Twelves months on from the gas outage that burdened Bathurst

They couldn't have anticipated that around 20,000 households and businesses in Bathurst and the surrounding area were about to lose their hot water, heating and gas cooking.

But, late in the night on November 2, that's exactly what happened and, for some, it was a crisis that lasted weeks.

What was the cause? A leak in the Young Lithgow Pipeline that had been damaged after significant flooding in regional NSW eroded the Macquarie River bank.

There was an immediate response from APA Group and Jemena to restore gas supply to Bathurst on November 3, but the process to get gas back to each household and business would take longer.

Each individual connection in Bathurst, Lithgow, Oberon and Wallerawang had to go through a manual relight process, which was expected to take weeks with the limited number of personnel on the ground.

While places like the public hospital and nursing homes were prioritised during the restoration process, everyone else had to simply make do until crews could get to them.

One of the biggest challenges was access to a hot shower.

Bathurst Regional Council made shower facilities available at Carrington Park, McPhillamy Park and the Hereford Street sporting fields during the outage.

The Bathurst Harness Racing Club also opened up its showers to the community.

Many people were also snapping up gas bottles for barbecues and electric hotplates to enable them to cook at home.

An emergency hotline was established with Service NSW for affected customers, enabling vulnerable households to make contact if they needed immediate welfare assistance with food or material aid, such as blankets, heaters or warm clothing.

As the crisis unfolded, the APA worked on a range of short and long-term solutions to restore gas supply to the Bathurst, Lithgow, Oberon and Wallerawang areas as quickly as possible.

This included an initial temporary solution of transporting a 42-tonne LNG storage vessel from Victoria to enable Jemena to restore gas on a priority basis to vulnerable services and some customers.

Bathurst residents were fortunate to have their gas restored by November 8, however, some customers had a longer wait than others as crews visited every individual property.

It wasn't until November 20 that work was completed on a temporary pipeline, which would enable full gas supply to be restored to customers in Lithgow, Oberon and Wallerawang.

A permanent fix for the pipeline was then completed on December 19, 2022.

Initially, it was thought it could take six weeks to reconnect all customers, but gas ended up being restored in 18 days.

More than 200 APA employees and contractors from across Australia, including as far as Tasmania and Perth, were brought in to work on the three solutions in very challenging conditions.

READ MORE: Meet the team who travelled 3500km to help out in the gas crisis

Continued heavy rain and flooding hampered access to the site, but they persevered.

Reflecting on the crisis 12 months later, APA chief executive officer and manager director Adam Watson said the effort put in to repair the pipeline was "incredible".

"We were overwhelmed by the support we received from local residents and businesses, as well as the Local Emergency Management Committee, local councils, community organisations and government representatives, who worked tirelessly with APA and Jemena to restore gas supply as quickly and safely as possible," he said.

"Gas to vulnerable services and some customers was brought back online via trucked LNG within 12 days, and full supply was delivered within 18 days through a temporary pipeline solution, despite further impacts from flooding in the area.

"A permanent solution was completed in under seven weeks. A truly remarkable outcome."

The possibility of another crisis like this hasn't been completely ruled out, but a lot of effort has gone in to limiting the risk.

The permanent repair involved conducting a horizontal directional drill (HDD) and inserting the new pipework approximately 15 metres below the bottom of the Macquarie River, ensuring that the pipeline is significantly below the river to mitigate any future issues.

The new pipeline was thoroughly tested to all relevant Australian standards, requiring significant efforts from subject matter experts from around Australia.

Mr Watson said the APA is continuing to inspect and maintain the infrastructure.

"We are focused on ensuring our operations are sustainable and continue to deliver reliable energy that households and businesses depend on every day," he said.

"With this in mind, we continue to undertake rigorous inspections of our pipelines on a regular basis and maintain them to one of the most advanced standards for high-pressure pipelines in the world."

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