Message from the President and the Secretary General

Message from the President and the Secretary General

Dear Colleagues, Welcome to the final edition of the IGU print magazine.

It is hard to believe, but we are now well into year three of the Korean Presidency, and this year has been one to put us all to a test.

We are so proud to represent an industry that showed commitment and compassion in navigating this challenging time. We are proud of the people that continued to not only reliably deliver essential energy to markets, but also support their communities and frontline workers. Our hats are off to all of you!

While much progress has been made in coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic health crisis, and the signs of economic recovery may be emerging, there is still some uncertainty ahead, and we continue to operate in an adaptive environment.

Here at IGU, the team has also been working hard to actively respond to this new environment and focus on delivering value to our members. We have redoubled our digital efforts, and despite the travel restrictions, see great engagement from the IGU membership taking advantage of the digital connectivity and participating in our new webinar service. We have successfully launched our flagship reports and continued participating in the key global energy discussions. We have been learning and adapting to the new environment to make sure that we are there for the industry effectively and timely.

Key developments

These are some of the highlights from IGU activities, since our last update.

Reports and publications

IGU has launched a new webinar series. We have already delivered five successful webinars, since we launched the service this summer, and plan to continue with this new feature. While some of the webinars will be completely open to the public, others will be restricted to IGU members only.

On April 27, we released the 2020 World LNG Report, our flagship annual publication, providing key insights into LNG industry developments during 2019 and a glimpse into the future of key developments and trends in the world of LNG.

In June, we released the first IGU digital magazine, Global Voice of Gas (GVG). GVG will replace the physical magazine, and it will set a new standard in communication for the natural gas community worldwide. Produced in collaboration with Natural Gas World, GVG will be a quarterly digital magazine bringing new insights and analysis to the global gas community.

On July 2, 2020, we released the Wholesale Gas Price Survey – 2020 Edition, another valued flagship report. The survey is the 12th in a series that began in 2005.

Also in July, we published, in collaboration with the Boston Consulting Group, and funding support from BP and Snam, a new key report Gas Technology and Innovation for a Sustainable Future that quantifies the contribution that gas technologies can make to the success of the global energy transition, help-ing to build sustainable cities and communities and to provide access to affordable and clean energy. It features robust analysis demonstrating economic deployment potential across 12 gas technology categories, which cumulatively can help avoid 12 Gigatons of CO 2 emissions, or a third of all global energy sector emissions.

In early August, together with research company BloombergNEF (BNEF) and Snam, we released the annual Global Gas Report 2020. This year’s edition traditionally reviews key global industry developments and major trends, as well as assessing the impact of Covid-19 on the industry and recovery projections. It also features a special focus chapter on the prospects for global hydrogen markets development and what needs to happen on the policy side for these prospects to materialise.

If you haven’t already, grab your copies of these reports at: www.igu.org.

Election for the Presidency of IGU 2024-2027

On June 3, 2020, the Executive Committee endorsed Orlando Cabrales Segovia from Colombia and Andrea Stegher from Italy, as the candidates for the post of IGU President 2024-2027 and host of the 30th World Gas Conference.

The election will take place during the virtual Council meeting on November 18-19, 2020. For more information about the election and voting procedures, please contact the IGU Secretariat.

Pandemic Advisory Group

The Pandemic Advisory Group was established to provide advice and guidance to the IGU leadership on how to best cope and navigate through the challenges brought about by the global pandemic. The first greatest near-term challenge was to review the manner in which the fall Executive Committee and Council meetings were to be held virtually, including conducting the important 2024-2027 Presidential election. The group has also been working on the process and actions needed in case WGC2021 would be postponed to 2022.

Future event news

We are pleased to announce together with our co-organisers, the Gas Technology Institute (GTI) and the International Institute of Refrigeration (IIR) that the world’s most important liquefied natural gas conference, LNG2025, will be held in Doha, Qatar. We congratulate Qatar and wish them success in the preparations!

We would also like to share that all IGU Charter Members have been invited to submit an Expression of Interest (EOI) to host the IGU Research Conference (IGRC) in 2023.

Research, development and innovation (RD&I) play a key role for the gas industry and the challenges and the opportunities that RD&I can address are critical to future growth and development. More broadly, the industry must demonstrate that gas is the fastest, most economical way to a sustainable energy future through innovations in gas technology.

The IGU Research Conference serves to facilitate the discussion and debate around these issues as well as to display the technological developments becoming available to support the industry's future.

You will be able to learn more details of these events and much more as you read through this magazine edition.

Last but not least, we continue working very hard on a smooth transition to our Permanent Headquarters in London by July 2021.

As always, we encourage your comments and feedback. It is our utmost priority to listen to our members’ needs. Please get in touch by writing to us at info@igu.org.

Thank you for your continued support and active engagement as we work to advance the natural gas industry and enhance IGU’s relevance in this changing global climate.

Joo-Myung (Joe) Kang IGU President Luis Bertrán Rafecas IGU Secretary General