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Griselda Sprigg

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The map which shows the routes of Reg and Griselda's crossings of the Simpson Desert. The map was scanned from her book 'Dune is a Four Letter Word'.
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Petroleum Pioneer Passes Away
By Reg Nelson
Managing Director, Beach Petroleum

The first white woman known to have crossed the Simpson Desert not once, but three times, and one of Australia's most memorable pioneering women, Griselda Sprigg, passed away on March 20th, 2003.

Griselda was born in Paisley, Scotland in 1921. She met and married Australian geologist, Reg Sprigg, in Glasgow in 1951 and moved to Australia to work with Reg in the remote north of South Australia at Radium Hill. Together they formed a remarkable team, strengthened by their children, Margaret and Doug.

From a life at mining settlements like Radium Hill and a variety of exploration camps, she accompanied Reg on his geological forays into the outback. Griselda crossed the Simpson Desert when Reg's company, Geosurveys of Australia, was spearheading oil exploration widely across Australia.

The Simpson Desert in the 1960s was largely unmapped. There were no GPS systems, radio communications were poor and no helicopters were readily available for emergency rescue. Despite this, the Spriggs crossed the Simpson from west to east and then south to north by Land Rover.

Reg was one of Australia's pioneering oilmen. In 1954 he took a leading role in setting up Santos Ltd. In 1962 he went on to found Beach Petroleum. Griselda should be considered in many senses a co-founder of Beach. A trained nurse, her organisational skills were outstanding and the early days of the company were undoubtedly underpinned by her administrative authority.

Reg was associated with the formation of APEA, now APPEA, and remained a strong supporter of the association for the rest of his life. In the 1970s he was instrumental in setting up both of APEA's Field Guide for Environmental Protection guidelines covering both onshore and offshore operations.

His strong belief in protection of the environment, in co-existence with responsible and sustainable petroleum exploration and development, remains an abiding tenet of APPEA to this day. As with so much that Reg and Griselda did together, it was, for its time, well ahead of conventional thinking.

In 1967, the couple purchased the 61,000 ha Arkaroola Station in the northern Flinders Ranges of South Australia, then drought stricken and degraded after nearly a century as a marginal sheep run. The family moved there shortly after the purchase and has continued to operate it in the interests of wildlife conservation and preservation of its unique flora, and its mining and pastoral history.

The Arkaroola Wildlife Sanctuary and Tourist Resort is the largest and most comprehensive such undertaking in Australia, one specifically developed to foster responsible tourism in harmony with conservation of the environment. Eco-tourism was an unknown term in the 1970s, but Reg and Griselda were there first.

Reg passed away in 1994. They were a devoted couple. In poignant words, Griselda recalled in her book, 'Dune is a Four Letter Word', published in 2001, how she would sit by Reg's memorial at remote Mount Painter and think of her man.

Beach Petroleum always remained a favourite for both Reg and Griselda. We fondly remember that, at the age of nearly 80, she eagerly travelled from Arkaroola in June 2001 to officiate at the opening of Beach Petroleum's new offices. She said she "would not have missed it for quids".

And, being Griselda, she could not resist a stern admonition for those of us who are continuing to uphold the legacy that she and Reg forged: "Now go out and find more oil, and bloody lots of it!"

A deeply respected and much loved Australian pioneer, a true Australian outback identity, Griselda Sprigg will be greatly missed, but greatly remembered and honoured.

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Nugent Joins Origin Energy Board

The board of Origin Energy has appointed Dr Helen Nugent as a non-executive director of the company.

Nugent was previously Director of Strategy for Westpac from 1994 to 1999 and a director of United Energy from 1999 to 2001. She was a partner at McKinsey & Company and Professor in Management and Director of the MBA Programme at the Australian Graduate School of Management, University of New South Wales.

She is currently a director of Macquarie Bank, Australia Post and UNiTAB as well as being Chairman of Swiss Re Australia. She holds a Bachelor of Arts (first class honours) and a Doctorate of Philosophy from the University of Queensland as well as a Masters of Business Administration (Distinction) from the Harvard Business School.

Origin Energy Chairman, Kevin McCann, said Nugent's risk management background would be particularly relevant for Origin's gas and electricity retail operation. "We are very pleased to retain a director of her calibre", he said.

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Goldstein Takes Reins As New President

PESA National President, Barry Goldstein, reckons remaining relevant to PESA's members is the top priority. He said this will be achieved by sustaining PESA's programs of timely and high quality luncheon lectures, publications, basin symposiums, cost-effective professional-level education workshops, website access to information, support for petroleum geoscience students, farmin symposiums (Deal Days) and undertaking additional sustainable initiatives that fit members' needs.

