2018 - The Year of New Things..
Sometimes when you start into a new year, you have specific plans for the time ahead, and sometimes your hoping for developments to shape up to give some direction to move in... For Business Maps Australia we have had a bit of everything come up.
First up we realized that it had become necessary to update our Asia West Pacific LNG Terminals Map. Originally published two and a half years ago as first for the industry bu Business Maps Australia, with over 100 plants and projects displayed, general market opinion was that very little new activity would happen for several years.
....And at $20 - $50 Billion per production facility....
... it's not surprising there appeared little interest in building any more any time soon. But market opinion is not always right, and after some brief research, we discovered over twenty new projects across the Northern, Southern and West Asia regions. So, after several weeks of verifying data, we were very happy to release our new 2018 Asia West Pacific LNG Terminals map, now displaying over 130 production and receiving terminals. Our regional coverage was also extended to include Pakistan, as a number of significant new projects were in preparation in this key area.
...and speaking of new things; after several years of many engineers gathering the biggest of the big from the four corners of the globe, the huge yellow monster called PRELUDE ( pictured in the caption ) has finally been completed, towed 6,000 miles across the world from Korea, and connected to it's huge gas field off the coast out from Broome in WA. The largest man made floating structure the world has ever seen, weighing over 700,000 tons when fully loaded, is anchored about 250 KM north east of Broome and will start producing LNG in the next 6 months or so.
Next off, clients were requesting up dated data on our previously published Bowen Basin Mines and Minerals map, and our (now 2 years old) Hunter Valley Coalfields maps.
It appears that, in spite of the many environmental issues surrounding Coal as a fuel, there is still strong demand globally for our product, so people were expressing keen interest in these maps. (If you would like to read some interesting facts about the Australian coal industry and its global importance, please read the article we published in December 2016 entitled.. Australian Coal - Helps Minimize Climate Change.)
So after a couple of months of research and talking to government and industry, the 2018 Bowen Basin and Hunter Valley Coal maps were completed,much to our client's satisfaction.
In early March, it also became apparent we would have to look at revising our Australian National Renewable Energy Projects map. First published by Business Maps Australia in January 2017, it is a unique product; the first time anyone has mapped the massively growing Renewable Energy industry in this country. By March this year, the number of RE projects coming on line and being announced had so increased that we needed to set up a major review of the map's data and displays. So after two months of conversations with state governments and a range of contractors, we were able to track down and list the key projects. The new 2018 Australian National Renewable Energy projects map is also now available from our website for viewing and purchase.