14th RAO/CIS Offshore 2019 International Exhibition and Conference

Technological advances are one of the key foundations of successful shelf development

This was the tagline for the 14th RAO/CIS Offshore 2019 International Exhibition and Conference in St. Petersburg.

This event brought together over 5,000 experts: representatives of specialized ministries and government agencies, as well as top managers of leading Russian and international oil and gas companies, experts, academics, and young researchers. They all came to St. Petersburg to share their experience, showcase innovative achievements, and discuss the current state and the future of the oil and gas complex, focusing particularly on shelf extraction and the development of the Arctic infrastructure.

The plenary session, