"Working Visit to Taiwan" Taipei by duncanlbrown

I made a work visit to Taiwan.

My employers were thinking of building an LNG import terminal and a gas pipeline to a power station, and I had to find the best route for the pipeline. The first phase involved looking at the harbour sites where the terminal might be, then finding a route out to sea to a possible offshore pipeline. We happened to chose the busiest harbout in Taiwan (Taichung) so the routing was really hard work.

We thought we could build it alongside or in the sea defences. No chance.

Beachcomber's Hut

Second phase was to look for places the offshore pipeline could land about 100 km further up the coast.

This involved trying to convince our local driver to explore the "military area". Understandably he was rather reluctant. Eventually we found our way to the beach.

And on the beach, we found a beachcomber's hut. Now if you've ever seen the movie Local Hero (and if not, why not?) and you might know that I come from a Scottish coastal village - you'll see why this is quite ironic.

If not, email me for mor explanation.

Bridging the Void

After much much more work, the offshore pipeline route was placed in the "Too Difficult" box, and we investigated building a pipeline on land.

The West side of Taiwan is a very densely populated area, and finding a route for a high-pressure pipeline was very hard.

Even harder, was finding somewhere for the pipeline to cross the huge river beds, which are carved out by flash floods.

This place we found, had a bridge carrying a pipeline, built after the previous pipe (which was buried in the river bed) got washed away.

Eventually, the whole project was put in the "Too difficult" box, and we all left to build oilfields somewhere easier. Like Angola.

• Pros:Hard work, very different place
• Cons:Didn't work out in the end
• In a nutshell:Try harder, Duncan!!!!