PESA Queensland Welcomes New Branch Executive

In June, PESA Queensland held their AGM and welcomed a new executive to lead the branch committee.  

Sue Slater – President

Sue knew she wanted to be a geologist at a young age, and studied geology at University of Queensland achieving an MSc qualification. Having graduated, she was recommended for a temporary position at the Geological Survey Queensland in the petroleum section. Whilst not particularly exciting work, stripping information out of well completion reports for a borehole database, it was her first exposure to the petroleum exploration industry and triggered her subsequent career. From there, Sue transitioned to a permanent role working with the government sponsored stratigraphic drilling program.

A career break followed, focused on family and supporting her husband working as a mine geologist in Collinsville. Returning to Brisbane in 2002, Sue joined the Department of Mines working in the petroleum tenures section.  Her knowledge of the legislation was in demand and in 2005 she joined Tipperary Oil & Gas. Following their acquisition by Santos, Sue joined RLMS and contributed to several consultation processes, mostly through APPEA, on a variety of legislative and policy changes.

Sue is looking forward to working with the new committee, which offers a great blend of youth and experience, to deliver value for the Queensland membership.

Elio joined the industry more than 25 years ago, after completing a PhD is sedimentology and Sequence Stratigraphy. He has worked along all parts of the subsurface value chain including exploration, appraisal and development and various countries and assets including north west shelf, Bonaparte Basin, Cooper Basin, Indonesia and PNG. Currently, Elio is PNG Exploration Manager at Santos.

Initially, Elio’s career path was inspired by the opportunity to work outdoors, with his first assignment undertaking geological mapping in the PNG foreland area.  Whilst he no longer gets to work outdoors so much, the challenge of combining the technical aspects of the work along with creative input to solve complex problems keeps him inspired. Elio is looking forward to being able to work with the committee is to drive awareness of the importance of all the rock stars (pun intended) that work in the oil and gas industry and the benefits it provides both socially and economically to the prosperity of the country.

Rachael recently completed the Santos Graduate program in Brisbane and is currently working as a Development Geologist for the Northern Territory onshore assets team. She grew up in Ipswich, and an early exposure to QI (Quite Interesting) left her too curious for her own good. Wanting to know everything about everything – she thought the planet earth might be a good place to start. After a brief first semester in engineering to confirm, really, yeah, no, she meandered her way through an undergraduate in geological science at the University of Queensland. She’s the local, self-proclaimed champion of “best university field trip” bragging rights, having completed the short-lived advanced tectonics course at UQ, which culminated in a field trip to the Tibetan Plateau and Mount Everest north base camp.   

She thanks both PESA and a series of incidental industry exposures for primming her pallet to the O&G industry and making it so no other geology career was tenable. Though the pandemic certainly threw a spanner at how she envisioned the start of her career unfolding, she’s squarely satisfied with where she ended up.

Rachael is feeling refreshed and eager to help foster the energy geoscience community in Queensland.

The new Queensland committee offers their sincere thanks to the outgoing Queensland branch executive Sarah Harris (President), Kim Owen (Treasurer) and Nathan Parker (secretary).  They look forward to working with the other volunteers on the committee to deliver value for the Queensland membership: Mel Fitzell, Sarah Harris, Basim, Faraj, Bruce Anderson, Chris Harwood, Farah Fazulah, Molly McEwin, Nathan Parker, Noele Carvalho, Simon Atkinson, Madison Kowalski and Courtney Berry. Please look out for them at upcoming events and feel free to reach out with any feedback.