterfront 22ha industrial

site into a new community, residential and commercial precinct.

3

Green buildings carry premium

The added value of green office buildings in Australia has

been empirically detailed in a report released in September.

The research was conducted by the University of Western

Sydney Australia and the University of Maastricht Netherlands in

conjunction with Jones Lang LaSalle and CBRE.

The report by University of Western Sydney professor Graeme

Newell and associate professor John MacFarlane, along with

University of Maastricht Netherlands associate professor Nils Kok,

sought to investigate the financial performance of green office

buildings in Australia.

The report found a green premium in value for office buildings,

with a 5 star NABERS energy rating delivering a 9% green premium

in value and the 3-4.5 star NABERS energy ratings delivering a

2-3% green premium in value. The Green Star rating showed a

green premium in value of 12%.

Green premiums were also evident in reduced vacancy and

reduced outgoings, particularly at the higher rated NABERS energy

categories.

To download the report Building Better Returns: A study of the

financial performance of green office buildings in Australia click here.

4

Showcasing Australian talent

The Green Building Council of Australia and Austrade

have launched a resource to promote Australia’s

green building capabilities. The new resource, which

includes a green building capability directory and marketing

documents, was released in September to coincide with

World Green Building Week.

The Australian Green Building Showcase is a directory of

select, innovative Australian firms which are already working in

international markets and actively seeking new opportunities. It

has been designed to provide offshore firms with a snapshot of

Australia’s position in green building.

GBCA executive director – advocacy and international,

Robin Mellon said: “Australian companies are well placed to

develop green projects globally, and the GBCA and Austrade

are working together to ensure our industry maximises

international opportunities.”

The green building resource can be downloaded from here.

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6

Mining to best practice standards

A new reference guide is now available for best

practice in mining in Australia.

In late-August, federal minister for resources

and energy Martin Ferguson launched A guide to leading

practice sustainable development in mining at the

Australian Centre for Sustainable Mining Practices.

This book is intended for use as a management tool to

improve sustainability outcomes on mine sites and provides

a single reference point for mine managers, senior operating

personnel at mine sites, consultants, regulators and others

involved in implementing sustainable mining solutions.

In the introduction, the guide states: “Mine managers will

be on track in establishing a sustainable mining operation if

they focus on the following five areas: safety, environment,

economy, efficiency and the community.”

The guide integrates environmental, economic and social

aspects through all phases of mineral production drawing

on expertise from government, industry, academia and non-

government organisations.

“The new guide is an important tool for implementing

world’s best practice and demonstrates that Australia really

does set the international benchmark on mine sustainability,”

Ferguson said.

It builds on the international Leading Practice Sustainable

Development in Mining series, as Ferguson explained: “The

14 handbooks produced to date have made a contribution to

improving mining practices both here and around the world

with over 100,000 copies being distributed to date.”

The guide will also be used by Australia’s four major

mining schools for their third-year courses on socio-

environmental aspects of mining which begin in March 2012.

Download the handbook here.

7

striving for paperless place

A new workplace for 6200 Commonwealth

Bank employees aims to become a paperless

office, using wireless technology throughout

the “campus-style” development coupled with widely

available laptops.

In Sydney’s Darling Harbour, the new workplace

known as Commonwealth Bank Place occupies two

eight-storey buildings with a total 56,000m2 of flexible

working space.

“We have introduced amazing innovation and

technology. We are transforming the way our people

work by bringing flexibility and cutting edge technology

to support the work environment,” Commonwealth Bank

chief financial officer David Craig said.

The campus-style development offers “an

innovative, sustainable and creative work space”, and

Commonwealth Bank chief information officer Michael

Harte said that with wireless technology across the

campus “staff will only need to carry a laptop”.

“We are removing paper dependence that will see

a significant reduction in paper usage. This is about

introducing a sustainable way of living into a sustainable

work environment,” he said.

The sustainability benefits achieved at

Commonwealth Bank Place will be captured on data

screens throughout the buildings to increase visibility

and accountability for staff.

