“There shall be no change on this project”.

During one of my first major pipeline projects, at the kick-off meeting, the project manager made that statement and then paused, and waited. Someone then had the courage to say, “hang on, of course there will be change, what do you mean by that?”

The beauty of the ‘no change’ stance was that on that project, we had a clear, unambiguous understanding of when change management applied.

Change management processes firstly need to recognise when ‘change’ needs ‘management’. A good change management process should then also be transparent, consultative, recordable, and traceable.

There is a long list of knowledge for the construction side of pipeline projects. Listing the words here is like a word salad: planning and documentation, plant and equipment, buoyancy control, weld crew, pipe bending, NDT, MDR, HDD, QC, ERP, CEMP, special crossings and tie-ins.

When the pipeline engineer knows enough about all those and all the rest, it helps the construction manager focus on the logistics and resources issues that always pop up on any construction project.

In the end, though, the most effective way to be competent in a construction role is to be on the construction site.

Construction work of any type inherently requires knowledge about health and safety. The regulations vary across jurisdictions, but the principles are the same: everyone goes home safe.

The obvious aspects related to health and safety on pipeline projects include working around open trenches, with heavy equipment, and in dust and heat.

Where pipelining is so unique and challenging, is the linear nature of them. Especially the long-distance pipelines crossing hundreds of kilometres in the remote deserts out west.

Pipeline engineers need to consider the logistics of a non-static work site. Driving is probably the biggest risk when working on pipelines.

Pipelines cross all manner of landscapes and landforms. This means environment and heritage management cannot be overlooked.

Identifying and managing the impacts is a key knowledge and skill. New pipeline projects, and all existing operating pipelines, are subject to all of the environmental and heritage protection legislation and approvals that you’d expect to come into play.

It’s not unexpected to say that even a good pipeline engineer probably doesn’t have the skills to navigate the legislation and approvals process. Fortunately, in the pipeline industry we have access to a good breadth of service providers to lean on for that expertise.

Just like a building needs a site to exist on, pipelines need a corridor to exist in. Since pipelines are buried, it’s then possible to have other things going on where the pipeline is (cattle grazing, agriculture, even wind and solar farms). Pipelines therefore need a Right-of-Way, and some have an easement as well.

Pipeline engineers therefore should be aware of the complicated arena of land acquisition, including government regulations, permitting, licensing, stakeholder engagement, native title management and community consultation.

This is crucial at the beginning of a project, obviously. And also, throughout the lifetime of the pipeline, including decommissioning.

Without being able to quote research or data, I’m going to speculate that many pipeline engineers out there don’t have a solid enough grasp of the commercial aspects of pipelines.

Along with CAPEX and OPEX, economic regulation, contracting strategies, go/no-go and FID points, there’s also the land acquisition and compensation options, procurement strategies, net present value calculations, and ‘covered’ pipelines to know about.

A key skill for any pipeline engineer is the ability to at least ‘ballpark’ the costs associated with engineering decisions made. Even where safety is concerned, the level of cost impacts will influence decisions. Follow the money.

Good asset management, according to the ISO55001 Standard, is done by maximising the (commercial) value of the asset.

The technical fundamentals of asset management for pipelines includes the integrity management plan, the maintenance philosophies, corridor management, integrity inspections, reviews of operating pressure or location classification, safety management studies, and fitness for purpose assessments.

It’s easy to see how those listed items are asset costs; but, when done well, increase the value. So, it’s an interesting balance, then, between maximising the safety and maximising the value of a pipeline.

A way to maximise value is to keep the pipeline running safely.

The competency for “pipeline operation fundamentals” has pre-requisites in process engineering and hydraulics, as well as knowledge of AS2885.

So, clearly, a pipeline engineer who works in pipeline operations needs to understand what’s happening inside those pipelines and the associated piping.

Other elements that demonstrate pipeline operations knowledge are: pipeline modelling, control systems, product scheduling, inventory balancing, pipeline repairs, hot tapping and stoppling, coating repairs, emergency exercises, simulation and planning, liquid flow enhancers, leak detection systems, emissions monitoring, billing.

It’s quite wide-ranging, from equipment knowledge (meters, pumps, compressors) to economics (modelling, billing, inventory management), to structural integrity (inspections and repairs).

A competency in pipeline project management requires all the same knowledge, skills and experience required for managing any infrastructure project. That includes the principles of scope, time, cost, quality, risk, HR, procurement, and stakeholder management.

It’s the land access requirements of pipelines which is where managing pipeline projects needs knowledge beyond just any infrastructure project knowledge.

Cross-country pipeline projects face unique project challenges with land access arrangements, the varied geographical, geotechnical and environmental conditions, and the complex logistics of a linear project. Balancing the economic and technical regulatory requirements along with licenses, approvals and record-keeping, is all part of it.

Knowing the basics about instrumentation and controls is important for pipeline engineers, because those are the tools that measure and monitor the fluid inside.

To capture the competency for I&C means knowing about control theory, measurement devices, controllers, alarms, and shutdown systems.

Many graduate engineers first get exposed to instrumentation and controls through a P&ID (Process and Instrument Diagram). The first time you’re faced with one in the workplace (having not seen one through a university degree in civil engineering) is a confronting moment. That’s when you find a sympathetic senior engineer for an explanation. Or these days, search YouTube.

