Safe Excavation Could Save Your Life
In July 2004, in the small town of Ghislenghien, Belgium, the unthinkable happened.
During the final stages of a car park construction project, a high-pressure natural gas pipeline operated at a pressure of 70 bar was damaged. This was despite notice of the work being given to the pipeline operator and one of their operatives regularly attending the site throughout the project.
Damage to the pipeline most likely occurred as a mechanical soil stabiliser was driven over it. This resulted in several evenly spaced (but not full-depth) gouges in the steel wall of the pipeline.
Two weeks after the completion of the car park, gas pressure was increased in the pipeline. The pipeline ruptured at a fault centred on a 350mm long gouge. 24 people died as a result, and 150 survivors were hospitalised, most with severe burns. Debris was projected up to 6km from the epicentre of the explosion.
In June 2008, a corroded pipeline ruptured and exploded at the Varanus Island gas processing plant off Karratha, Western Australia. Fortunately, none of the 153 staff members were injured, but this one incident reduced Western Australia’s gas supply by a third for 2 months and cost the state’s economy up to $3 billion.
The impacts of a ruptured gas and other utility pipelines are wide-reaching and life-threatening. There are many potential causes for a pipeline incident, but the biggest single threat is excavation damage.
Dig Safe® was established by Tapex Industrial because there should never be compromises when it comes to excavation safety. Third-party strikes on buried infrastructure are an increasing issue, accelerated by more utilities going underground and the increased use of trenchless installation technologies. At best, pipe or cable strikes are costly and disruptive. At worst, they can cause catastrophic damage and loss of life.
The Dig Safe® System: Warn. Detect. Protect.
Each year in the USA, repairing underground utility lines damaged by unsafe digging practices and waste from inefficiencies costs taxpayers around US$30 billion (The American Surveyor October 2020).
These costs and the increased risk to public safety could be substantially reduced if more effective protection and procedures were adopted. The Dig Safe® System is the ultimate in protecting your buried infrastructure assets.
The Dig Safe® System
Tapex Industrial’s Dig Safe® brand creates complete solutions from one source across leading brands. We are the industry expert in excavation safety, with the most comprehensive suite of solutions available in Australia to help warn, detect, protect and manage buried infrastructure.
Our products are used by major gas, telecommunications, electricity and water utility providers, and our range includes access points and grounding rods for easy location, HDPE protection plates, hard cable cover, detectable and non-detectable warning tapes and meshes, rock shield, tracer wires, location markers and RFID systems.
Our global brand partners include Overpipe™ protection plates, Copperhead® copper-clad steel tracer wire system, Wavelay® detectable tapes, Detectamesh® detectable mesh, and 3M™ Electronic Marking Systems.