8

Weighing up the advantage of recycled paper

To consider whether recycled paper is better for the

environment, the life-cycles of virgin and recycled

paper are compared in an article by chemical engineer

Tom Rainey, a research fellow at Queensland University of

Technology, on the website theconversation.edu.au. Rainey

explores the sources and related life-cycles of various fibres

for paper, as well as the different processes required to make

paper products.

“Recycled paper is now everywhere in our lives. But

recycling paper and then reusing the fibres is not always as

simple as it might seem,” Rainey explains. “Also, we can’t

keep recycling the paper we have now forever. Virgin fibres

have to be introduced into the process at some point.”

He raises the point of Australia being a country with

low population-density, where transport for any product

becomes a costly exercise.

He concludes: “Consumers should be aware that

recycled paper can, but not always, have an environmental

advantage.” However, he notes: “From an environmental-

impact point of view, using products made from recycled

fibre or virgin fibre is not an either/or proposition. It makes

sense to recycle paper (and use recycled-paper products)

where possible, even though there are some environmental

penalties involved in the production of recycled paper.”

An interesting discussion is under way in the comments

section of the article.

THE ENGINEER’S BOOKSHOPEA BOOKS

9

Savings in sustainable design

The sustainable building features of a new office tower in

Sydney will result in the lowest estimated operating costs

of a premium grade building in the Sydney CBD, equating

to savings of approximately $2 million p.a., Dexus Property Group

head of development Tony Gulliver said.

Sydney’s first 6 Star Green Star high rise office tower 1 Bligh

Street was officially opened in August. The 27-storey elliptical

building designed by German architect Christoph Ingenhoven and

local architecture company Architectus is an example of sustainable

design that sets a new benchmark for office space in Australia.

The building was developed by Dexus Property Group for CBus

Property Investments and was built by Grocon. Arup provided

mechanical and electrical services, fire engineering, acoustics,

lighting design, structural steel design and façade engineering.

Norman Disney Young was independent technical reviewer for the

Green Star application. Contributing to its 6 Star Green Star and 5

Star NABERS ratings is the double skin glass façade.

This façade manages to minimise the building’s energy

consumption by stopping direct sunlight from hitting the double

glazed curtain wall internal glass. Between the inner and outer

windows, computer-controlled sun shades track the sun and

automatically adjust themselves. Air is also drawn in through natural

convection from lower vents, which further cools down the façade.

(cont. over)

10

Arup said the double-façade design is commonly used to

address cold conditions in Europe, but is relatively new in

Australia and had not previously been applied locally on this

scale.

Gulliver said that as a result, the building’s energy

consumption used for the tower’s air conditioning is dramatically

reduced, facilitating a 42% CO2 reduction when compared with

similar sized office towers.

Around 60% of the floor plate is within 6m of the glass

façade, meaning a good source of natural light is available to the

majority of occupants, Gulliver said.

Arup associate Kerryn Coker said innovation continued

from the double skin façade to the 135m tall naturally ventilated

central atrium extending from the ground floor wintergarden up

to the glazed skylight overhead. By extending the full height of

the building the atrium provides a flow of fresh air to every floor.

For the air conditioning, a hybrid structure combining a

variable air volume (VAV) with a chilled beam system has been

installed to reduce energy consumption.

The designers said the more efficient air conditioning system

will provide up to 150% improvement in air flow over the code

requirement.

The building also features a trigeneration system that uses

gas and solar energy to generate cooling, heating and electricity.

The solar array is a 500m2 series of curved solar thermal

collectors. It is expected that the trigeneration system will

reduce dependence on the electricity grid by up to 25%.

Blackwater recycling has also been incorporated,

representing a first for Sydney’s central business district. The

water recycling system provides water for the washroom

flushing system and is also used to irrigate a feature green

wall. Recycling approximately 90% of the building’s water, this

technology is expected to save 100kL of water per day.

The external 40m long and 9.7m high vertical garden

features 11,000 native and exotic plants and has a fully

integrated hydroponic watering system that uses the recycled

water. The plants grow in a lightweight material that contains no

soil. Recycled rain water is also collected and used to irrigate

plantings spread throughout the building.