In the past three years, PESA's key initiatives were to:
• Establish a new tradition with the Eastern Australasian Basin, Symposiums (starting in Melbourne in 2001) to twin PESA's
popular West Australian Basins Symposiums;
• Create an Education Committee that includes representatives from each PESA branch, the ASEG and SPE;
• Provide gratis first year PESA membership to petroleum geoscience students enrolled in Australian tertiary institutions (and sustain half-price membership for students thereafter) and;
• Establish a searchable industry events calendar on PESA's website.

Goldstein's agenda for key initiatives over his two-year term are to:
• Sustain the excellence of PESA's luncheon programs;
• Deliver ever-better education, conferences, publications and website services by collaborating evermore effectively with
aligned organisations - e.g. AAPG, ASEG, SPE, FES/SPWLA and;
• Work with APPEA to establish a sustainable online technical papers database (with word-search capabilities).

Goldstein laid out the federal executive's agenda to PESA News at the APPEA conference in March after being elected to the position. "PESA has been investigating means to implement a sustainable online technical papers library service for more than two years now and this remains our highest priority new initiative", he said. The vision, with approval from the relevant bodies, is to provide web access to all papers published in the PESA Journal, PESA symposium proceedings, the APPEA Journal and New Zealand conference proceedings.

Goldstein said the federal executive has not yet made a final decision on how best to ensure a sustainable online technical papers library service. "All options being considered provide PESA members with some number of free downloads per year. It has yet to be decided what the charge will be for downloads in excess of what is 'free' to members and for non-member downloads. It may be that a number of organisations wanting real-time web access to all PESA Journal, PESA Symposium and APPEA papers are willing to support this 'shared system', so running and update costs are underwritten through multi-year subscriptions", he said.

"The bottom lines are easy access to key learnings for PESA members and facilitating an evermore global reputation for Australian petroleum E&P experts by getting their papers online and linked to international bibliographies such as GEOREF. This will make it easier for PESA members to solve problems and market their expertise."

Goldstein wants to maintain the quality, diversity and enjoyment that he said PESA delivers to its membership. "These include the luncheons, the publications, the symposiums, the training, the website, scholarships, which are a provision for the future, and also collaborative initiatives (aligned with PESA members' interests) such as our Farmin Symposiums (Deal-Days) and annual E&P industry reviews at APPEA conferences. This year we also played a supportive role, first chairing the March 2003 APPEA Conference forum to nurture small to medium sized E&P petroleum enterprises and, later, providing appropriate content for the May 2003 forum - Tools to Inform / Attract Investors in Perth", he said.

"It's a society that brings together professionals who all want a vibrant and prosperous petroleum exploration and production industry. We want the industry to grow, not decline. E&P professionals would prefer to have fun at and pride in their work. Getting recognised and respected for good efforts is important, too. Publishing an account of lessons learnt at a PESA Basins Symposium is, from my own experience, worth the extra effort. It is a way to give something back and to stay relevant on a professional level. Employers who support publications gain respect within the E&P community and that is valuable in keeping and recruiting keen professionals."

Goldstein is passionate about attracting high quality and relevant national and international experts to speak to PESA members. He has been involved in selecting speakers for the PESA Australian Lecturer and PESA International Visiting Lecturer programmes over the past few years. He wants to work closely with cognate organisations like the AAPG, ASEG/SEG, SPE and affiliates of the SPWLA to coordinate lecture tours of overseas speakers to make the optimum use of their time.

He wants to deliver high priority, timely and relatively low cost training to PESA members. He said communicating early and often with both employers and cognate professional organisations within the petroleum E&P community can mitigate topic and timing overlaps and leverage travel costs, especially in relation to expert teachers brought to Australia from North America and Europe.

Goldstein said people in the industry are now cooperating to leverage efforts more than ever before. "I find that petroleum industry professionals know when to keep a secret and when it is sensibly advantageous to cooperate through support for professional societies. If information is power, sharing information is often the most enabling option. It is a high priority for the local E&P professional societies (PESA, SPE, ASEG and SPWLA affiliates) to complement each other to remain relevant. Simply by routinely communicating incipient plans for events, PESA, ASEG and SPE can together deliver economies of scale to their respective members", he said.

"We achieve a lot more by talking to one another. For instance this year's Esso Distinguished Lecturer, Martin Landro (AVO, 4C and 4D), is a terrific choice because he is an expert of interest to both PESA and ASEG members. Likewise, the ASEG/SEG lecturer for 2003 is Olivier Dubrule (geostatistics), who is an expert of interest to PESA members. It is also mission critical to nurture and promote local worthy experts. Indeed, one selection criterion for the PESA Distinguished Visiting Lecturer (PDVL) is that comparable expertise is not resident in Australia. That is aligned with PESA's objectives of sustaining a vital and thriving workforce here in Australia", he said.

