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“That’s pretty unheard of,” says Duke Austin, president of Quanta’s Utility Services division in Houston.
The project consisted of 40 mi of 30-in.-diameter pipe, 201 mi of 36-in. pipe and 266 mi of 42-in. pipe. One booster and four compressor stations being built will boost the pipeline capacity from 1.5 bcfd to 1.8 bcfd.
The pipelines are built in the standard assembly-line process, with specialized crews following each other, and each crew covering about a mile a day, according to Kinder Morgan. Crews clear and grade the lane, then place pipe along the right-of-way and dig trenches. Automatic welding machines then seal the pipe segments together.
After testing and inspections, the pipe is lowered into place and buried. Trenches are 7 to 9 ft deep, with about 4 ft of cover.
Once construction is complete, the rights-of-way must be restored to their previous conditions. The job also required 40 horizontal directional drills, including one deep drill under the Mississippi River.
Austin says that his crews had to work in a tight 80-ft right-of-way and had to endure 30 in. of rain.
“You can’t weld in the rain, but you can do everything else,” he adds.
In addition to Quanta, other contractors building the pipeline included Willbros Group Inc., Houston; Henkels & McCoy, Blue Bell, Pa.; Associated Pipe Line Contractors, Houston; Pipe Line Constructors, Houston; M.G. Dyess, Bassfield, Miss.; and Strike Construction, Spring, Texas.
Contractors building the compressor stations included Sunland Construction, Eunice, La.; Ranger Plant Constructional Co. Inc., Abilene; and Lott Contractors, Hamshire, Texas.
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