Other green features of 1 Bligh Street include the

construction materials themselves, in that 90% of the steel used

comprises more than 50% recycled content. Green concrete

was used and 80% of the parts usually made from PVC have

been replaced with non-PVC materials. Over 90% of the

construction waste from the site was also recycled.

This article first appeared in Engineers Australia, October 2011 General edition.

11

improving desalination process

To improve the sustainability of desalination, researchers at

the National Centre of Excellence in Desalination Australia

are investigating ways to recycle the reverse osmosis

membranes used in the desalination process.

As desalination is now a major part of the potable water

system in major cities around Australia, no other option than

landfill discharge is proposed to membrane users, and the

current amount of waste generated will reach 200t this year and

nearly 800t by 2015. Researchers from the University of NSW are

collaborating with Victoria and Monash universities and industrial

partners Dow Chemical Australia, Sydney Water, SA Water, the

WA Water Corporation and Skyjuice Foundation to discover ways

to reuse and recycle the membranes which otherwise end up in

landfill after a fairly short three to four-year lifespan.

At the recent International Desalination conference in Perth,

Will Lawler presented the paper Reuse of reverse osmosis

desalination membranes by Lawler, Thomas Wijaya, Alice Antony,

Greg Leslie and Pierre Le-Clech discussing the project.

He said the team are looking at the viability of membrane

reuse by studying the feasibility of treating reverse osmosis

membranes with a variety of degrading solutions to remove

the active layer. This gives the membranes their characteristic

selectivity, and thus creates a membrane with different properties.

For example, treated reverse osmosis modules could be

reused in systems requiring ultrafiltration membranes, like in the

pretreatment system for new reverse osmosis modules.

12

Territory sets out plan for action

The ACT government has released its Sustainable

Energy Policy, an integrated policy framework for

managing the social, economic and environment

challenges faced by the territory in relation to energy

production and use.

“At the heart of the policy is a continued commitment to

maintain affordable and reliable electricity and gas supply

to Canberra. The policy also establishes the key objective

of achieving a more sustainable energy supply as the ACT

moves to carbon neutrality by 2060,” ACT minister for

environment and sustainable development Simon Corbell

said.

The Sustainable Energy Policy sets out four key outcomes,

namely: reliable and affordable energy; smarter use of energy;

cleaner energy; and, growth in the clean economy.

To back up these outcomes some of the measures

proposed include further investigations into the roll–out

of smart meter technology to assist households to better

manage their energy use.

An energy savings initiative to support households is

proposed, as is a mechanism to further encourage the use of

less energy intensive vehicles.

Corbell said the policy would also facilitate an increase in

renewable energy capacity in the ACT with the government

opening an auction for solar energy developers early next

year.

“This will build up to 40MW of solar generation capacity

in the ACT, generating around 2% of our electricity needs,”

he said.

The policy is available at www.environment.act.gov.au.

13

Ratings scheme evolves as benchmarks topped

As the established benchmarks are now being

exceeded, the Green Building Council of Australia

(GBCA) has announced that it will extend the

National Australian Built Environment Rating System

(NABERS) from five to six stars.

NABERS is a national building rating system that

benchmarks the environmental performance of buildings in

operation. It is a federal program administered by the NSW

Office of Environment and Heritage.

“The global green building industry is evolving rapidly

and buildings that are carbon neutral, carbon positive and

even restorative are rapidly becoming a reality. Rating tools

such as Green Star and NABERS must keep evolving to

keep up with best practice,” said Andrew Aitken, GBCA

executive director – green star.

Relaxing afterlife for hard hats

A novel solution has been found for recycling hard

hats into other useful products, like park benches.

The Victorian Department of Sustainability and

Environment (DSE) launched the new initiative last month to

recycle hundreds of old hard hats that need to be replaced

every three years to keep their protective value for field

staff.

DSE warehouse manager Jeremy Bowen said the

department replaces just under 2000 helmets a year. The

old helmets will be taken to local recycling company RED

Group where they will be sorted, processed and then turned

into a range of goods including benches and other outdoor

products through their partner, Replas.

“As part of the hard hat recycling scheme, we are also

hoping to get the recyclers to produce items that DSE can

buy back and use ourselves, such as bollards and office

chairs,” Bowen said.

