On October 1–4, 2019, Expoforum Convention and Exhibition Centre was the host to the 9^th St. Petersburg International Gas Forum. The event was attended by over 30,000 participants from 55 countries, including 5,500 delegates. As part of its exhibition program, 535 companies demonstrated their solutions and products for the gas industry.

 

 

At the plenary session Strategic Priorities of International Energy Cooperation, participants focused on the potential of pooling together the industry’s efforts to produce and distribute the most environmentally friendly energy resource, gas.

 

 

Elena Burmistrova, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, Director General of Gazprom Export, pointed out one of the key challenges of the industry, which reveals itself in the attempts of oil and gas companies to adapt regulatory standards to the needs of the business. She believes that this approach has a harmful impact on the economic and legal system, the investment climate, at the same time causing damage to the repute of the industry. The speaker has not left the environmental agenda unaddressed: “We must approach the matter with a cold mind. It’s technically impossible to reduce CO₂ emissions to zero. The way we could achieve that goal right now would mean thousands of people losing their jobs, and we wouldn't like to end up in such predicament.”

 

 

Mario Mehren, Chairman of the Board and CEO at Wintershall Dea GmbH, supported this idea, saying that the industry should strive to fulfil climatic tasks. “In Germany, we've come to a decision to abandon coal. This is how we've come to a 20% reduction of CO₂ emissions per year. This is a good result, given that our industry is one of the most developed ones,” said the speaker. Besides that, he called on the industry players to unite, as this is the only way to achieve prosperity.

 

 

“William Herschel discovered the way to measure the temperature of light. Many would have stopped there, but not him. Herschel directed the light beyond the red spectrum, thus discovering infrared radiation. We need to follow his example and think globally without presuming we have already discovered everything. We need to move on,” Maarten Wetselaar, Integrated Gas & New Energies Director, Member of Executive Committee at Royal Dutch Shell PLC, encouraged his colleagues. The speaker believes that, despite all the progress in reducing carbon dioxide emissions, it is too early for industries to rest on their laurels.

 

 

Joe M. Kang, President of International Gas Union, emphasized that shifting to the new energy policy isn’t going to be easy, as if with a wave of a magic wand. The only available solution is innovation and technology, wherefore all interested parties and all generations must come together. “Today, young people themselves are talking about a climate catastrophe, and this is a challenge for us,” said the head of the International Gas Union, referring to Greta Thunberg.

 

 

The change in the energy paradigm in Europe and the transition from coal and nuclear energy to gas was mentioned by Ulf Heitmueller, Chairman of the Executive Board at VNG AG. According to him, uncovered gas demand in Europe is about 120 billion m³ per year. This demand can be satisfied by the supplies from Russia, which is why the company values cooperation with Gazprom that has been going on for 46 years. “The role of Russia is very significant. There used to be a cold war, frictions that prevented building close relations, but look at what Germany managed to have achieved in cooperation with Gazprom. Half a century ago, there was no gas market at all. It was built by our joint efforts. This includes Nord Stream 2, the construction of the Katharina underground gas storage facility, and other joint projects,” said Ulf Heitmueller.

 

 

Rainer Seele, Chairman of the Executive Board and CEO at OMV AG, said that the European Union is not investing in the development of gas infrastructure and, besides that, it is blocking any third-party investments. “Gazprom is ready to invest in the infrastructure, we are sharing the risks, and if third parties try to frustrate our investment activity, then we must reconsider the terms of partnership,” he added. The speaker also noted that the European market is eager to get imports, and suppliers will have to offer competitive conditions and invest in diversifying the supplies.

 

 

Ling Xiao, Vice President at PetroChina Company Limited, shared his views on the prospects of the Chinese market. “China will observe the Paris climate agreement. Our country is a leader in emissions, and it is gas that will help us change this. By 2020, the share of gas in the structure of primary consumption will be 10%, and by 2030 we are planning it to be 15%,” he said. According to expert forecasts, by 2035, China's gas demand will have amounted to about 24% of global one, and the demand for this energy resource will be 610 billion m³ per year by 2035 and 900 billion m³ by the year 2050.
This year, SPIGF business program brought together more than 90 events within 15 thematic areas: social and HR policy of the oil and gas complex; youth day; international dialogue; gas engine fuel; natural gas products; engineering design; gas distribution and gas consumption; IT and automation of the oil and gas industry; technological development; import substitution and export in the oil and gas sector; energy and gas; oil industry; investment and financing; ecology; hydrogen.

