The Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA) has appointed Rick Wilkinson to the new role of APPEA Chief Operating Officer – Eastern Australia.
Wilkinson began his career in the oil and gas industry more than three decades ago and has worked in Iraq, the USA, Egypt, Iran, Sudan and Australia. He has spent the past 14 years with Santos – Australia’s largest domestic gas producer – where he has headed the company’s world-leading coal seam gas (CSG) based LNG project.
APPEA’s Brisbane office opened in 2009 and it continues to grow with the industry in NSW and Queensland. In a very short period, CSG has emerged from being little more than a niche industry, to providing 90 per cent of Queensland’s gas supply and underpinning an $80 billion export industry.
The CSIRO now estimates eastern Australia has enough CSG to power a city of 10 million people for 500 years and the industry’s development is bringing enormous economic benefit to regional communities, as well as enormous environmental benefits as CSG replaces coal as an energy source throughout Australia and Asia.
“However Australia’s CSG sector recognises that it cannot allow the industry’s spectacular growth to out-strip the level to which it is understood within government, or accepted by the community," says APPEA Chief Executive, Belinda Robinson.
Wilkinson will work closely with APPEA’s senior team in Brisbane and Canberra to lead the industry’s advocacy throughout NSW and Queensland.