He said the department was now looking at collecting

other types of plastic waste produced internally that could

also be collected and recycled.

14

activate 2011: david Edelstein on sustainable social innovation

In late June, The Guardian filmed the proceedings from the conference Activate 2011. Watch the video of David Edelstein,

director at the Grameen Technology Centre, discussing ways to make social innovation sustainable.

During the video Edelstein explains: “We are building models around micro entrepreneurs using the phone as a tool.”

15

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ESCAPING THE TWITCHING CITY

MADNESSBy Danny Cameron

I found myself a spot to lodge at Mount Warning Bed and Breakfast Retreat ([email protected] or 02 6679 52259), a ram-bling homestead that is nearly 100 years old and features a great surrounding balcony. Current own-ers Paul Taylor and Renate Kraus bought the lodge and five sur-rounding acres in November 2003. With the help of Landcare and local friends, the previous owners had regenerated land that had been completely logged into a wonderful rainforest garden haven that lives in harmony with the adjoining 300 acre wildlife sanctuary.

Hanging in the hammock that straddled across the corner of the wide balcony of the retreat, I read the afternoon away with my beer and a good book, supremely relaxed after such a satisfying and revitalis-

If you sit awfully quiet, with all the patience of a Zen monk, and silently creep ever closer

through the bush... “There, can you see them, a pair of Twitchers sitting on their camping chairs by the riverbank, the male of the spe-cies raising binoculars to eyes from chest, to eyes from chest, pointing, pointing with fingers outstretched, a mating ritual dance to impress the female sitting beside, who, im-pressed, starts to mimic the moves of the male herself, raising her bin-oculars to eyes from chest, to eyes from chest.”

I’d never seen Twitchers before. I mean, I had heard that they exist, and even knew that US musician Sufjan Stevens is known for a bit of twitching himself, but these city-scarified concrete-cured eyes of mine were not known for noticing the birds in the treetops, let alone the people watching the birds. So seeing a pair of Twitchers by the river within a minute of arriving

and scouting around my destina-tion was quite a sight. I smiled in the fancy that I found myself unknowingly landing in a location whose reputation preceded it.

I had found myself in the Gold Coast that very morning and in need of a quick escape away from the world of human development. Half an hour to the southwest of the crazed frantic growth of the Gold Coast you find yourself a world away. Murwillumbah is a northern NSW town on the edge of the Mount Warning National Park. The streets pervade an aura of underemployment from an age the Gold Coast hasn’t seen in twenty years. It is hard to believe that all you need to do is cross a state bor-der and drive for 50km to see such a marked difference.

Just out of Murwillumbah you enter a rainforest national park based in the caldera of an ancient volcano. Mount Warning is the remnant of the centre plug of a vol-

cano that erupted 22 million years ago and is the highest point in the area. After witnessing human de-velopment beyond belief, I needed grounding and thought of no better way than a good two hour walk up to the summit that is renowned for being the first place in Australia to see the sunrise.

To the local Budjalung people its name is Wollumbin, so called for its ability to catch clouds and in the summer months create such a stir in the atmospheric conditions that it is thought to be instrumental in forming fantastic electrical storms that then descend upon the Byron coastline. If you wish to respect Aboriginal customs then the advice is not to climb the summit, but I thought that I needed the spiritual help that climbing Mount Warning provides and so respected the land and its original custodians by leav-ing as small a footprint as possible on my trek.

From the top, at a height of

1156m you realise the image of the summit being the central core as the land falls away from your feet in every direction. The valley parabolises as the outer rim rises to other significant aboriginal moun-taintop sites around the caldera, like Mount Nardi (just north of Nimbin and on the southern rim of Mount Warning caldera) which is believed to be a point of ascension into the spirit garden. The view from the summit is green, from the near fluorescent vibrancy of fertile farmland, to the olive blue hue of national park forests. The extent of national park in the vista is a sight to behold for the way we have minimised our impact and kept true to the beautiful natural magic of the area.