 

 

The Gas Forum saw the finish of the traditional Blue Corridor – Gas into Engines 2019 Rally, which started on August 29 in Turkey. The ceremony was attended by Viktor Zubkov, Chairman of the Gazprom Board of Directors; Uwe Fip, Senior Vice President Gas Supply & Origination, Uniper Global Commodities SE; Vitaly Markelov, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee; Vyacheslav Mikhalenko, Member of the Gazprom Management Committee; Oleg Melekhin, CEO of Gazprom Gas-Engine Fuel. The event featured compressed natural gas-fired vehicles that crossed the Russian section of the Blue Corridor. The list of participants included the following Russian gas-driven vehicles: a compact LADA Vesta car, a dual-fuel LADA Largus minivan, a GAZon NEXT lorry, a Lotos bus. German Volkswagen also took part in the Rally across Russia, emphasizing the partnership between Germany and Uniper SE in the Blue Corridor – Gas into Engines project.

 

 

Throughout the Forum, at Expoforum's pavilions covering 40,000 m² area, a wide range of expositions took place: three international specialised exhibitions InGAS Stream – Innovations in the Gas Industry, GAS ENGINE FUEL, ROS-GAS-EXPO, and the specialised exposition Import Substitution in the Gas Industry. For the first time, a corporate exposition of Gazprom, Modern Technologies in the Gas Industry, was presented at the Forum venue, demonstrating a range of equipment and technologies used in gas production, transmission, distribution, underground storage and gas processing. The theme of the exhibition has brought together the main areas of the oil and gas industry: from hydrocarbon production to gas distribution.

More than 500 major companies have unveiled new products and large-scale, conceptual solutions for the oil and gas market including Gazprom, OMV AG, Wintershall Dea, Uniper SE, Cavagna Group S.p.A., Severstal, Comita Group of Companies, Boskalis, Gazprom avtomatizatsiya, TMK, Zagorsk Pipe Plant, HMS Group, Almaz-Antey Air and Space Defence Corporation, ChelPipe, Salavat Catalyst Plant, Vega-GAZ, Mezhregiongaz Technologies, Gazprom StroyTEK Salavat, Gazprom Bureniye, Gazprom Gas-Engine Fuel, Gazprom Mezhregiongaz, Gazprom LNG Technologies, OMK, etc.

The Zagorsk Pipe Plant showed a space-related installation, which symbolized the horizons that opened before Russia in the development of the gas industry. National Drilling Service (NBS) demonstrated a system for managing drilling waste and secondary resources, as well as innovative systems, reagents and compositions to increase the efficiency of well construction. Uniper SE exposition supported the festive spirit, dedicated to the 50^th Anniversary of Russian gas supply to Germany, the German Unity Day, and Oktoberfest. At the collaborative stand of Gazprom Gas-Engine Fuel and Gazprom LNG Technologies, in a teleconference mode, the ceremony of putting into operation three gas-filling infrastructure facilities of the Gazprom CNG filling station network took place. Chairman of the Board of Directors of Gazprom Viktor Zubkov listened to the reports of the managers and emphasized the importance of keeping the price of gas at its current level. Employees of the ChelPipe stand presented their new product line of ETERNO INGENIUM tank equipment and the pipeline joint prototype made by laser welding.

 

 

An important part of the convention program was the annual HR Conference, arranged with support of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation. The issue of social and HR policies for the oil and gas complex brought together a whole range of panel discussions, meetings and sessions. Top HR specialists paid special attention to certain key factors like collaboration of enterprises and higher schools; digital transformation of business processes; labor productivity enhancement; unique HR and social projects.

 

 

Traditionally, SPIGF 2019 hosted the Youth Day: energy CHALLENGE, bringing together young specialists from 11 countries of the world: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Great Britain, Italy, France, Hungary, Belarus, Bolivia, China, and Russia. This year, Siemens, Schneider Electric, and Energy Delta Institute for the first time became partners of the Youth Day.

Participants of this event kept working all the days long: during a business quest, they learnt to make investment solutions and assess their consequences, invented ways of energy supply for a large city district, and debated with top managers of large companies about the future of the global energy business.

