14.

The construction company we visited.

It is Wednesday here in Brisbane, Australia. Yesterday proved to be a bit more exciting than Monday but still a tad slower. No complaints here. Around noon we had a presentation at Fluor Inc., a construction company that is actually based out of Texas, that has an office here in Brisbane. The presentation was tremendous. The primary focus of the presentation was an overview of the job that Fluor is doing for Santos. Santos is a major Australian oil and gas exploration and production company based out of Australia. The two gentlemen that spoke were the project manager on the Santos job and the other was the Environmental Manager for Flour. This particular job involves the construction of upstream facilities that will extract and liquify gas from coal seams for eventual export to global markets. It is a 4 billion dollar job---huge. The coal seam gas and liquified natural gas industry is something that I knew virtually nothing about. I learned a lot about the processes, the construction of such a plant, the environmental considerations that must be taken into account, and the way that Australia approaches specific construction issues. The presentation was well thought out, informative, and interesting. If you want to read more about this project click here. Something that I have discovered here in Australia is their emphasis on preserving the environment. They have many successful initiatives put into place by both their federal and local governments that actively pursue a sustainable perspective in every aspect of life here in Australia. They also do an excellent job of preserving their cultural heritage and there is a very mutual respect and understanding between the indigenous Aboriginal people of Australia and the rest of the citizens. They clearly took note of America's mistakes in how we handled the Native Americans. Australia did/does things the right way. It is refreshing, to say the least. 

The afternoon was spent working on our thesis projects and catching up on various assignments. Later that night Jay and I went to dinner at a restaurant on the river. The food and view were spectacular. And whoever designed this restaurant should get a medal. I absolutely loved the design. I didn't have my camera so I stole the following image off of google, but I kid you not: the city really was this beautiful at night.

I wish I took this picture.