Moranbah Gas Project’s greatest discovery – its people

The main lesson that the head of one of Queensland’s emerging gas companies has learned from his decades-long career is that it’s about people. QPM took over the Moranbah Gas Project (MGP) from the Arrow Energy Group and AGL Energy last year in a deal that attracted around $80 million backing in the form of a gas-prepayment facility from explosives manufacturer and foundation customer, Dyno Nobel. Related: QPM subsidiary takes control of Moranbah energy asset As a founding director of CH4, the original developer of the project, David Wrench was deeply involved in establishing and developing the MGP. Now, as QPM chief executive officer, Mr Wrench has a professional as well as a certain paternal link to the project. QPM chief executive officer David Wrench. Over the last nine months, Mr Wrench has overseen a real turnaround in performance which would be envy of many resource industry operations. The company received more than $19 million via a share placement for further development while reserves from the project have been pushed north 38 percent to 331PJ. This has resulted in a net 200PJ of uncontracted 2P reserves which can be rapidly developed. The company recently advised the ASX of a portfolio of plans with activities including development of up to 300MW of new power supply to the National Electricity Market using waste coal mine gas and MGP production. The company’s success had been infectious, Mr Wrench said. “The thing that I learned out of all of this, it's all about people,” he said. “I mean if you get good people who really understand what they're doing and are well motivated and understand how their role is important in an overall objective, it's amazing. “We employed a number of the team who had been working on the project for a long, long time. While very loyal to the project, it’s fair to say that people weren't motivated. They hadn’t had support to take initiative and do the things that they knew would improve the field’s performance. “So we just turned that around and said, ‘look, this whole company, our success is driven from site. You guys drive the business, we don't drive it or people in Brisbane don't drive it'." The staff were empowered to contribute to the growth of the company and rose to the occasion, Mr Wrench said. QPM Energy had not looked back, he said. “On the first day we put up this whiteboard. We got everyone together and asked for ideas and quickly had a whole list of stuff. We did the first two in 24 hours and we had an immediate result. All of a sudden, people's heads just lifted. “The whole place changed. The morale is amazing and the enthusiasm is incredible. So that's been a great thing. It's all about giving people the opportunity to get on and do stuff and be accountable for the results. They’ll have a crack if you back them.” After hitting new production records over the last few weeks, production dropped a little after some well outages. That’s when the character of the staff really stood out, Mr Wrench said. “It was amazing. I sensed people taking it personally and I said, ‘just a sec guys, if I told you me three months ago we were producing at this level, everyone would've thought that sensational. And here we are and everyone's like, feeling frustrated!’ “I say to the guys, I think that's probably the best sign I've seen. The ownership buy-in from the team is at a level where they take it personally and it's great. But then, guess what, production is back up there this week.” QPM Energy has around 50 staff and contractors on swing two weeks on and off including a handful who live in Moranbah as well as a team in Brisbane.

Moranbah Gas Project’s greatest discovery – its people

Industry Queensland

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