BT is very experienced at loading from point of production or importation and delivering, very often to quite distant locations, all sizes and diameters of steel and plastic pipes. Our extensive fleet of extendable trailers allows us to offer professional, competitively priced services for pipe haulage throughout Australia.

Occasionally though, we have a variation on long distance pipe haulage to site. Generally we deliver to laydown areas or to Right of Ways (ROWS) to sling pipe. A recent task we executed was in fact the complete opposite – we transported pipe that had already been laid to be reused some three thousand kilometres away.

The project involved harvesting the pipe from the ground in outback Western Australia and reducing lengths to 20 metres, loading onto our extendable trailer fleet, then delivering to site in rural New South Wales to be reconsolidated into a pipeline again. While somewhat the reverse of the norm, we undertook the task as required and all was well…. initially. 

Most Australians are aware of the arid, dry conditions throughout the majority of outback central Australia. Sometimes however, it rains. Sometimes it rains quite a bit. Sometimes, albeit on rare occasions, it comes down torrentially across vast tracts of what are usually desert areas. Shortly after commencement of this project, the rains came.

Our first 10 trailers left the harvest site loaded without incident, but along the route the weather hit. The storm was widespread across the country; not only were the roads affected but the destination site was flooded too. We also had some of the second round of extendable trailers heading to the uplift site stranded due to washed out roads.

This necessitated a re-work of our initial plan. The BT Operations Teams in Perth, Adelaide and Brisbane were all involved in rescheduling a major portion of our fleet to complete tasks already under way and then remobilise to meet our commitment at harvest site. Drivers that were loaded and heading to washed out areas were redirected. Those closer to the inbound delivery site were directed into our Adelaide depot to wait out the weather.

The receiving site was shut down for several days as it was unsafe to have cranes and semi- trailers coursing the sodden tracks. Several days later the site was reopened and cranes set up. The BT Team liaised with operators to have trailers that had been diverted via Adelaide to arrive as directed to meet stringing requirements. In the meantime, trailers loaded in the west had also been travelling through adverse conditions to follow on and complete the deliveries as required.

The project, although delayed by several days, was finally completed within budget and without additional costs being incurred because BT was able to work closely with our customer for a mutually beneficial outcome.