33 Coolibah Street, Castle Hill,
NSW 2154, Australia
Telephone: 61-2-9634-5291 and 0413-749-726
Coolibah Pty Ltd is an energy communications and issues management consultancy based in Sydney, Australia. It provides advisory services to government, industry associations, management consultancies and companies engaged in a wide range of energy activities and services.
Coolibah's director, Keith Orchison, has been involved in Australian business issues management and communication since 1972, including 24 years representing the energy supply sector at a national and international level. His career as a communicator, including work in journalism, began in 1960.
He was appointed a Member of the Order of Australia in June 2004 for service to the petroleum and electricity industries through fostering co-operation between energy producers and government agencies and the development of policies to benefit Australia in the long term.
He served as managing director of the Electricity Supply Association of Australia (ESAA) from 1991 to December 2003 and as executive director of the Australian Petroleum Exploration Association (now APPEA) from 1980 to May 1991. He is an honorary life member of APPEA and was awarded its gold medal for service to the upstream petroleum industry in 1993.
In 2003 he was appointed by the Federal Attorney-General to be a member of the Government's Critical Infrastructure Advisory Council and served on it, and as independent chairman of its Energy Industry Infrastructure Advisory Group, until June 2007.
Keith Orchison served on the CSIRO energy sector advisory committees from 1997 to 2003 and chaired its Energy Technology sector advisory committee in 1999-2001.
He was a founding member of the Australian Industry Greenhouse Network, a Canberra-based association of energy, mining and manufacturing industry associations, and served on its management committee for 10 years. He was AIGN chairman in 2002.
Representing ESAA, he served on a number of government/industry working groups and committees dealing with greenhouse gas issues between the late 1990s and 2003.
Journalism has been an important part of his career. Born and educated in Port Elizabeth, he worked as a journalist in South Africa from 1960 to 1970 and was editor of "Drum" magazine in Johannesburg in 1969-70.
On emigrating to Australia in 1970, he was assistant editor of "Petroleum Gazette" magazine in 1971-72 before becoming a public relations officer for ICI Australia Limited, then public and government affairs manager of Associated Pulp and Paper Mills Limited and public relations manager of La Trobe University, all roles where he maintained a strong involvement in the production of publications, including house journals. He helped found the Society of Industrial Editors in Melbourne in the 1970s.
He was co-editor of the APEA Australian Bicentennial book "Petroleum: the first century," published in 1988.
At ESAA, he founded and edited "Electricity Supply Magazine" in 1992 and continued as its editor until 2004. He also founded and edited a weekly newsletter, "Electricity Supply Newsletter," from the mid-1990s until 2003. He was supervising editor of ESAA's "Electricity Australia" yearbook from 1991 to 2003.
He now contributes to The Australian newspaper as a writer on resources and energy issues and also writes for "Pacific Power," the magazine of the electricity association servicing the South Pacific island nations. In 2007 he contributed articles to Focus Publishing's "Australia's Energy Industries Powering The World" book and to its "Powering Australia" yearbook, due to appear in September.
A selection of his writing appears elsewhere on this website, as does his monthly "Coolibah Commentary" newsletter.
He is a trustee of the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia (CEDA).
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