Roma-based field services specialists, Wild Desert, provide an insight into the trucks that keep Australia’s oil and gas wells running around the clock.
Wild Desert offers oil and gas field services like rig servicing, transport operations and even mobile camp delivery, using a fleet of more than 50 trucks to get to some of Australia’s most remote locations.
Managing Director at Wild Desert, David Whiley, says that he opened the company nearly twenty years ago after seeing a need for the services.
“Back in 2005 we saw the opportunity, so we sold a few houses and bought a truck,” Mr Whiley said.
“Since then we’ve just been getting busier every year.”
Around half of the company’s fleet is made up of rugged Mack Titan trucks, kept busy transporting equipment and supplies to destinations from Moomba in South Australia to the Carnarvon Ranges in Queensland.
“Our trucks are mostly running as AB triple or triple road trains and, depending on what they’re carrying and where they’re going, they might do anything from 500 to 3,500 kilometres in a trip,” Mr Whiley said.
The trucks have to get into some extremely remote places through some of the toughest terrain in the country, so Wild Desert needs capable, severe-duty trucks that can handle the harshest outback conditions.
“We’re often way off the bitumen and on some of the roads the corrugations are so wide apart you can’t get on top of them,” Mr Whiley said.
“In those places we have to crawl along at five kilometres an hour.
“On one job a few years ago it took me four hours to go 70 kilometres,” he said.
Wild Desert not only services wells for five of Australia’s biggest oil and gas companies, but it also delivers entire camps to remote sites around the country.
The sites are set up, stocked and fully-staffed, and it is not uncommon for Wild Desert to pack down a camp only to reinstall it hundreds of kilometres away on the same day.
“We’re a single-source provider, and that’s what our customers like,” Mr Whiley said.
“We bring in all our own fuel and parts from Brisbane, and we supply all our own food out of Roma.
“The only thing we don’t do is fly in the staff – we know our limitations,” he said.
Mr Whiley first discovered what he thinks is one of the toughest trucks around in 2006 when he bought a 1998 Mack Titan, and that same truck is still going strong today some 18 years later.
“My dad drove Flintstones and R600s, so I had a bit of history with Mack, but the Titan is ideal for what we do,” Mr Whiley said.
“They don’t just look tough, they are tough, they hold up well and we’ve kept ours going for years through multiple rebuilds.”
The team at Western Truck Group in Toowoomba has been helping setup the Titans for Wild Desert, offering advice on how to make the trucks even tougher for the work they are subjected to.
“They understand the environments we work in and the things that matter to us in a truck,” Mr Whiley said.
“We’ve got tougher mounts on some of them, bigger toolboxes, long-range fuel tanks and iceboxes.”
The trucks need to be more than just tough, Mr Whiley explains, with comfort high on the list for his drivers who spend up to 20 days away from home at a time.
“Our drivers do 20 days on and ten off, and during that time they might spend fifteen nights in the truck, so driver comfort is very important,” Mr Whiley said.
“For drivers who are heading into places that are literally hundreds of miles from anywhere, the Titan is a great combination of toughness and comfort.”
Business is booming for Wild Desert and the company bought three more Mack Titans last year to keep up with demand. Despite the arrival of the new Titans, the company has just ordered another two and Mr Whiley says a third may be on the cards later this year.
“We’re busier than we’ve ever been so we’re taking the opportunity to expand, and also to replace some of the older manuals with autos,” Mr Whiley said.
“Not that we’ll be selling any trucks, they’ll just get put on lighter duties.”
