Pipeline Pathways

90 min session

The Australian Standard for high-pressure pipelines (“AS 2885”) is a world-class set of technical standards for the design, construction, operation, and maintenance of onshore gas transmission and distribution pipelines in Australia.

This session is a “flyover” of the Standards process and structure, and an overview of the AS 2885 suite of 7 parts plus other applicable standards.

It will give participants a sense of the wide range of possibilities for “competency” in pipelines.

90 min session

Pipeline Safety Management is a key principle of the AS2885 series. Throughout the entire series, safety is constantly referred to.

This session focuses on AS2885.6 (“Part 6”), drawing on the documented requirements for safety of the pipeline. This session also encompasses stories and examples of how the Part 6 safety approach helps to maintain Australia’s enviable record of no fatalities to date being due to pipeline failure.

90 minute session covering:

• Design Guidelines: An in-depth look at the design guidelines outlined in the standard, including factors such as material selection, pipe thickness, and joint design, and how they ensure the safe and reliable operation of pipelines.

• Construction Guidelines: An overview of the construction guidelines outlined in the standard, including factors such as trenching, backfilling, and testing, and how they ensure the safe and efficient construction of pipelines.

Conduit Materials: Covering requirements behind materials selection for the conduit, focusing mainly on carbon steel, but recognising the many other future conduit materials.

Fluid Contents: Covers the types of fluids that pipelines can convey. Past experience has been primarily natural gas and other hydrocarbons, and this is what AS 2885 is best at. This session recognises the future fluids that may be covered by AS 2885.

This session uses AS2885.3 as it’s guiding content, going over the requirements outlined in the standard for operations and maintenance requirements. Beyond AS2885, though, are a wide range of operational competencies, drawn from the Pipeline Engineer Competency Standards, demonstrating the wide range of knowledge that anyone in the pipeline industry should be aware of.

The Australian Pipelines and Gas Association (APGA) has produced an Engineers Practise Guide, based on research outputs from a Future Fuels Cooperative Research Centre (FFCRC) project.

This Guide is particularly useful, as it provides an outline of personal behaviours for any worker in the pipeline industry, not just engineers. And it also provides stories, case studies and vignettes of real possible dilemmas faced in the pipeline industry.

This session will provide an overview of the EPG, and how to apply it to your day to day activities.