Taylor to head energy growth centre

Former Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association environmental director Miranda Taylor has been appointed as chief executive of the federal government’s newly established energy resources growth centre, which will be known as National Energy Resources Australia.

Nera, as it will be known, is chaired by former PTTEP executive Ken Fitzpatrick, who made the announcement at the opening of the Australasian Oil & Gas Conference this morning.

Mr Fitzpatrick also revealed the centre would be co-located with the existing Western Australian Energy Research Alliance operation at Curtin University.

It will focus on uranium and coal in addition to oil and gas.

Appointments to the growth centre included Jill Stajduhar as general manager of industry research, Nigel Haywood as general manager of education and skills and Craig Banks as general manager of supply chain development.

The centre is one of six financed for four years by the federal government under a $248 million industry policy package.

Others included mining services, medical and pharmaceutical, advanced manufacturing and agribusiness.

Mr Fitzpatrick outlined that one of the key aims of the centre going forward was to encourage collaboration around maintenance and operations in the LNG industry.

He acknowledged that the oil and gas industry was historically very conservative, while Australia ranked very low for industry/research collaborations.

“All of the oil and gas companies have taken massive write downs this year,” Mr Fitzpatrick said.

“Now is the time to actually foster new parternships.”

That would mean reflecting as an industry on how business was being done and embracing new ideas.

The eventual goal would be to drastically reduce costs and export expertise into other countries.

The centre will have nodes in Adelaide and Brisbane, he said.