VizMAP's Virtual Surat Energy Province

Brisbane, Australia
October 5, 2004

From Phil Dash, Acting Director Exploration and Industry Support, Bureau of Mining and Petroleum, Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines.

"The Bureau of Mining and Petroleum is a business group within the Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines. The Bureau’s role is to promote global awareness of the state’s mineral and energy resources and the potential investment opportunities that exist in these resources and associated infrastructure and industries.

"The Surat Basin in southern Queensland, with largely undeveloped known resources of 4 billion tonnes of greenhouse friendly steaming coal, is one area of the state identified as having enormous potential for development and investment by national and international companies.

"The World Energy Congress in Sydney on 5-8 September 2004 offered a unique opportunity to showcase the Surat Basin’s topography and resources to an international audience of industry professionals.

"Conference attendees included Tokyo Electric Power Company, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, Toshiba, ExxonMobil, GE Energy, Shell, BHP Billiton, UK Trade and Investment, Ernst and Young, Price Waterhouse and Invest Australia.

"Five years previously, the department, in conjunction with RMIT Melbourne and Silicon Graphics had developed a terrain visualisation and simulation model of the Burnett catchment. That project was subsequently mothballed due to budgetary and hardware purchasing constraints.

"Following advancements in both technology and software the opportunity to develop a new generation 3D model for the Surat Basin was proposed. Three expressions of interest were circulated.

"VizMAP’s system with its ability for the operator to take control and manually fly over the Surat Basin and also interactively query the 50 key projects included in the model’s data base layers was seen as a key feature in attracting attendees to the Bureau’s display at the World Energy Congress.

"VizMAP Pty Ltd was selected as the winning tender.

"The timeframe for the project was tight (less than 3 months) and the size of the model area (450km by 350km) was much larger than VizMAP and the TerraSIM software had previously dealt with. This would be a project that pushed existing parameters to their limits.

"From the outset it was clear that in Graeme, the Bureau had made the right choice.

"He proved to be self-motivated, confident, client orientated and an individual who is capable of working effectively within any organisation he is associated with.

"Graeme never shirked any of the considerable additional challenges the Bureau placed before him and with his ‘can do’ attitude, technical expertise and extensive industry contacts completed all of the project milestones in the required timeframes.

"It has been a pleasure to work with Graeme and much of the professional compliments and business success the Bureau achieved at the World Energy Congress were mainly due to his efforts.

"The Bureau would have absolutely no hesitation in recommending Graeme’s professional services to any organisation seeking a person with a great work attitude and the ability to successfully complete any project challenges."