Client: Coffey Geotechnics for the Santos LNG Project

Site description: Heavy evening condensation turned the mudflats to a sticky glue-like substance that would stop most vehicles.

Brief: Design and build a system to collect 25 high quality 4.5m long vibracore samples on intertidal mudflats.

Service: A man portable prototype was designed and built in-house. Following trials a more sophisticated unit that could be transported by one of our all terrain vehicles was manufactured. The vehicles were heavily modified and strengthened to our requirements.

Result: CPTS was able to access every nominated location without damage to the environmentally sensitive mangrove areas. The system worked so well a Santos senior representative described our operation as 'well oiled machine'.

Outcome: The scope of work was expanded to include a total of 45 samples.