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THAT OLD EXPRESSION "breaking new ground" is not just an expression--or at least,
not in Inuvik, Northwest Territories, Canada. That is where they are building
the first below-ground pipeline north of the Arctic Circle in Canada--and "breaking
new ground" is exactly what they are doing during this grueling wintertime project.
It is a challenging project--one that combines severe cold, isolation, and frozen
tundra.
"This kind of digging is tough," said Shawn Reid, president of Reid's
Pipeline, Ltd., the contracting company from Cold Lake, Alberta that
tackled the job. "But this kind of digging probably represents the new
frontier for gas and oil development. Some of the biggest gas and oil
deposits in Canada are located just north of where we're working. And
somehow, it all has to come south."
Inuvik
is located about 160 miles (258 km) north of the Arctic Circle. The
Inuvik Gas Project that Reid's Pipeline is working on will collect
natural gas from two wells located about 30 miles (50 km) north of
Inuvik and bring it to the city's power-generation plant.
"The intent of this project is to convert the current diesel-powered
generation system in Inuvik to natural gas," Reid explained. "That's
mainly because it's so expensive to get the diesel fuel up here. They
have to haul it by road all the way from Edmonton, which is about a
40-hour, one-way trip with a truck."
The trenching part of the project involves cutting through permafrost
for the length of the pipeline.
"The first half of the pipeline project," said Reid, "was covered with
short trees and was generally clay material. But once we passed the
midway point, we were into wide-open tundra."
Reid's crew is using a new Trencor 1260HD chain trencher to do most of the trenching.
"This is our first experience with this kind of trencher," Reid said.
"We bought it specifically for this job. Before owning the Trencor, we
were using mostly track excavators for our ditching operations. But in
digging conditions like we have in Inuvik, the Trencor will do the work
of three or four track excavators."
The entire project is being done in the middle of the winter, Reid
explained. The company's crews started trenching around the beginning
of January and they planned to be finished by the end of March.
"Nothing stops us," said Reid. "Absolutely nothing. It has been as cold as -58° F (-50° C) and
that trencher just keeps trudging along. We never shut it down, especially during those extreme
temperatures."
As
one might imagine, the job performance of a trencher under such
conditions depends largely on what kind of soil is being cut.
"Basically, we're cutting a trench that is 15 in. (38 cm) wide and 6
ft. (1.8 m) deep. When we're in good clay material, we will get
anywhere from 9 to 14 ft. per minute (2.7 to 4.3 m) with the Trencor
trencher.
"But there are some areas where we will run into really bad, rocky
conditions: big, round granite boulders scattered here and there.
Glacial deposits. We don't even try to cut through those things.
Instead, we pull the trencher out and bring in a track excavator to rip
them out of the ground."
Reid said the crew was averaging about 0.6 mile (1 km) per day over the
course of the entire project. The quality of the trench and the quality
of the spoil material was also something that Reid singled out for
favorable comment.
"Compared to what a track excavator can do," Reid said, "this machine
leaves a much nicer trench. It is much neater and cleaner. And it is
more environmentally friendly, too--mainly because we disturb a lot
less soil when we are digging with our trencher.
"With the Trencor chain trencher, we can dig a ditch that is only about
14 or 15 in. (36 or 38 cm) wide. But if we used a track excavator, the
bucket is about 30 in. (76 cm) wide--so we'd be tearing up twice as
much ground."
Reid said he and his crew are very satisfied with their Trencor 1260HD trencher and the job it has been doing
for his company.
"One
thing is for sure," Reid said. "The trencher definitely speeds up the
back end of a pipeline job. It greatly reduces the backfilling and the
clean-up that is normally so time- and labor-intensive."
And what would he tell another contractor who was thinking about getting a Trencor trencher?
"It seems like a well-built machine. And I've been happy with the
service we've been getting from Trencor. The people down there are more
than helpful.
"Time will tell. But I think we've made a good investment."
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