Rangedale has opened a depot in Epping, allowing the supplier to keep up with increased demand from clients in Melbourne’s north east.

Rangedale has opened a depot in Epping, allowing the supplier to keep up with increased demand from clients in Melbourne’s north east.
Watercare tunnelling projects are already well underway for 2023 in Auckland, with progress being made in Warkworth, and the Central Interceptor project.
Safety is critical to the success of an energy construction project. More importantly, it is the basis of a strong energy construction company.
Vacuum excavators are the often unsung hero of the trenchless technology world, quickly and effectively moving soil when needed so that horizontal directional drilling can take place.
kwik-ZIP’s centraliser and spacer systems are solving production casing centralisation challenges throughout the pipeline industry, in Australia and overseas.
Central Highlands Water’s Ballarat Sewer Build will commence stage 2 of its duplication in 2023 with microtunnelling beneath Humffray Street South.
Some of Auckland’s ageing wastewater pipes are getting a new lease on life thanks to trenchless technology being used to reline the pipes.
Rob Carr’s Gnangara Branch Sewer Section 2 project has received a Contractors Federation (CCF) WA award.
Auckland’s water and wastewater company, Watercare, has turned to trenchless technologies to overcome many of the challenges of its pipe renewal programs.
Utilities company Gippsland Water is securing the water and wastewater future for the towns of Warragul and Drouin as part of the western ring main project.
Watercare’s proactive upgrades program is full steam ahead as final preparations are made to commence work on the new Warkworth-Snells wastewater pipe north of Auckland. Read more
An extra 1.5 km has been added to the Central Interceptor project as Watercare’s massive tunnel boring machine reaches Manukau Harbour. Read more
Yarra Valley Water is searching for an expert in trenchless construction to consult on the horizontal directional drilling (HDD) activities included in its Community Sewerage Program.
When horizontal directional drilling (HDD) emerged in the mid-1960s as a new way to install utility lines under immovable or unavoidable obstacles without significant surface disruptions, crossings spanned up to a few hundred feet guided by frequent potholing. That changed in 1971 when a 4-inch gas line was placed under a river in Watsonville, CA, USA, a location where potholing would not be possible.
At about that same time, Michels was growing its utility line construction business in the Midwestern United States. Driven to meet customer needs and offer specialised services, the company expanded its geographic footprint and markets served.
Today, Michels is an international, diversified energy and infrastructure contractor and leading provider of construction services to the energy, transportation, communications, power and utility industries.
In 2021, Michels added Michels Asia Pacific, a permanent trenchless operation in Wangaratta, Victoria, to the Michels Family of companies. Michels Asia Pacific selectively specialises in technically challenging trenchless installations in Australia to allow customers to provide reliable, unobtrusive service in metropolitan and remote areas.
The team consists of Wangaratta-based project management and field staff supported from industry experts at Michels’ headquarters in Brownsville, WI, USA.
Flash back nearly 35 years to 1988 when Michels was one of the first contractors to recognize the potential of the new technology of HDD, a safe, environmentally sound way to install utility lines where traditional open-trench construction would not be practical or feasible.
Intrigued by HDD’s prospect of allowing energy and infrastructure construction in previously unsuitable areas and soil conditions, Michels dedicated personnel and resources to learning about the technique and introducing it to customers.
In keeping with Michels’ spirit of innovation and determination to provide customers with the best solutions, Michels set out to master the art and science of HDD. As the operations team completed HDD projects for energy customers, Michels in-house design and fabrication team got to work developing its own equipment to provide more opportunities than commercially available products at the time.
In 1996, Michels designed and built what was then the largest machine of its kind: the Hercules 1200, a HDD rig with 1.2 million pounds of thrust/pulling power. Not content to stop with one success, Michels continued to improve and expand its HDD equipment, eventually owning the world’s largest fleet of high-capacity HDD rigs with more than 1.2 million pounds of thrust/pulling power.
At the same time, the Michels team developed best practices for mitigating the risk of inadvertent fluid returns, managing bentonite and drilling fluid pressures for proper hole conditions, lubrication and cutting removal.
Michels also developed proprietary cutting tools and casing systems to maximize the potential for successful crossings and established processes for land-to-land, water-to-water, land-to-water projects.
As HDD’s reputation as a safe, accurate option for trenchless crossings grew, so did requests for longer and larger diameter crossings under transportation corridors, waterways, wetlands and other environmentally sensitive or challenging areas.
As lengths extended into the thousands of feet, Michels Trenchless team pioneered the pilot hole intersect method in a 2003 crossing in Boston. A powerful drill rig set out from each side of the alignment with a mission to follow an engineered path and meet at a predetermined spot, essentially doubling an HDD’s potential based solely on the drill rig’s push/pull capacity.
The Georges Island HDD crossing was a 1577 m hard-rock, water-to-water crossing to install 30-inch diameter pipe.
