Board Meeting Update

23-24 March 2023

Melbourne, Australia

Innovation

The Innovation Committee reported that the Road to Success will have some new content and the Novel working groups are working to start adding hydrogen. It has been a good decision to combine the HSE & CSR Workshops with the Novel Sessions, so that more people participate in both events. For 2024 these combined events are planned to be held in Houston at the new Bechtel offices which have been kindly offered by Tim Zboya to host these events.

HSE & CSR

The next committee meeting was scheduled to be held on Tuesday, 18 April in Rome, prior to the Novel Construction Sessions. One of the points on the agenda was to define the topic of the HSE & CSR Workshop in October. HSE Statistics forms had only been received from 8% of Regular Members and three Associate Members had also submitted theirs. Board Directors were once again encouraged to ask their companies to regularly contribute to the HSE Shared Experiences Platform, since no document had been received since the last Board Meeting.

Energy Transition

Committee Chair, Andrew Ball, said that the Board needs to agree on the format for the “Green Credentials Survey 2023”, which will lead to issuing certificates for 1 to 5 green leaves in 2023, based on the following criteria:

Existence of a sustainability policy

Existence of an Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) policy/report

Adoption of a minimum of 4 UN Sustainable Development (SDG) goals

Measurement of Greenhouse Gas (GHG) Protocol scopes 1, 2 and 3 Existence of a roadmap to reduce carbon by 2050 or sooner

Andrew Ball offered to get some designs created of the Green Certificates and will present them at the next Board Meeting in Lisbon. The Committee targeted to meet monthly until the Convention; to organise two net-zero webinars; to encourage up to six new Corresponding Members to join the Association; to post at least one article for each region on the website; and, to propose one keynote speaker for the Convention in Vancouver.

With regards to the IPLOCA Members Technology Platform, Gerben Wansink visited the TechnologyCatalogue in the Netherlands and found that it would be good to have members openly listed, instead of having them only amongst IPLOCA members. The idea is to turn the IPLOCA Platform’s homepage into a landing page as part of the global TechnologyCatalogue.com infrastructure. With this change, once a technology is listed on the IPLOCA Platform, it would automatically appear on the main TechnologyCatalogue platform. Initially for one year, IPLOCA members would receive this service for free, but will then be charged a fee - to those who agree - in order to create more visibility for their technology and take advantage of all the services the platform offers.

Scholarship Programme

About 70 applications were completed, as compared to 110 received after extending the deadline last year. After a long discussion about potential financial sources and the process followed to choose winners it was decided that a new committee led by Saji Khoury will redefine the application form, and review the eligibility and criteria for selecting scholarship winners. It was agreed that all studies would be considered for a scholarship, and that the regions may no longer be taken into consideration when allocating the scholarships. Applications for the 2024 programme will open in January rather than in October of the previous year as had been done in the past.

Treasurer’s Report

The Treasurer reported that IPLOCA’s total funds stand at CHF 1.8 million as compared to CHF 2.1 million a year ago, impacted by currency exchange and some prepaid deposits for Vancouver and Board Meetings. Adam Wynne Hughes had presented his proposal at the December Board Meeting, to adjust the membership fees so that funds are not further reduced, and had requested that the Board of Directors take a vote at the March meeting. The current fees have been in place since 2008, costs have gone up and the Association’s funds are declining. Recent conventions have broken even with no surplus funds for IPLOCA. Adam Wynne Hughes proposed that the membership fees be increased starting from January 2024. The announcement will be made at the

Annual Convention in Vancouver in September. It is very important to chose Convention destinations that can offer good chances of leaving some extra funds after the event has been successfully held.

Membership

At the time of the meeting, it was noted that total membership numbers were 232, an increase of 10 compared to last March, including 83 Regular, 106 Associate, 32 Corresponding, 4 Academic and 7 Honorary. The following applications were approved:

- APA , Australia (Corresponding)

- Cross Country Canada Supplies & Rentals, Canada (Associate)

- Geocean , France (Regular)

- Pe Ben USA Inc. , U.S.A. (Regular)

2023 Annual Convention in Vancouver

All directors were encouraged to propose candidates to make a presentation at the OGM and PLCAC would be invited to also help with potential speakers as there will be 10 time slots this year. Since the Poster Sessions offer great visibility for companies, three days of 10 sessions will be available during the coffee breaks, at a charge of USD 1,000 each. It was agreed to also consider organising such sessions at Regional and Novel Meetings. The Spouses’ Brunch will be renamed the First Lady’s Brunch and will encompass all participants who are partners of companies’ delegates, who will -in turn- be attending the Membership Lunch held in parallel on Friday. It was agreed that, to offset the costs involved with no-shows for the tours, each registered person