I confess I wouldn’t expect a pipeline engineer to know much about electricity and electronics. But, it’s one of the (optional) core competencies in our list of 240, so, here we are. Some pipeline engineers might know the basics around voltage, current and power.

It does make me wonder how many of us who work with pipelines have deep electrical/electronics knowledge. I think it’s not typical, so if you’re one of them, you’re a bit unique. I’d be interested in knowing what circumstances as a pipeline engineer (not designing stations, I get that application) where deep electrical expertise is utilised.

Corrosion, like maths, doesn’t depend on an opinion. Corrosion (also known as rust) just needs electrochemistry (science) to explain that otherwise mysterious reaction in metals.

There are factors that affect corrosion, such as acidity, oxidising agents, temperature, and electrolyte velocity.

There are different types of corrosion: intergranular corrosion, pitting, galvanic, crevice, and that old chestnut, stress-corrosion cracking.

There are a few ways to prevent corrosion – many are a variation of a theme: coatings or cathodic protection.

Rust is just science; no opinion required. But, determining the best solution to prevent it? Now there’s an opinion-based black box to be deciphered.

Understanding how materials behave in different circumstances, or when exposed to different environments, or put under different kinds of pressures or stresses: that’s an important part of engineering and materials science.

Knowing the whys and what-fors around the materials used in pipelines is important. Not only the steel or plastic for the conduit itself, but also the coatings that go on the (metal) pipes, the instrumentation tubing, the electrical cables.

The materials will all also have specified manufacturing processes with quality control to ensure the quality of the product. Knowing about these is all part of being a pipeline engineer.

Fluid mechanics, or hydraulics, describe the flow of fluids. Different types of fluids (which includes gasses) will behave differently. The fluid characteristics vary by fluid; it’s like a personality. Fluids have a viscosity, density, and, a Newtonian-ness. (That’s not a word. Google Newtonian fluid if you need to know more).

Flow through pipes can be laminar or turbulent. We can observe those differences in rivers with different flow velocities.

But wait, there’s more. Compressors and pumps, measuring and metering, pressure drops and capacity curves. All essential knowledge for the hydraulics specialist, and a basic core understanding requirement for pipeline engineers.

I’ve kept my soil mechanics handbook from university. It’s a good reference for soil descriptions, as well as the concepts of consolidation, compaction, and permeability. Fortunately, those topics don’t change much with time.

Long-distance pipelines are mostly buried. They will be buried in soil, and will be affected by the behaviour of that soil. The ground the pipeline is buried in could be rocky, dry, or just plain mucky (a geotechnical term if I’ve ever heard one).

Sometimes specialists are needed to help with steep slopes, or hard rock. Being a pipeline engineer means knowing when that specialist is needed.

Being a civil engineer in the energy pipelines game makes me a bit of an anomaly. I’m mostly surrounded by people with degrees in mechanical or process/chemical engineering.

So, while my university education about properties and thermodynamics of hydrocarbons was minor, it’s still very important that I know a bit about them. And, in these transition times, we might see other fluids and gases in the pipelines. Understanding the chemical and process behaviour of those, too, is becoming very important.

The characteristics around density, viscosity, vapour pressure, dispersion, and flammability limits are all part of being an energy pipeline engineer.

A buried pipeline (regardless of what it’s transporting) is, in essence, an engineered structure. The elements of a structure (we usually think of a bridge or a building) apply equally to a buried pipeline.

There are stresses, and compression and tension also play a role. The concepts of columns and beams, with restrained and unrestrained ends, are applicable to pipelines as well as bridges.

The materials used to make the structure matter too: often steel, rarely concrete (for gases anyway), more use of plastic is happening now. The behaviour of the material in the structure influences the pipeline structure lifecycle.

There’s a general expectation that pipeline engineers should have a fundamental understanding of engineering mechanics. Even if your graduating discipline was electrical or chemical engineering, if you’re working with long tubes buried underground, it’s worth knowing about statics and dynamics.

There are normal and shear forces to understand, and equilibrium, and moments of inertia. Also important is vibration, the effects of thermal expansion, and axial stress on pressurised pipe.

Many of us would have to dig deep for those problem-solving equations. This is where Google, and even nowadays YouTube, can be a bona fide source of refreshers on this information.

This should be the top competency requirement for any engineer: a sense of internal governance around our own technical knowledge. It’s the combination of technical and behavioural expertise.

It’s being professional: knowing – and taking seriously - our responsibilities to stakeholders (including, most importantly in the transmission pipeline world, the public).

Included in this competency is understanding legal obligations and awareness of contractual requirements, and the EA Code of Ethics.

A key part of technical governance is the ability to communicate technical matters to stakeholders. Sometimes the hardest thing to do is to explain a complex topic in a non-complex way.

Acts, regulations, statutes, legislation, Commonwealth, State, laws, rules.

Some of us either get heart palpitations from those concepts, or, are entirely bored with them. It’s probably best to be somewhere in the middle, though, if you’re striving to be competent at your job.

Legal and regulatory frameworks, for any industry, drive the decisions, philosophies, priorities, and policies – which affect just about everything we do.

Know the legislative structure, the regulatory regime, and differences in the approach to regulation. Find out by reading the Acts, read the regulations. Ask about how legislation applies on the project or pipeline you’re working on.