Rodinia Oil Corp has spudded its first well, “Mulyawara 1”, in the Officer Basin of South Australia.

Intergraph CADWorx Plant Design Suite 2012, the newest version of Intergraph’s design solution for mid-market and AutoCAD-based projects and workgroups, is now compatible with AutoCAD 2012, the latest AutoCAD release from Autodesk.

Automated knowledge transfer solutions that effectively close the skills gap and deliver a powerful combination of rich functionality and ease of use are likely to become increasingly popular.

Located in the South Gobi region near the Mongolian/Chinese border, the Uhkaa Khudag mine is the first large-scale coal mine in Mongolia to be developed and operated to international mining standards and practices.

Moored out to sea, 200 km from the nearest land in Australia, Shell’s FLNG facility will produce gas from offshore fields and liquefy it onboard by cooling. The world’s largest floating offshore facility chills gas to -162 degrees C and turns it into liquid. It shrinks the gas by 600 times, allowing it to be shipped to far off towns and cities where energy is needed.

Using a $39.8 million Green Car Innovation Fund grant, Holden will transform the way they design, engineer and manufacture the Commodore, reducing fuel consumption by more than 7 per cent.

The mix of shot and long term policy changes and initiatives may turn out to be positive for the industry. The Federal government finally acknowledges, and acts on, skills shortage. But clean energy is the biggest loser.

Reducing energy consumption is no longer a nice thing to do – it has become business critical. Taking action, however, needs to be more than just a stab in the dark.

Scientists in CRC CARE are working on ways to turn one of the nation’s major urban organic wastes into a safe source of fertility for the continent’s depleted soils.

Surface welding instead of penetration welding, allows a laser to produce a weld that is only visible on one side. But how do you control the laser power to prevent it burning a hole through the sheets of metal? A new camera system analyses thermal images in real time – and ensures a perfect weld.

THE AUSTRALIAN Productivity Commission has published a draft report titled Australia’s Urban Water Sector, finding reforms can be made to current approaches to water management.

Curently less than 10 per cent of manufacturers have a vision system but in 10 years only 10 per cent will not have this technology. Extending the robot’s capability to embrace less-structured areas of manufacturing is the next major wave of change.

Manufacturing Integration and Intelligence provides a direct connection between business operations and shop-floor systems. It helps ensure that all manufacturing data is visible in real time – including information about orders, materials, equipment, status, costs and product quality.

Classical poisons such as cyanide or ricin as well as plant protectives or toxic metabolic products from bacteria can be fatal even in concentrations of nanograms per litre.

Nyrstar were experiencing a high incidence of premature failure on their drives. In order to reduce this risk, the company wanted a partner who could develop and manage a preventative maintenance program.

The Clayton Synchrotron is highly integrated making it more compact and serviceable than ones overseas because it is not as cluttered and has less cabling.

Sentient Computing has developed a 3D automation and visualisation software product targeted at mining, oil & gas and manufacturing operations. The software company’s product, MVX, uses technology that is also used in the world of gaming and this Perth-based business has plenty of reasons to keep an eye on the latest video games.

Particular care must be taken in a production hall where robots and people work together, where even minor carelessness could result in serious accidents or stop production. Fraunhofer researchers are introducing a new prototype for intelligent safety monitoring in industrial workplaces.

A major upgrade to a municipal water plant called for the replacement of outdated remote terminal units with an intelligent distributed I/O system.

Helena Water has been selected as the preferred consortium to fund, build and operate the new Mundaring Water Treatment Plant in Western Australia. This is the first fully fledged Public Private Partnership in the Western Australian water industry.