Dewhurst Lecture

The oil industry: great achievements and big challenges, H.E. Ali I. Al Naimi

Plenary topics

• Inaugural session,
• WPC excellence awards,
• Deliverability challenges: Security of supply and demand perspectives, Natural gas – an emerging global commodity,
• Delivering energy for sustainable growth,
• Advancing sustainability in the oil and gas industry,
• Accessing reserves and investing in infrastructures,
• Societal expectations of the oil and gas industry

Special sessions

• Water and energy: A sustainable way, cooperation between oil producers and service companies,
• Social responsibility and human rights,
• Women’s forum: Making the business case for more women in the industry,
• Gas market integration: a perspective from the IGU,
• Financing sustainable growth in the oil and gas industry,
• Youth – does the industry need an image makeover?

Best practice keynotes

• Experience and lessons learned from largest hydrocarbon discoveries during the past decades,
• Assessment of global oil and gas resources,
• Advanced drilling and completion,
• Refinery capacity expansion vs. grassroots capacity,
• Motor fuel quality strategies for Asia,
• Role of renewables in the supply mix,
• Review of gas-to-liquids (GTL) technologies,
• Gas transportation challenges,
• Insuring the catastrophic risk (risk management), transparency and openness,
• NOCs and IOCs – competing or co-operating?

Forums

• New frontier exploration,
• Increased oil and gas recovery from mature fields,
• Application of advanced E&P technology in challenging field developments,
• Unconventional petroleum resources,
• Reservoir monitoring,
• Carbonate reservoirs,
• Latest advances in bottom-of-the-barrel conversion processes,
• New processing routes to re-balance diesel/gasoline at refineries,
• Latest advances and novel processes for deep desulphurization,
• Unconventional crude oils and feedstocks to refineries,
• Refineries in the digital era: what is next in automation, control, optimization,
• Progress in olefin production,
• Non-conventional gas (CBM, hydrates, gasification of coal/heavy-oil bottoms),
• State of the art on renewable (wind and solar) sources of energy,
• Recent developments in biofuels,  
• Natural gas as a transportation fuel,
• Balancing the regional gas supply & demand equations,
• Monetizing underutilized gas resources (GTL, LNG),
• Best practices in sustainability reporting,
• Challenges and opportunities in GHG emissions trading markets,
• HSE key issues for the oil and gas industry,
• Attracting and retaining future energy professionals,
• Coping with the impacts of natural disasters – lessons learned,
• Carbon capture and storage – political, technological and economical constraints

Round tables

• Motor fuel quality: regulators and industry’s views,
• Biofuels and oil products: integration vs. competition,
• Refinery safety management,
• Hydrogen: energy for the future or not?
• Securing European gas supply,
• Coal bed methane: addressing environmental concerns,
• Environmental footprint of the industry,
• Perspectives for the Kyoto protocol,
• Geopolitics of oil and gas – energy resources as political instruments