The 2004 winner of the Lewis G Weeks Medal is Dr Peter Cook, Chief Executive of the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies.

Dr Cook has a distinguished academic record in Australia, the United States and in the United Kingdom, and has some 130 publications to his credit. Early in his career he participated in the first geological mapping of the Amadeus Basin, geological mapping of Antarctica, deep sea drilling studies, and he led a major program to define the Phanerzoic palaeogeography of Australia.

From 1982 to 1998 he had a distinguished public service career in Australia at the Australian Bureau of Mineral Resources, and in the UK as Director of the British Geological Survey. In 1998 Dr Cook became Executive Director of the Australian Petroleum Cooperative Research Centre.

Since 2003 he has been Chief Executive of the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies. For the past four years he as co-chaired the APPEA Conference technical papers committee.
The Lewis G Weeks Memorial Gold Medal recognises outstanding contributions to the development of the petroleum exploration and production industry in Australia. The medal commemorates Dr Lewis Weeks who undertook pioneering work in Bass Strait, as well as making a number of other international exploration achievements. The award was first made in 1982 and this is the 22nd occasion on which APPEA has presented the gold medal.

This 2004 environment award winner announced at this year’s APPEA conference is Arc Energy. Arc’s success reflects the depth of commitment to excellence in environmental management throughout the entire industry.

The 2004 finalists included:

• n Esso Australia – the largest producer of oil and gas in Australia and which is now emitting 28% less greenhouse gasses than in 1990
  
• Nexen Petroleum – which is still intro- ducing new technology into Australia in a field nearing the end of its life; and
  
• this year’s winner – Arc Energy – which has successfully been transformed from a small exploration company into a well respected and committed onshore operator.

Arc Energy has set a new standard for the onshore export of crude by road in Australia. Development of the Crude Export System has benefits not only for Arc, but also for the onshore industry as a whole and for the local communities in which our industry operates.

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At APPEA this year it was acknowledged that the performance of the industry in 2003 was not all that it should have been.

While indicators of industry performance (on safety) are showing improvement and compare favourably to most other industries in Australia, and to industry performance overseas, they hide an unacceptable and highly regrettable situation. In 2003 the industry had four fatalities – one offshore and three onshore.

In the areas of safety and environment, good performance requires two things – management leadership and an operational culture which pervades all decisions at all levels of operation. Safety is a necessity every hour of our lives, every day of the year. The only acceptable benchmark is zero incidents.

While these are messages repeated every year at the APPEA conference, they are vital messages for individuals, companies and industry. Only the world’s best standard of performance is acceptable. It can never be a matter of standing still.

In recognition of their leading safety performances and their contribution to enhancing safety culture across the industry, the winners of APPEA’s Safety Awards for 2004 are:

• Woodside Energy Ltd – Category A for producing companies;
• Inpex Browse Ltd – Category B for exploration companies; and
• Bonus Well Servicing and Diamond Offshore – Category C for onshore and offshore drilling companies.

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The winner of this year’s scholarship is Patrick Tyrrell.

Patrick has completed his honours degree in Applied Geology at the University of New South Wales. His honours thesis was on ‘An evaluation of the petroleum potential of the Mesozoic subcrop edge in the Gulf of Papua’.

Patrick is now looking to pursue further studies in areas relevant to the industry.

The Tony Noon Scholarship aims to encourage the talent of undergraduate students who are showing an interest in pursuing a career in vocations relevant to the petroleum industry, such as exploration, safety, environmental management, engineering, economics or legal studies.

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The March 2004 APPEA conference in Canberra was a huge success with high quality papers and an extensive exhibition.

Included in the geoscience technical program were three substantive papers on the 3D structure and evolution of the Bass Strait basins, presented by PhD students and a Post-Doctoral fellow from the Earth Sciences department at the University of Melbourne. For his stylish and clear delivery, combined with excellent graphics, PhD student Craig Schneider was granted the PESA award for Best Presentation.

Craig presented his structural interpretation of the Minerva 3D seismic dataset in the Otway Basin, showing the extensional and compressional stages in its evolution, particularly related to the time of trap formation and subsequent hydrocarbon charge. PhD student Daniel Palmowski presented his structural interpretation and restorations of the Investigator 3D seismic dataset in the Otway Basin, nicely complementing the Thylacine and Geography presentations from David Cliff of Woodside. In the same session, Post-Doc Ursula Weber demonstrated how regional apatite fission track data can be used to quantify denudation, and hence sediment supply, to the Gippsland Basin, and how this can be used to help predict reservoir quality.

The presented papers were:

• Palmowski D., Hill K.C. & Hoffman N., 2004. Structure and hydrocarbons in the Shipwreck Trough, Otway Basin half-graben gasfields abutting a continental transform. APPEA J. March 2004, 417–440.
  

• Schneider C.L., Hill K.C. & Hoffman N., 2004. Compressional growth of the Minerva Anticline, Otway Basin, southeast Australia – evidence of oblique rifting. APPEA Journal March 2004, 463–480.
  

• Weber U., Hill K.C., Brown R., Gallagher K., Kohn B., Gleadow A.J.W. & Foster D.A., 2004. Sediment supply to the Gippsland Basin from thermal history analysis: constraints on Emperor-Golden Beach reservoir composition. APPEA Journal March 2004, 397–416.

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