At sunrise and sunset, I imagine the summit is a magical, medita-tive and tranquil location to soak in the beauty of the view. However, in the heat of the middle of the day a moment’s peace is hard to find as

one thousand March Fly’s and four Brush Turkeys fill the role of spiri-tual guards of the mountaintop, constantly pestering you into sub-mission till you soon find yourself scrambling down from the pinnacle to find a less petulant spot a short way down track to have a rejuve-nating banana and sup of water.

After the walk, the heat had simplified my brain function and desires to two types of watering holes. I drive to Uki – 10km down the road, to grab a couple of take-away beers and the obligatory trav-ellers souvenir stubby holder from Mount Warning Hotel (02 6679 5111) to relax into the afternoon. On the way back to my accommo-dation on Mount Warning Road, I stop off at a local swimming hole on a river bend and cool off in the mountain fresh waters.

A dissonant symphony of the bird, frog, cricket and cicada call from the vibrant green garden.

A spectaclar variance of green presents itself along the walk to the summit of Mount Warning.

Birds of Paradise greet guests on the balcony of the Mount Warning Bed and Breakfast Retreat.

If you leave early enough in the morning, you could be the first in Australia to see the sunrise from this spectacular spot on the summit.

a buzz, full to overflowing with young families and couples enjoy-ing a healthy feast on a Saturday night.

The mixed plate was a delicious tasting dish of all their favourites, including a sensational cauliflower dish. I happily dined and refreshed with a freshly squeezed fruit juice, and wrote to candle light while great tunes played in the back-ground, mixing effortlessly into the joyful noise of young families’ excitability with a night out at a restaurant. The restaurant hosts live music most nights of the week-end and is a little creative hotspot nirvana.

The food was served with great smiles and eyes alive to the highest order – some-thing that only living in such an exotic location could provide. The lo-cal geology is said to be infused with the mineral rock Obsidian, known to natural therapists for its energy giving potential. If there is Obsidian to be found in the valley, there must be a rich seam directly under the Bud-dha Belly.

Back at the home-stead I fall asleep on

the king sized bed with the fan circling cool air down from above and the flyscreened French doors open to the night breeze. The city has industrialised the mind so much that come dawn it feels like the mind needs a good oiling with WD40 as it starts into gear with the sound of a squeak and creak. Slowly one squeak, becomes two, becomes three. The squeaks become more harmonious as the gears in the brain wind up. Then there is the morning’s revelation that they are not internal sounds of a mind creaking into gear at all, but are the sound of one thousand birds in the

had taken out one of the handful of canoes that were lying upside down on the bank.

As darkness descended, my tum-my grumbled, and while the B&B does offer a camping kitchen in the backyard for those who wish to provide their own fare, there is also a choice on offer in the neighbour-hood. This includes Mavis’s Kitchen restaurant, featuring an impres-sive wine list and a fresh, organic a la carte menu (bookings recom-mended www.maviseskitchen.com.au), or the more informal but just as wholesome Buddha Belly.

The Buddha Belly (http://mur-willumbahonline.com/buddha-belly/) is a vegetarian restaurant a

couple of hundred metres down the country road from the homestead. Walking down the road in pitch black darkness (don’t forget your camping head-torch) – the volume of the frogs was immense, and con-tinued to get louder with each step further into dusk and darkness. The song of the frogs was a cacophony symphony epiphany.

On arrival at the Buddha Belly it was amazing to see a small restau-rant, down a country road in the middle of wilderness – with the closest town 10km away, absolutely thriving. They managed to squeeze me in though and the place was

ing long walk. In the city, the constant hum of

arterial roads transporting the liv-ing pulse around the electric light suburbia is the soundtrack to your life. Yet, hung in a hammock on a balcony on Mount Warning Road I find bliss in the quiet of the valley. The one road that connects Mur-willumbah to Uki, 1km down the glen, becomes the background sore to the soundscape against the dis-sonant symphony of the bird, frog, cricket and cicada calling from the vibrant green garden. A lone car travelling on the black tar bitumen in the distance is like a Velcro zip-per ripping apart the beauty of the aural moment.

