Gilbert +Tobin congratulates partner Christopher Flynn and senior associate Emily Tsokos on earning a prestigious award at this year’s Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) conference in Perth.

Mr Flynn and Ms Tsokos, representing Gilbert + Tobin, received the Alan Prince Award for Best Peer Reviewed Paper Published in the 2017 APPEA Journal.

The award judges acknowledged the paper, entitled “Energy security, moratoria and domestic gas: Australia, LNG and its gas policy catch-22”, as the outstanding contribution to the Journal from the many peer reviewed papers presented at conference.

The paper provides some timely thought leadership on policy shortcomings in the gas industry as well as policy prescriptions for putting Australia back on track.

The multi-disciplinary APPEA Journal documents peer-received papers presented at the annual conference. It was first published in 1961 and is recognised in the Australian upstream oil and gas industry as the leading peer-reviewed publication for information on geoscience, engineering and management.

Gilbert + Tobin partner Christopher Flynn said that it’s a great honour for Gilbert + Tobin to receive the award and reflects the firm’s work with its clients at the cutting edges of Australia’s current energy security, gas and power supply challenges nationally across each of our practice groups.

That work highlights the need for a coherent, integrated national energy and environmental policy framework.

Key recommendations from the paper include: 

• Moving from the current political debate to an appropriate policy debate in the energy and environment areas – to resist short-term political fixes;
• Lifting the moratoria against gas exploration in Victoria, NSW and the Northern Territory while putting appropriate environmental safeguards in place; 
• Moving to an emissions intensity scheme in order to efficiently and sustainably transfer to a renewable economy, while recognising the important role of gas as a transition fuel in that process;
• Promoting greater competition and transparency in the sector; and
• Examining the way in which the National Electricity Market prices power (particularly with respect to the way that it prices gas-fired power generation).

Mr Flynn and Ms Tsokos presented the paper at this year’s APPEA conference.

The co-authors acknowledge the contribution of Gilbert + Tobin colleagues Simon Muys, Lester Lim Kok, Nick Li and Geoff Petersen.

Background

Mr Flynn is a partner in Gilbert + Tobin’s Corporate Advisory and Energy + Resources groups. He advises companies and government clients on projects and transactions in the energy and resources sector, and in public international law. His experience spans throughout Australia and more than 50 other countries.

Ms Tsokos is a key member of highly regarded energy and resources practice within Gilbert + Tobin’s Perth office with particular expertise in the oil and gas sector. She has transactional and advisory experience in a range of energy and resources projects across multiple international jurisdictions. Ms Tsokos has advised on project structuring and prepared key agreements on several international LNG projects.      

About APPEA 

The Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association is the peak national body representing Australia’s oil and gas exploration and production industry.

It has about 60 full member companies. These are oil and gas explorers and producers active in Australia. APPEA members account for an estimated 98 per cent of the nation’s petroleum production. APPEA also represents about 140 associate member companies that provide a wide range of goods and services to the upstream oil and gas industry.