Pipe jacking and microtunnelling for the Albem SGQ Joint Venture (ASJV), delivered for the Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR)
Quick facts
- Head contractor: Albem SGQ Joint Venture (ASJV)
- Principal: Queensland Department of Transport and Main Roads (TMR)
- Location: Griffin QLD – Bruce Highway between Dohles Rocks Road and Anzac Avenue
- Duration: October 2025 – April 2026, all works completed on time
- Method: Guided pipe jacking – J Series and S Series microtunnelling machines
- Scope: 8 bores, approx. 606 m total
- Pipe sizes: DN450, DN800 and DN1200 concrete jacking pipe
The project
URBA delivered the trenchless stormwater crossings for the Bruce Highway – Dohles Rocks Road to Anzac Avenue upgrade, a major TMR project north of Brisbane. Boring started in October 2025 and reached practical completion on 1 April 2026, with all works completed on time.
DN450 opening bore
The first crossing was a DN450 S Series concrete jacking pipe bore of approximately 30 m.
Quad barrel DN800 crossing
Four parallel 800 J Series jacking pipe lines, each 77 m long (308 m total). The crew got faster with every line installed, completing the final bore in just 3.5 days.
Single DN800 under the Bruce Highway
An 87 m 800 J Series pipe jack beneath the Bruce Highway. Before reaching the highway the drive pushed through uncontrolled fill, a geofabric rock mattress and boulders over 600 mm. A buried concrete obstruction was cleared by confined-space entry, and the machine was recovered from a 5 m deep excavation.
Twin cell DN1200 crossing
The largest drives on the job: twin 1200 J Series bores of approximately 90 m each, with no room for error on line and grade. After each drive the 1200 MTBM was craned out of the exit pit and trucked back for the next line.
Ground conditions
Stiff clay with acid sulphate soils and tree roots, transitioning to fill and boulders near the highway – exactly the variable ground URBA’s in-house built, fully guided machines with vacuum spoil extraction are designed for.
Project gallery
As featured in Trenchless Australasia
URBA’s work on the Dohles Rocks project under the Bruce Highway featured in Trenchless Australasia’s May 2026 profile “Under the radar” by William Craske, which looks at how URBA has grown from in-house machine building to delivering guided microtunnelling and pipe jacking for tier 1 contractors across NSW and Queensland.