That technique was a watershed moment in the HDD industry. In passing years, demands for increasingly longer crossings with more complex alignments surfaced around the world from diverse industries, including energy, electrical transmission, water and wastewater and renewables.
In 2021, Michels completed a 4702 m installation of an NPS-24 steel utility line, the likes of which had not previously been attempted at the 24-inch diameter in the world.
Looking to the future, Michels is committed to building infrastructure to support projects in traditional and emerging industries and to continue providing safe, proven and innovative solutions to customers in Australia and wherever needed.
“In Australia, North America and throughout the world, there is an ever-increasing need for obstacles to be trenchlessly crossed, particularly in a time when there is a very real need for expanded infrastructure for traditional and transitioning markets,” said Matt Smith, President, Michels Trenchless, Inc. “We are honoured to have the skills, expertise, equipment and opportunity to deliver solutions that will build the future.”
For more information visit Michels’ website.
This article appeared in the August edition of Trenchless Australasia
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The Woodman Point Waste Water Treatment Plant in Munster, Perth, has experienced deterioration of the concrete structure around its channels due to gas attack.
Dedicated to delivering expert advice to its customers, Ditch Witch CEA has helped businesses like Walker and Gray Earthworks establish themselves as reputable contractors throughout the trenchless industry.
What is the Snowy 2.0?
A greenlight on the Forrestfield-Airport Link
The $1.86 billion METRONET Forrestfield-Airport Link, jointly funded by the federal and WA state governments, is set to deliver a new rail service to the eastern suburbs of Perth – with three new stations at Redcliffe, Airport Central and High Wycombe.
City Rail Link’s (CRL) tunnel boring machine (TBM) is as busy as ever as it progresses upwards to 42 m below the surface of Auckland, travelling toward Mercury Lane as progress on the momentous project continues.
The announcement is the second major contract to be awarded to the leading Australian water industry supplier, Iplex Australia, as part of the project, which will provide water security to the growing city of Townsville.
The Hunter Water Sewer Relining project located in Newcastle, NSW, has made promising headway as of mid-May 2022. Wilmot Pipelining has completed several sewer relining projects for the water industry company.
New Zealand’s City Rail Link (CRL) has produced a 3D model of the midtown Auckland CRL station, which is currently under construction including the Te Wai Horotiu Station (Wellesley Street) building.
With the connection of Watercare’s Hūnua 4 pipe to the Khyber Pass reservoir marking the colossal pipeline’s completion, it will now undergo a series of tests before the final stage is put into service.
The CRL is a 3.45km twin-tunnel underground rail link up to 42 m below the Auckland city centre. The goal of the project is to transform the downtown Waitematā Station (Britomart) into a two-way through-station that better connects the city’s rail network.
NDDU is the southern hemisphere’s only large-scale conference and exhibition dedicated to trenchless technology. Trenchless technology is important for installing new services, as well as rehabilitating and maintaining existing pipelines and infrastructure, without having to dig multiple trenches, disturbing traffic, business and residential locations.
With major utilities located underground and requiring ongoing upkeep and extension, No-Dig Down Under is a crucial event for local government representatives and those involved in planning decisions for major infrastructure projects.
The No-Dig Down Under 2022 conference will feature three dedicated session streams: installation, rehabilitation and condition assessment and utility location.
The No-Dig Down Under conference promises to bring attendees the very latest information about products designed to make trenchless installation and rehabilitation easier and more efficient.
Attendees will be able to hear from Katharina Helming from SAERTEX multiCom. Helming will be discussing the revolutionary SAERTEX-LINER® H2O (winner of the 2019 ISTT No-Dig Innovation Award). Sean Wharton from HammerHead Trenchless will also be discussing the newly developed Steel Extractor system and trenchless extraction process.
The No-Dig Down Under conference will also feature a number of project case studies that will discuss successes and areas for improvement, to help keep industry members up to date on best practice.
Hear from John Stuart-Robertson from HDI Lucas, Will Zillman from Interflow, Matthew Lyon from SFPJV (a joint venture of Abergeldie, Downer and Stantec) and Matt Beswick from McConnell Dowell, as they examine the successes of rehabilitation and improvement projects.
Research and development undertaken over the past few years proposes new classifications and solutions designed to improve and support targeted decision making for those involved in the trenchless industry.
Attendees will hear from Professor Marjorie Valix from the University of Sydney, discussing new proposed levels of corrosion classification for wastewater environments, Steven Nash from the Golburn Valley Water Authority, looking at the draft Asbestos Cement Water and Sewer Pipe Management Guidelines developed by the Water Pipes Working Group.
Cherdphong Seedao from the University of Sydney will also be discussing the development of one-part geopolymer mortars and their usefulness as a protective sewer coating.
NDDU is set to be held at the International Convention Centre Sydney from 14-17 June.
To get your free ticket to the NDDU exhibition, register for the conference, or find out more information about the event, click here.
In an effort to enhance water security in the south east, SA Water intends to construct a series of groundwater monitoring bores at the southern side of the Blue Lake.