Goldstein has also accepted a position on the AAPG's International Distinguished Lecturer Committee (IDLC). "In the first half of every year, the AAPG IDLC considers a comprehensive list of global experts and nominates 'gurus' of most interest to various regions. The ranking (by topic) of training needs developed by PESA's Education Committee is a good basis to align requests (for AAPG IDLs) with PESA members' needs. In 2004 the AAPG IDL for Australia will be John Castagne (reservoir characterisation with seismic data), and this has been welcomed by ASEG, too", he said. "In 2003 we secured an international focus on local talent with John Kaldi being one of the two AAPG IDLs for our region in 2003."

Another challenge is providing lecturers that all PESA members are interested in listening to. "The demographics of PESA are not uniform", Goldstein said. "Legal, financial and investment professionals make up a significant proportion of PESA members in some cities; a rock physics lecture may be standing room only in Perth but may only achieve modest interest in Sydney."

"It's a matter of having enough ideas that suit everybody. The biggest challenge is actually coming to consensus positions on who, on balance, are the best teachers and lecturers. We have set up the Education Committee with representatives from every PESA Branch as well as ASEG and SPE. Early communication of proposals is the first step to breed good plans. I guess that is the essential element. Asking people early and establishing what topics are desirable early, leaves time to derive good plans. The Education Committee discovers what people want."

One of the most effective communication tools is email and Goldstein is a keen user, constantly sending out what has become known within PESA circles as Barrygrams. "Email is terrific for most communication needs: less intrusive than phone calls, faster and less formal than snail-mail. It provides an instant, searchable record of correspondence. Like most organisations, PESA has adopted email as its standard means of internal correspondence, including notices of events to members", he said.

Goldstein added, "Most recently, PESA has also gone 'virtual' for some committee discussions, which have been conducted as teleconferences. That saved both time and airfares without a detrimental effect on those publications and federal executive deliberations."

Goldstein has conducted informal surveys at conferences over the past 18 months to determine the most popular services PESA provides to its members. "The monthly technical meetings were at the top of the list", he said. "That is what people, month in, month out, really do look forward to. After that, opinions diverge: PESA News, basin symposiums or conferences (and associated proceedings), website access to information and distinguished lecture and workshop programmes are all 'number twos' on someone's list. Support for petroleum geoscience students, deal-days (farmin symposiums) and providing annual recaps of the upstream petroleum E&P industry at APPEA conferences also make the short list of sustainable and highly valued PESA initiatives.

Goldstein served as VP for the PESA SA Branch from 1998-99 before joining the federal executive as President of PESA SA in 2000. He then served as the Federal VP for two years from March 2001 before taking on the President's role in March 2003. He said the new federal executive is a very capable and enthusiastic team, comprising David Cliff VP; Mike Hanzalik, Treasurer and Bronwyn Camac, Secretary.

Goldstein's passion for education stems from his work. Throughout his career, he has been keen to adopt the best available methods and technologies in a value-of-information framework. Learning how to frame critical questions is something that comes from experience and education. "It is true, experience is inevitable and learning is an option. Short courses run by global gurus are good ways to learn how to recognise and then reduce material E&P uncertainties by priority", he said.

"People need skills to recognise critical uncertainties and wisdom to choose tools that can to help solve the key problems. It has always been important to me to know what's hot in terms of methods and technologies."

"My role as a chief geologist in petroleum E&P companies was, in part, to consider technologies, methods and education that could enable people to be more effective. I get considerable satisfaction extending that experience to foster skills-transfer for PESA members. Louis Pasteur was spot-on when he said, 'Chance favours the prepared mind'."

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Barry Goldstein, 1971.

Ted Ellyard (left) and Barry Goldstein after full day of field work in the jungle – trying to figure out where they've been on an air photo, Seram Indonesia in 1985.

Travel Without Tattoos Was Clincher For Geological Future

The opportunity to travel the world, without the need to get tattoos, was one of the reasons Barry Goldstein decided to become a geologist.

Goldstein was born in the Bronx and grew up in the suburbs of New York City on Long Island. While considering chemistry as his major at the University of New York at Binghamton in 1973, he saw a job advertisement for a water chemist to research salinisation rates of the 'water pillow' on the island of Bermuda.

"I got that job, which was a National Science Foundation grant, and spent the summer on Bermuda, riding around on a moped with a titration kit in one basket and a putter in the other", Goldstein said. "I recognised right then and there that if what geologists do is travel the world, without peer pressure to get tattoos, like you would if you joined the navy, then that is the life for me."

