Australia gears up for longest gas pipeline

Dames and Moore has completed routing studies and detailed investigations for the Western Australia State Energy Commission on a 1500 km, 24-30 in. dia Dampier-to-Perth gas pipeline, to develop the North West Shelf gas reserves largest single consumer would be Alcoa's alumina (corundum) refineries, which now receive fuel gas from the small Dongara field via an existing 400 km pipeline. The field and line are owned and operated by Western Australian Petroleum Propr. Ltd. Dongara field now produces to capacity, 7.59 million cu ft/day, but it is expected to be substantially depleted by 1987. Initially the new pipeline, operating at 7000-9500 kPa, would carry 28.05 million cu ft/day through one compressor station at Dampier and two more sited at one-third and two-thirds distances down the route. With later compressor station additions, capacity would be raised to 49.5 million cu ft/day. McCord and Associates are under contract to determine the possibility of feeding North West Shelf gas into Dongara field as a temporary storage. By current projections, the Perth-southwest gas market will need 56.1 million cu ft/day in 2004.