During the Forum, one of the major convention events took place: a session on the technological development of Gazprom, which brought together a plenary session Industry-specific Oil and Gas Initiative – an International Oil and Gas Institute, round table discussions Shelf and Distributed Generation. Independent Generation or Grids – Two Answers to One Question, as well as Gala Award Ceremony for winners of the youth contest Oil and Gas Projects: Looking into the Future.

 

 

Under cooperation with the Russian Export Center (REC), offering financial and non-financial support for Russian exporters, 20 companies demonstrated their products at personal stands.

Moreover, the collective stand by REC brought together 4 companies: Permsnabsbyt PPMTS, Agro, Fidesys, and Meta-Chrome. The most interesting exponent at this stand was an important project by Permsnabsbyt: an anode grounding unit of AZP RA type that doesn’t have equivalents anywhere globally. This device protects steel communications like gas and water pipelines from corrosion. Advantages of the grounding unit are environmental safety (it gradually decomposes if operated within the ground), long service life (min. 35 years), density, and easy assembling. “Key field of our company’s concern is complex solution of tasks associated with electrical chemical corrosion protection: its leading by means of implied current and relieving to the ground or some other surface,” the company representatives explained.

Representatives of the collective REC stand presented some of their services, too: Agro transportation agency told about their services of cargo transportation of oil and gas, as well as drilling equipment across Russia and Europe, specialists of Fidesys engineering company presented their software for the oil and gas industry. The fourth participant of the collective stand, Meta-Chrome, produces gas chromatographs (analytical devices for complex gas compounds) and designs measuring units for companies belonging to different industry sectors. Such chromatographs are applied for investigations in the food, medical, mining and other industries.

 

 

During the cultural program of SPIGF 2019 at the Grand Hall of the D. D. Shostakovitch St. Petersburg Academic Philharmonia, the annual charitable project by Gazprom and OMV AG, Imperial capitals: St. Petersburg – Vienna, took place. At the event, pieces by Russian and Austrian composers of the 20^th century were played, accompanied by a video representation of art work from collections of the State Russian Museum and three top Austrian museums.

 

 

For the first time ever, the sports program of the Forum was extended with a golf tournament, arranged together with the SPIGF 2019 official sports partner, MillCreek Club. Participants of the Gas Forum were offered not only to discover new sides of this game, but also to proceed with their business communication with colleagues and partners informally at the golf course.

 

 

SPIGF is a venue bringing together the major gas industrialists to share experience, make agreements for efficient collaboration, and solve current issues. The Forum is attended by top managers of Russia’s key oil and gas companies, representatives of the international business communities, leaders of R&D institutions, specialised higher schools, as well as public officials and experts from innovative centres.

SPIGF 2019 was supported by the Ministry of Industry and Trade of the Russian Federation, as well as the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Ecology of the Russian Federation, the Government of St. Petersburg, the Russian Export Center, NGV Italy, and the Russian Gas Society. Active support was rendered by the Association of European Business (AEB), the World Energy Council (RNC WEC), the European Gas Industry Union (Eurogas), the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), as well as other international and Russian industry-specific associations and unions.

The General partner of SPIGF 2019 was Gazprom, and the General international partner was OMV AG. The list of partners included Uniper SE, Wintershall Dea, Gazprom avtomatizatsiya, Comita Group of Companies, Boskalis, Gazprombank, TMK, Zagorsk Pipe Plant, HMS Group, Almaz-Antey Air and Space Defence Corporation, ChelPipe, Rossiya AB, Gazprom Bureniye, Vega-GAZ, Gazprom StroyTEK Salavat, Salavat Catalyst Plant, Salavatneftemash, REP Holding, Giproniigaz, Mezhregiongaz Technologies, Gazprom Social Initiatives Foundation, Certification Association Russian Register, INGC, Russian Laboratory, Kosmos-Neft-Gas, PromMash Test, GazNeftetorg.ru, Gazprom teploenergo, Gaztechexpert, and DATUM Group.

The official insurance partner was SOGAZ, the official translating company was VOICE OF THE WORLD, the official sports partner was MillCreek Club, the style partner was INDEVER, and the lounge-zone partner was Pernod Ricard Rouss.