The Curtis Island Water and Sewerage Infrastructure Project includes the construction of potable water and sewer pressure mains between the Gladstone mainland and Curtis Island, Queensland, Australia to support proponents developing liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facilities on Curtis Island. Completed within a compressed timescale, the project includes the use of value driven processes and innovative solutions and approaches along with a number firsts for trenchless Technology in Australia. A simple process was used to establish a common view of project drivers and define what constituted ‘value for money’ in the decision making process. This provided a collective vision for major technical decisions and informed the approach to technical, risk management, contracting and fee arrangement decision making processes. The project represents a number of milestone achievements for HDD technology in Australia: 1.The crossing length of 2150m and 74m deep beneath Gladstone Harbour is one of the longest of its type in Australia, requiring the use of steel enveloper pipes to reduce the risk of overstressing the HDPE product pipe during installation. 2.Harbour crossings were completed using two of the largest HDD drilling rigs (500 Ton) available in Australia. 3.The risk of drilling fluid losses into the sensitive Harbour environment was minimised by the contractors choice of intersect drilling (drilling from both sides and meeting in the middle) – the first successful use of this approach in Australia. 4.An Optical Gyroscope was used for the first time in Australia to undertake the complex down hole steering operation, completed 60m below the harbor bed level. The first pilot hole was completed in December 2011 followed by the installation of 2 no DN 250 PN25 HDPE pipes in May 2012 providing interim construction infrastructure for water and sewerage. Following the successful installation of the last steel enveloper, the DN 500 PN25 HDPE water pipe was finally pulled through in February 2013, and fully commissioned in June 2013.
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