Gas water pipeline

It has been suggested to me that I should do the hard yards to research and write up a proposal for a combined gas-water pipeline from the Kimberley-Pilbara to the south west of Western Australia, to complement the existing Dampier to Bunbury natural gas pipeline and at the same time to realise the long-held dream of piping water from the Kimberley to Perth.

Some cursory research has demonstrated to me that the engineering aspects of such a venture are certainly surmountable because pipeline engineers have accumulated enormous experience in pumping solid-liquid slurry and multi-phase gas and fluids through pipelines over long distances.

Slurry pumps and pipelines are often used to transport minerals and other solids from a mine to a processing site. Flow assurance and flow optimisation in multiphase oil-gas-water tie lines and export pipelines are important issues in offshore oil and gas, especially subsea processing. In either case, technical issues to do with basic metallurgy, fabrication and corrosion protection are significant but not insurmountable.

Ongoing interest in a water pipeline and recently escalated interest in gas pipeline security stemming from the Apache gas explosion on Varanus Island support the development of a business case. This would lead to funding of a design study in order to establish the feasibility and cost of a combined gas-water pipeline as a solution to gas energy and water security in this state.