BHP Billiton Petroleum appointed RefMet as their third party inspectors for the supply of rental Drilling tools for the proposed Macedon development in the ‘Ocean Epoch’ field.

Michael attended the international SiC conference (ICSCRM) in Nuremburg, and the CERAMITEC Trade fair in Munich.

Paul was engaged by Nexus Energy to investigate the failure of stud bolts in subsea service.

Paul commenced work on the  Oilsearch Limited  – Kutubu Offloading Pipeline Upgrade

RefMet was retained by a legal firm to provide expert witness services for an action in Queensland concerning Refractory failures.

Michael was part of the organising committee for the joint AFI-IRE conference held at the MCG immediately after the AFL Grand Final. Some 350 engineers attended the 3 day event. He also co-authored a technical paper and was a session chairman for the Plenary paper given by Senator Steve Fielding, and contributed as a presenter himself during the successful training day conducted after the conference proper. The picture below shows Michael presenting a commemorative gift to the Senator, after his thought provoking presentation.

Beer of the month comes from Suffolk, UK, the St Peter’s Brewery Ruby Red Ale.  The St Peter’s Brewery in Bungay Suffolk uses pure waters from beneath the brewery to produce a rich red ale with very subtle malt undertones and a spicy hop aroma from Styrian Goldings (Slovenian hops with a perfume containing pine, lemon and citrus character).  The Ruby Red Ale is cold filtered and very low on fizz, so you are left without the gaseous after taste.  The bottle the ale comes in is almost as interesting as the beer itself.  The bottle is an oval shaped flask bottle, very distinctive and characteristic of all of the St Peter’s ales.

For those that cannot tolerate gluten, St Peter’s do a “G-Free” ale with a pilsener style finish with flavours derived from American Amarillo hops (citrus and mandarin aromas).

The good news is that St Peter’s also export to Australia, so keep an eye out when you next visit you more discerning beer stockist. ( I found this in Sword’s at Prahran Market -Michael)

Cheers, Paul.

Paul spent 6 weeks in Europe as part of his  assignment to assist ESSO with a cooler coating system development and the training of the Scottish application company, Pressurelink.

Michael gave a training seminar to Foundry apprentices. This event was sponsored by Foseco. He also gave a presentation to the Victorian chapter of the Foundry institute on the launch of the 2009 Foundry conference to be held in September 2009 at the MCG. This conference will be run jointly with the Institute of Refractories Engineers, of which he is a Past President.

Paul spent 3 weeks in Europe as part of his J. P. Kenny assignment to assist ESSO. Paul was involved with pre-production planning meetings with Vilmar in Romania, Walther in Germany and Corus Linepipe (Hartlepool), Bifab (BurntIsland) and PressureLink (Forfar) in the UK.

BHP Billiton Petroleum retained RefMet to act as their third party inspection agent for the proposed refurbishment of Wellhead/completion Rental tools for the Pyrenees development off Dampier.

Paul carried out a third party verification of drilling equipment for the AED South Puffin drilling program.  The work involved the review of quality records to ensure the requirements of NOPSA are met prior to approval of the drilling safety case.

BHP Billiton Petroleum retained RefMet to act as their third party inspection agent for the proposed refurbishment of Drilling Rental tools for their Pyrenees development off Dampier.

Paul supported to Nexus Energy Longtom development with weld procedure reviews, and the witness of the welder qualification program in Western Australia.

Michael attended the ‘Thermo-mechanical Processing of Steels’ conference in Padua Italy, as well as visiting a number of business contacts in Europe.

Refmet has been retained to provide an expert witness (Michael) by a Melbourne legal firm to assist in mediation concerning failure of a Foundry furnace.