It was like jumping off the end of a pier into unknown depths with unknown dangers – but a quick calculation (in actuality lots of deep reflection) indicated that it was safe…-ish; nevertheless it was exhilarating.
Thus, Cipher was born.
In early September 2010 Cipher started trading and by late September we had our first long term contract.
Since then Cipher, which started out as a New Zealand company and is now firmly based in Australia, has worked on projects within all seven continents, excepting Antarctica. The countries
A Cipher Associate at drill rig in southern Africa.
we’ve worked are primarily Asian (Indonesia, China, Mongolia) but also African (Botswana, South Africa, Mozambique), South American (Colombia), North American (USA), European (UK, Poland, Germany) as well as, of course, Australia and New Zealand.
Cipher has worked on a wide-variety of projects ranging from the management of coal seam gas drilling programs, to assessment of gas in-place, exploration programs, well design, reservoir modeling as well as short courses, workshops and leading field trips in Indonesia, New Zealand, USA and Australia, to giving testimony as expert witnesses in international arbitrations as well as civil and criminal trials.
Logging a coal face in Kalimantan, Indonesia
Our main aim is to help clients understand the rocks, especially coal, that they are dealing with and how best to extract either the solid or gaseous material in the most efficient, profitable and environmentally friendly manner. All of the Associates within Cipher pride themselves in being able to ‘get their hands dirty’; which means, we are not afraid to be in the field, down in the ‘ditches’ ensuring things work as planned. We are exceptionally good at planning but it never stops there and we are always keen to implement, working along side clients as team members, if needed.
A niche that Cipher occupies is that we also have a foot in research. For example, I’ve always held at least one Adjunct position at a university, first at the University of Canterbury (Christchurch, New Zealand) and now as Adjunct Associate Professor at the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Queensland University of Technology (Brisbane, Australia) as well as Distinguished Visiting Professor at the School of Resources and Geoscience, China University of Mining and Technology (Xuzhou, China). Since starting Cipher I’ve been able to publish 14 papers in internationally referred journals; and in those 10 years those papers have been cited in other journals a combined total of over 1000 times.
As the number of Associates working with Cipher continues to expand, we look forward to even more projects either here in Australia or other far flung places of the Earth. Of course currently, the
Teaching students the finer points of rock description, New Zealand
world is in a bit of turmoil and we are all cooling our heels a bit. But thanks to video conferencing technology we are still able conduct projects and give expert, unbiased advice to our clients.
At the start of the next 10 years, we can honestly say we look forward to reaching the 2030 milestone in Cipher’s future!
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