One of the unex-pected surprises of the B&B was to read the welcoming folder of information and with excitement learn that by the banks of the river down in the backyard of the B&B a local platypus does dwell. I have a New Year’s resolution that rolls over year after failed-res-olution year. It is to see a platypus in the wild, and while I still have yet to achieve my goal, hav-ing it in my continual sightline has me regularly visiting new and amazing places where they can be found.

As the sun descended behind the mountain, I went to spend the waning hour patiently sitting in the overgrown and weed infested scrub near the remains of an old bridge. Unfortunately, another platypus hunting mission failed me, but the glass-off of the river in the still of the afternoon sure is a pleasant way to spend some time. My B&B host, Renate, suggested I would have had a better chance if I gone slightly further upstream to where the banks were being regenerated and

A magnificent balcony wraps around the Bed and Breakfast, providing a relaxing haven for a moment’s respite.

The view of the garden while hanging from the hammock.

for a week long stay, before flying themselves back to Ol’ Blimey.

“It is just amazing how much bird life there is here, you don’t re-alise how lucky you are to be living in Australia,” Joan said.

“Yesterday I got a number of lif-ers,” husband John added proudly, referring to a first-ever sighting of a bird species to add to his list.

They offered their advice to go directly to a bookstore and pur-chase a copy Field Guide to the Birds of Australia by Simpson and Day (published by Penguin Books ISBN-10: 0670041807).

I nervously started to twitch. Like the Incredible Hulk bursting out of his shirt, I felt the twitch-ing stretch beneath my skin, until uncontrollably, my hands were making the motion of picking bin-oculars from my chest, raising them to my eyes, gasping in surprise and pointing, pointing with arms outstretched. It was the ritualistic dance of a Twitcher.

On the way home, I resolved to add to my New Year’s resolution list – under Platypus is now the Orange Bellied Parrot.

eek eek” of some type of lorikeet and the “warble woo” of some type of owl.

From the UK, my co-guests had stumbled upon this little Twitchers paradise with its own comfortable and affordable B&B by accident some weeks ago on their trip south. They were impressed with the place so much that this was them return-ing for a second time, and this time

trees outside. I think the “cockle doodle doo” of the rooster was the real defining moment that gave it away.

The song of one thousand birds raises me from my slumber, and I become infected with the Twitch-ers urge to identify every different species in the song. It is like when you go to see a friend perform in a choir, and you try to pick out their individual voice in the chorus. At breakfast I read that the previous owner of the property was a proud Twitcher with a bird count of 232 species over his time twitching on the property, including a phenom-enal 43 in one half hour sitting.

At the breakfast table, those same Twitchers I spotted the day prior emerged from the room next door and join me on the balcony for the light breakfast of fresh fruit, cereal, toast and juice. Together we pondered if there were more than 43 species in song this morning.

I certainly continued to lose count whenever a new song would start.

Not that I could really identify any of the different species. The best I could do was to list the “eek

Breakfast is served upon the balcony.

An Underlay Production [email protected]

A beautifully appointed room with French doors onto the balcony.

Bo Finn’s Sushi Files V

From Bristol & beyond

By Chesh Underlay

The cover photo is from the streets of Bristol, where a certain local art-

ist started an infamous career. He remains anonymous, and in so doing, when he wanted to put on an exhibition in his home town, he shut down the local museum for two weeks with only minimal staff know-ing what was going on. In two weeks he has usurped the history on display and created his own version of the truth. In Bristol Museum Versus Banksy, Banksy lays claim to the victors prize of telling the winners ver-sion of the truth.

Throughout the ancient ar-tefacts, fossils, geological rock examples, famous paintings and sculptures, Local Artist has installed his own tampered versions of the art, as per the photo above.

The whole museum be-comes a game for the specta-tor, trying to find the minute details altered by Local Artist, aka Banksy.

He has his own section of his famed art too, like the Riot Police tripping through a field of daisies, or a parliament full of baboons and monkeys.

He has also created an installation called Unnatural History, and with the darkest

of humour draws attention to things like the testing of make-up products on ani-mals by creating a piece of a rabbit in a cage in front

of the finest wooden draw set and mirror, doing her face and fluttering her eyelids.

