Saipem is constructing the pipeline for Bayu-Undan project operator ConocoPhillips which is reportedly paying around $1 million per day to hire the Semac barge, whose welding machines have been silent since a 19 point ‘showstopper’ safety list of faults was submitted to Saipem management last week.
Ten of the items had been rectified by yesterday afternoon and, if on schedule with repairs, should have raised the pipehead from the seabed floor last night. The barge lowered the section of pipe it was working on to the seabed floor on the weekend to avoid stressing the suspended pipe.
ConocoPhillips would make no comment and would not be drawn on whether construction had recommenced. Saipem management were unable to be contacted by press time.
Santos Ltd is the only Australian-listed company with equity (10.64%) in the project.
It is understood there were a further 25 items of ‘medium risk’ concern to be rectified.
Australian Workers Union organiser Terry Lee said the AWU’s national occupational health and safety director Dr Yossi Berger and Saipem regional safety manager Alan Armstrong had inspected the barge last week following his concern over the growing number of LTIs.
Lee noted he had worked with the same barge on the recent Yolla and Minerva projects in the Bass Strait but with a different management team. He said those jobs went very well and with no LTIs on the barge itself.
He could not explain the vastly different performance of the barge between the Bass Strait and Timor Sea projects. “My view is there has been a change in management. The managers on that job are no longer with Saipem.
Lee said there have been nine LTIs on the Bayu-Undan project to date, the latest occurring last Thursday. “One worker needed 10 hours of microsurgery to reconnect two partially severed fingers,” he said.
He also said the barge ran out of fresh water on Saturday and claimed Saipem delayed the outbound supply vessel carrying fresh water and pipe from Darwin as there was still a pipeline supply vessel unloading at the offshore construction site.
Despite this, Lee said the workers did not down tools. “The pipe was more important to Saipem than the water for the workers.”
Lee made it clear this was not a union-instigated industrial action, in the context of recent headlines from the union movement threatening widespread unrest following the weekend’s re-election of John Howard and his threats of industrial reform.
“We’re not that quick,” he quipped. “We don’t go on strike to stay on a barge in the middle of the Timor Sea working to rectify the problem.
“I don’t know how long Alan Armstrong is going to have a job but as far as we’re concerned, he’s done the right thing.”
He said ConocoPhilips had audited the barge but was not aware precisely when.
Saipem has a chequered safety history in pipeline construction in Australia. Concerns over its safety management caused client BHP to implement its own safety regime over Saipem’s construction of the Goldfields Gas Transmission pipeline following the death of a sub-contractor in 1997.
Saipem Australia was subsequently found guilty of being knowingly concerned in the commission of an offence by A.J. Lucas under the Petroleum Pipelines Act 1969.
