Following the 1999 government report into the Australian cruiser's loss, which recommended that a seminar be organised to again attempt to identify the most likely search area for the warships, the HMAS Sydney Location Seminar was organised by the RAN's Sea Power Centre and held at the Western Australian Maritime Museum. However, participants in the seminar could not agree on whether the battle location given by the Germans (referred to as the "northern position") or a point off the Abrolhos Islands (the area for the battle advocated by supporters of the "southern position") was more likely to contain the two ships. In 2002, a coalition of oil and gas companies involved in the North West Shelf Venture performed a search of eight suspected targets in the proposed southern area. No evidence was found of shipwrecks at any of the eight sites, although supporters of this search area claimed that the equipment used was defective and rejected the findings. Subsequent examination of the most popular southern site by DOF Subsea Australia vessel SV "Geosounder" in March 2007 found no evidence of a shipwreck: the two searches firmly discrediting the alternative engagement area.