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Update on the 27th World Gas Conference
from IGU Magazine October 2016
by IGU
By Jay Copan
x The 27th World Gas
Conference will be held at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center and promises an innovative programme focused around Access, Markets and Social Licence.
Planning is well under way for the 27th World Gas Conference (WGC), to be held from June 25-29, 2018 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington DC. Under the direction of the National Organising Committee (NOC), chaired by Dave McCurdy, President and CEO of the American Gas Association (AGA), and working closely with the IGU Secretariat, the WGC team, led by IGU President David Carroll, is developing a marketbased programme for the event, recognising all of the key issues and opportunities facing the global gas industry over the coming years. With the support of the 1,000 member IGU committee network the team is preparing the most timely and topical programme ever conducted in a WGC – a programme that will focus on three key areas – Access, Markets and Social Licence.
The 27th WGC will be the first to take advantage of the sharply increased IGU focus
on advocacy on behalf of the global gas industry. The active role that IGU has played in events such as COP 21 in Paris and the recent G20 meeting in Beijing, means that policymakers are significantly more engaged with IGU than has been the case in the past. And these policymakers, along with a wide range of other constituencies, will play a significantly greater role at WGC 2018 than has occurred in the past.
Indeed, WGC 2018 will engage a very wide variety of constituencies as part of the programme and exhibition. For example, just some of these groups include: ◆ WGC 2018 is currently engaged with the 177 resident embassies in the Washington
DC area, through our Global Ambassadors
Network. The Italian Embassy is hosting a very special event for the Washington DC diplomatic corps and other key industry leaders and policymakers on November 1, 2016, that will focus on the growing opportunities for the global gas industry. ◆ The first ever WGC Financial Advisory
Board (FAB) has been formed, under the leadership of Bill White of Lazard Houston, and Steven Miles of BakerBotts. Fourteen leading financial institutions across the globe are represented on the FAB. They are: Standard Bank; US Capital Advisors;
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation;
Citigroup; Moody’s Investors Service; The
World Bank: International Finance Corporation; Societe Generale; Japan Bank for
International Cooperation; Macquarie;
Evercore ISI; JPMorgan; Edward Jones and
Mubadala Development Company. Within this diverse group of global institutions are
securities analysts, portfolio managers, rating agency executives and commercial, investment and development bankers. The FAB is formulating a number of sessions at WGC 2018 that will address key financial and regulatory issues and opportunities facing the global gas industry, and the group will oversee the first ever WGC Financial Forum, which is designed to bring members of the global financial community together with all of the publicly-traded energy companies participating at the Conference. Engagement with key gas industry customer groups is another major focus for the WGC team. In May of this year, the team hosted a meeting with representatives from industries such as electric utilities, chemicals, fertiliser, methanol, aluminium and other key gas consuming groups. Representatives of these industries will play an important role in the development of the WGC programme – it is axiomatic that the views of major customers are critical to the future of the global gas industry. The WGC team is beginning work on a
STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering
and Mathematics) programme as part of the event. Without building the workforce of tomorrow, especially those with a back
ground in STEM education, the industry will be unable to grow to meet future challenges and opportunities.
Within the 40,000 square metre exhibition, the team is developing a Robotics and
Automation Pavilion, designed to showcase many of the unique activities within the industry that utilise robotics.
The emphasis within this pavilion is on how technology is helping to position the gas industry for the future.
The WGC 2018 Call for Papers will be forthcoming in the near future. We encourage everyone to submit abstracts addressing the key issues facing the global gas industry, and we encourage you to check out our website at wgc2018.com, and follow us on Twitter and LinkedIn.
The WGC team welcomes any and all suggestions regarding WGC 2018. Feel free to contact me personally at jcopan@wgc2018. com. We are now less than two years out from WGC 2018 and it is full speed ahead! All of us on the WGC team look forward to welcoming you to Washington DC in June 2018!
Jay Copan is Executive Director, WGC 2018, and serves as the Special Advisor to the President of the International Gas Union.
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