Using mechatronics, Bank-sy brings the animals to life and it is a monumental room of messages.

From Bath I write in a moment’s stolen breath. The picture opposite is of the in-stallation in the main square and cathedral in Bath, right next door to the famous Ro-man Baths.

Time is short in a busy work environment as the fes-tival season kicks off.

Last weekend we finished our first festival weekend, with three articulated lorries each loaded with forty hob-bit houses made their way to three corners of the UK. One went North to Loch Ness, one went midlands for Download, and mine went south for Isle of Wight festival.

It is mind blowing how many festivals there are in this season, and how well attended they are. it ap-pears the Brits have an insatia-ble appetite for

hedonism, continually throwing their hands up in the air at the power of a stage show and anyone with a microphone.

After Basement Jaxx kicked off the festival season with a rollicking Friday night set, The Pixies supported Neil Young for the final encore of the Isle of Wight festival, rounding out a solid weekend of punters happy in the private seclusion we created with our Podpads and Bellepads. With our own security, a whole field, our own showers and toilets, our guests were spoilt when compared to the cramped, dusty dirty pykie-ridden fields of the general camping area.

Now it is off to Glastonbury for the biggest build of the season. A lot is disorganised, and it is flying by the seat of our pants, but all is well.

We are dealing with some of the biggest event production companies in the world, and it is a thrill to be liaising with such offices.

I must away now and think of an urban environment for 132 Podpads in a wee Hospi-tality field near the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury. I arrive tomorrow at 0700 and will be working my bollocks off for the next five days to get it all ready for Wednesday opening.

Here’s hoping.

The images show the building phase of Pod-pads and Bellepads at the Isle of Wight Festival. One of our competitors, MyHabs also occupied this field, while beyond the hedge lay 600 preset tents for 1800 punters using Tangerine Fields as their festival accommo-dation of choice!

On this visit to the Isle of Wight, we aso visited the Bestival site and met Farmer Andrew. On approaching his grey stone farmhouse front door, he emerges from the side and said: “What are you doing? Only the funeral director and the undertaker approach the house using the front door.”

Bestival, run by Rob

da Bank, needed to con-vince Farmer Andrew to reuse his amazing prop-erty after torrential rain last year caused mas-sive landslides and mass amounts of rubbish to pollute his beloved fam-ily property. Farmer Paul, Andrew’s young assistant – keen to talk with any-thing that showed up on the property that wasn’t a cow – talked of still pulling out wallets full of wads of cash, tents, all sorts, from his plough every time he re-scrapes his land. He talked of the barbed wire fence down the bottom of the land being completely covered in mud from the slide, and some people’s vehicles being stuck for weeks after the event.

Another Underlay [email protected]

To use the site again, ap-parently it took Rob da Bank a good lot of talking with Andrew over a few cases of the finest Scotch Whiskey in the land.

It is the last festival of the season, and it is good synchro-nicity to be finishing on the same island where it has all begun for me.

The location of Bestival truly is stunning and features a lit woodland path as part of its starring features. I can’t wait.

But there is a lot of hard work in between, and as we venture of to set up a new camp and eat around the fire in the evenings as the clang-ing of stage rigging echoes through the pre-festi nights,

the excitement grows and the smiles of the punters is the magic thing that people work for in this crazy industry.

I’m sure Banksy might have something to say about it all though - especially the wast-age at the end of the festival - where whole fields are strewn with abandoned tents, sleep-ing bags, mountains of plastic litter... it is a totally wasteful society that can see no conse-quence. I’m sure he would find the darkest humour to portray this for what it is - but for what we blindly living can not see.

The forest for the trees.But I must adieu .. there is

much to do. Away away away.

And into the northern sum-mer solstice, in the neighbour-hood of Stone Henge, I wish you all a magical time.

In the south, your days will now get longer and Winter has turned the corner, and before too long it will be summer again and i will have returned with one thousand more tales to tell.

Below is King Tut Tut, one of my crew, and the Red Arrows putting on a show right above our site. Awesome.

If i do not find the time in all the scheduled hectic crazi-ness planned for me, then until tomorrow then,

Blessed be,Danny

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