For the first time, Australia’s pipeline industry will be covered by a single engineering competency system that brings the onshore and offshore sectors together through the APGA Pipeline Engineer Competency Standards for Offshore Pipeline Engineers, in what appears to be a world first, a press release from the Australian Gas and Pipeline Association (APGA) said April 21.

The offshore competency standards will be added to the already-developed onshore competency standards to form a complete system covering all pipeline engineering.

The competency standards system was developed because the Australian pipeline industry is not large enough to create the required volume of students to make a university course viable.

Pipeline engineers in Australia gain a degree in another engineering discipline, such as mechanical or chemical engineering, and then acquire their specialized knowledge and expertise on the job and through short training courses.

In developing the competency standards with offshore pipeline engineers, APGA worked with the Society for Underwater Technology’s Perth, Australia, branch, which is producing a set of competency standards for all subsea engineering.

The competency standards for offshore pipelines will become an integral part of the subsea set, further spreading consistency through the oil and gas industry, the press release said.

Shaun Reardon, the president of APGA, said that Australia’s current industry standard, AS 2885, has “an enviable safety record in pipelines in Australia.”

He said of the new competency standards, “the system is a new way for engineers and their supervisors to understand, assess and document competency. It has been entirely funded and resourced by the members who have been determined to ensure that pipeline engineers continue to achieve the levels of competency required by our industry standard.”

Reardon said that the competency standards have been recognized nationally and form the basis for registration on the National Engineering Register, and with the Queensland engineering registration system RPEQ in the special area of practice of oil and gas pipeline engineering.

He added that overseas pipeline industries are interested in the system.