As Cheryl recently advised in e-News, Immediate Past President Mark Harper’s career has taken a new direction and as a result he has resigned from the Board. I would like to take this opportunity to acknowledge Mark’s significant and active contribution to APIA throughout his time on the Board and in particular as President. As the current make up of the Board’s representation required that Mark be replaced, we were very fortunate that past Director Graeme Fitzgerald’s role with OneSteel had changed, allowing him to again participate and we were delighted when he accepted the invitation to rejoin the Board.
I was honoured to be asked to open the well-attended Pipeline Operator Group’s seminar in Adelaide in April. This was Adelaide’s first POG Seminar and coincided with POG’s fiftieth meeting. By all accounts it was a very successful day and there was a high level of participation. I noticed a number of Adelaide’s young technical people in the audience – this is a great sign and a big thank you to their employers for allowing them to attend. If we did not have POG we would have to invent it – it presents a very necessary forum for all pipeliners to put aside commercial matters and discuss common operational issues to the benefit of all. Great to see that the pipeline controllers are providing input too.
In May, I participated in the YPF and APIA seminars in Brisbane. These seminars proved to be very popular and – to my knowledge – this was the first time APIA has ever run concurrent streams, with the two groups coming together in the afternoon. Despite the fact that it meant I initially needed to appear in two places at once, the day was a success; with a number of thought-provoking and highly topical papers in both the morning and afternoon sessions. It was great to see the less and the more experienced sharing ideas and views, both in the sessions and in the breaks. Well done to Cheryl and Steve, the APIA Secretariat and the YPF for designing a flexible program, as well as all the presenters for their contribution.
I recently replaced Jim McDonald on the Gas Market Leader’s Group, joining the ever-active Steve Livens of Epic Energy as one of APIA’s two representatives in that Group. The GMLG oversees the development of the government’s Bulletin Board and Short Term Trading Market initiatives, and is now reviewing a proposal to set up a gas industry equivalent of the electricity industry’s Statement of Opportunities. Jim’s “˜thought-leader’ steadying hand has assisted APIA greatly in its message of common sense outcomes and – to reinforce this general view – on welcoming me more than one GMLG member made mention of the size of the shoes I had to fill! Thank you, Jim, for yet another contribution to our industry’s development.
While still on matters regulatory, the new access legislation and rules were tabled in the South Australian Parliament in April, and by now are expected to have become law around Australia. As I have commented before, we have been assured by the Australian Energy Regulator, which now takes over the role of regulating gas pipeline infrastructure, that it will endeavour to be pragmatic, open and communicative.
See you at the Convention!
APIA Board
President: Ashley Kellett, South East Australia Gas Pty Ltd
Vice President: Mark Twycross, McConnell Dowell Constructors
Treasurer: Peter Cox, WorleyParsons
Steve Banning, Epic Energy
Murray Durham, Apache Energy
Graeme Fitzgerald, OneSteel
Andrew Lukas, AJ Lucas Group
Michael McCormack, APA Group
Marie Malaxos, Arc Energy