Goldstein completed his undergrad geology degree in 1975 – when few were hiring geos with just Bachelors – so he decided to accept a teaching assistance grant and pursue a Masters in Geology at the University of Missouri - Columbia.

He landed a summer job with Phillips 66 in 1976 in Bartlesville, Oklahoma (working in their deep water group – SEAGAP). Phillips subsequently offered Goldstein a full-time position after completing his Masters in mid 1977.

After three months training in Bartlesville, he was dispatched to Stavanger as a wellsite / development geologist in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea. In late 1978, he shifted to Phillips' London office to work in the UK, Dutch and German sectors of the North Sea, gradually spending less time on rigs and more time as a regional exploration geologist.

"My experience with PPCo was terrific and worthwhile. I probably would have stayed but for the choice in late 1981 of either moving to Australia with a pay rise, versus a return to Bartlesville with the loss of expat-benefits", he said.

"The job in Perth was with a newly formed company in a city of which (at that time) I knew little, in a country that remains fascinating to me. Goldstein said, "After considering the alternatives for a nano-second, I accepted the job in Perth with the International Energy Development Corporation (IEDC), reporting to my former boss at Phillips (UK), Brian Luecke."

IEDC was owned by the Arab Petroleum Investment Corporation, Volvo, Sulpetro and a NYSE listed real estate company (AZL) controlled by Maurice Strong, the well known Canadian businessman and currently a senior advisor to the United Nations. "It was a pretty interesting company", he said. "IEDC's Perth office was focused on extensive acreage in the Canning Basin and some small holdings in Indonesia. I came into the team exploring those areas."

"IEDC then merged with KUFPEC. We had a great team at IEDC / KUFPEC. Notables included Ted Ellyard and Peter Botten. I worked for KUFPEC until the end of '86, after the oil price collapse." Goldstein was a consultant to the Queensland Petroleum Trust for two months prior to being employed by Bridge Oil in Sydney in March 1987. He was Chief Geologist at Bridge Oil until late 1995. In December 1995, Goldstein applied for and accepted a position in Adelaide as a corporate exploration manager with Santos. His role with Santos was largely focused on assessing new ventures and negotiations with government. He also served as Santos' representative on APPEA's Exploration Committee.

Goldstein had spent many years in the industry putting in 14-hour days, six to seven days a week. Turning 49, the desire to spend more time with his family, wanting to continue 'giving something back' to the petroleum E&P community through his association with PESA, the terrorist attacks on New York City on September 11th 2001 and then the offer of a very enticing career opportunity comprised a sufficient confluence of events and desires for Goldstein to take a step-change in his career.

He accepted the position of Director of Petroleum for the Department of Primary Industries and Resources, South Australia (PIRSA) from January 2002. "I am having heaps of fun nurturing petroleum E&P efforts, both through my job and through PESA volunteer work and I have rediscovered there are days in the week that begin with the letter 'S'. I am very satisfied having time to 'give back' to the industry that has treated me very well indeed", he said.

As well as having more time for PESA activities, Goldstein is also enjoying spending more time with his family, comprising his partner Jenny Reeve, his two 'twenty-something' daughters and five grandchildren. Goldstein first met Jenny, who he calls his 'reason for living', in 1985 at the Lords Health Club in Subiaco.

"She was the aerobics instructor and I was in the class at Lords. We were in the same social group before we actually started to date", he said. "Now, my most enjoyable role in life is to spoil the grand kids."

Goldstein also coached C and D grade for the Subiaco district's basketball teams. "They assumed anybody with an American accent must know how to coach. I had to get a book. I am still keen on AM jogs and fun runs, with the Sydney City to Surf and Adelaide City to Bay events as 'must-haves'", he said.

His first meal out at a restaurant with Jenny provided her with an insight of what life with a geologist would be like. "I got a phone call half way through the meal", he said. "We had a well going and I had to go back to the office to look at logs and talk to the rig. I gave her my credit card and said I would be back. I got back for dessert and it went forward from there."

Goldstein was extremely pleased to become an Australian citizen in 1994. "I did have career opportunities to leave Australia but I voted with my feet. There may be places where the grass is as green, but certainly not greener. Life is fantastic here."

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Bill Russell-Cargill

Martin Castalanelli

Fugro Appoints Two New Directors

Leading marine survey company, Fugro Survey, has announced the appointment of two well-known industry figures as directors.

Bill Russell-Cargill, the former Managing Director of South African-based Underwater Surveys which was bought by Fugro five years ago, will manage the marine division.

Meanwhile, Martin Castalanelli will head up the company's technical development division which developed both the GAMBAS refraction seismic tool as well as an underwater vehicle that can survey seabeds at depths of up to 3,000 m.

Bill Russell-Cargill (far left) and Martin Castalanelli (left).

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