Aventus Consulting: Cheltenham’s Specialists Guiding Australia’s Energy Projects from Approvals to Assurance

Tucked into Melbourne’s south-east, Aventus Consulting Pty Ltd has spent more than 15 years building a rare reputation: a boutique firm that works only on energy. From offshore petroleum and pipelines to Australia’s first proposed offshore wind farm, the Cheltenham and Heatherton-based consultancy helps titleholders and contractors navigate some of the country’s most complex environmental, safety and well-integrity rules.

Founded in 2009 by Managing Director and Principal Environmental Consultant Giulio Pinzone, Aventus grew out of hands-on industry experience rather than a generic consulting model. Pinzone previously worked on staff for a major oil and gas explorer and producer in Western Australia and a junior explorer in Melbourne. That insider knowledge still shapes the firm’s approach: get the approvals right, then stay with the project through construction, operations and decommissioning.

 

Aventus has supported Australia’s first proposed offshore wind farm, Star of the South, off the Gippsland coast since 2019.

Energy is their only brief

Aventus is explicit about what it will not do. The firm does not take on road, rail, port, mining or general infrastructure work. Its consultants concentrate on the upstream petroleum sector and the broader energy industry — onshore and offshore — covering:

• Exploration (geophysical and geotechnical surveys, drilling)
• Construction, development and installation
• Operations
• Decommissioning

That single-industry focus is the point of difference. Environmental legislation, NOPSEMA Environment Plans (EPs), ALARP demonstrations, Environmental Performance Outcomes and Standards, oil-spill planning and stakeholder consultation all look different in energy than they do on a road project. Aventus’s consultants live in that detail.

The firm has submitted more than 60 Environment Plans to NOPSEMA for Commonwealth waters, plus many more for state waters. It has prepared Oil Pollution Emergency Plans (OPEPs) and Oil Spill Contingency Plans (OSCPs), designed Operational and Scientific Monitoring Program frameworks, and conducted both office-based and field audits. Several consultants are qualified lead auditors in Environmental Management Systems (EMS) and Integrated Management Systems (IMS). Offshore work is backed by FOET/BOSIET qualifications — the team is ready for the next helicopter ride to a rig or platform.

 

Aventus consultants regularly audit and advise on offshore production platforms, drilling rigs, support vessels and pipelay barges.

From Bass Strait to Star of the South

Notable projects illustrate the range:

Star of the South offshore wind farm (Gippsland) — Aventus’s first major foray into offshore renewables, from late 2019. Work included compliance registers against Commonwealth licence conditions, EPBC Act and Marine and Coastal Act requirements, support for floating lidar, geophysical and geotechnical campaigns, and development of the project’s HSE management system.

CarbonNet – Pelican 3D Marine Seismic Survey — Specialist advice, risk-assessment workshops, stakeholder identification and ongoing approvals support for Victoria’s carbon-capture and storage investigations in Gippsland.

Origin Energy – Enterprise 3D transition-zone seismic survey (Otway Basin) and Crowes Foot 3D marine seismic survey — Environment Plans, EPBC referrals, coastal and parks consents, field scouting and regulatory liaison.

BP Great Australian Bight drilling project — Multi-year environmental approvals support for a frontier offshore basin, later the subject of a conference paper by Pinzone on lessons learned.

Onshore, Aventus has completed third-party compliance audits across all of the east-coast CSG-LNG projects (27 audits as of an earlier published tally) as well as drilling, pipeline installation and field operations. Offshore, it has undertaken numerous drill-rig-based audits since 2010.

 

The Star of the South licence area lies off the south Gippsland coast near Port Albert, McLoughlins Beach and Woodside Beach — territory Aventus now knows well.

A compact team with deep energy résumés

Aventus is a small, agile practice — typically listed in the 2–10 employee range — which it treats as a strength. Clients get senior people on their work, not a revolving junior bench.

Core team (as published on the firm’s site) includes:

• Giulio Pinzone — Managing Director & Principal Environmental Consultant. B.App.Sci (NRM), B.Sc (Hons), Exemplar Global EMS Lead Auditor. 25-plus years in EIA, more than 70 environmental compliance audits, founder of Aventus in 2009.
• Pepper Shepherd — Associate Principal HSE & Risk Consultant. Commerce, psychology and a Masters in Occupational Health and Safety; 25 years across upstream exploration, construction, production and downstream fuel.
• Natasha Carroll — Principal Environmental Consultant. More than 20 years with Esso Australia (environment chemist, advisor, PNG LNG social compliance, oil-spill response manager); now leading offshore approvals work in Gippsland.
• Amanda Cortez — Senior Environmental Consultant. Former petroleum environmental officer and assessor with Western Australia’s DMIRS.
• Supporting specialists in GIS mapping (Kelly Stanhope, 25 years’ cartography including Melbourne Water and Geoscience Australia), operations and communications, administration and bookkeeping.

The firm also invests outside the invoice. Since 2009 it has donated more than $90,000 (figure published as of June 2025) to charities in environment, health and wellbeing.

Based in Cheltenham / Heatherton

Aventus’s published head office is 13 Corporate Drive, Heatherton VIC 3202, on the Cheltenham–Heatherton boundary in Melbourne’s Bayside / Kingston corridor — minutes from Southland, the Nepean Highway and easy access to the Monash and Mornington Peninsula.

Directory listings have also associated the company with Cheltenham addresses including Suite 307/75 Tulip Street and earlier Station Road / Wallingford Street locations. For practical purposes the firm is a local south-east Melbourne business serving national and offshore energy clients.

Office hours commonly listed are Monday to Friday, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm.

 

Cheltenham’s Westfield Southland precinct sits a short drive from Aventus’s Heatherton head office — a local base for a nationally focused energy consultancy.

Why energy operators keep coming back

Clients typically need three things at once: technically defensible approvals, practical field knowledge, and someone who still answers the phone when conditions change. Aventus sells that combination. Consultants have sat inside operating companies, inspected rigs and pipelines, written the plans regulators actually accept, and then audited whether those plans were followed.

The same skill set now transfers to offshore wind and carbon storage — activities that share survey methods, underwater-sound issues, marine stakeholder landscapes and decommissioning questions with traditional petroleum work. As Pinzone’s team puts it, they can get a project to the start line and stay with it to the finish.

Contact Aventus Consulting

Aventus Consulting Pty Ltd
Environment & safety experts for the energy industry

Head office
13 Corporate Drive
Heatherton VIC 3202
(Cheltenham / Bayside, Melbourne)

Email: info@aventusconsulting.com.au
Website: www.aventusconsulting.com.au
Careers: careers@aventusconsulting.com.au

Phone (directory listing): (03) 9005 7702

Hours: Monday–Friday, 9:00 am – 5:00 pm

For project enquiries, Environment Plans, audits, oil-spill planning or HSE systems, the first step is an email to the team above.