Time flies when you’re really busy!

Hi everyone,

I can’t believe how quickly my internship has flown by! I have been so busy that I am behind on my blog posts. I have all my notes and topics for the updates and will space the posts out over the next week or two rather than bombard you all at once.

I have three more days at the Japanese oil and gas company who have kindly offered me a placement. They have asked me not to use the company’s name on the blog due to PR and confidentiality reasons; however you can easily work it out with information in this postJ. I was lucky enough to know the Public Affairs Coordinator and have subsequently become the first External Affairs work experience student they have ever taken on.

Without saying too much, the company is in the Front End Engineering and Design (FEED) phase of one of the biggest LNG projects in Australian history. I have been fortunate in experiencing two of the company’s major media announcements during my placement, both generating a large amount of positive attention from media and communities directly concerned with the project. This was a great result for all in the External Affairs team and the atmosphere has been very positive as the company heads towards a final investment decision (FID) in quarter four of this year.

One of my tasks in regards to the announcements was to monitor and compile a summary of all media activity, both national and international, and present a copy to a selection of senior executives in Australia and Tokyo! My summary included a Twitter report - something that had not been previously done at the company and which is now being implemented in the daily media summary emailed to all employees. The summary was 33 pages long and involved my least favourite task to date - binding all 15 copies with the manual binding machineJ. Very time consuming but an essential life-skill!

The public affairs department has done an amazing job with their community relations strategy and has a public approval rating of about 85% in their host community. This is huge for an oil and gas development, especially if you compare it with the recent protests Woodside have faced at James Price Point in the Kimberley. Consistent and open engagement through a range of feedback tools has resulted in great relationship with the community.

I have been able to attend meetings which have covered a range of issues from community engagement, social and environmental impacts, government relations and general external affairs. The great thing about the meetings is being able to relate topics learnt at Uni to public affairs in the real world. The first was a little overwhelming as I had no idea what was being said, everyone was using acronyms that were flying over the top of my head (that rhymes). I have since become a full-bottle on the acronyms and can now almost follow what is said during environmental meetings.

All and all I am thoroughly enjoying my time at the company and it will be strange to go back to Uni having worked a month in the corporate world. I will follow with my next post in a couple of days.

Cheers,

James Clothier

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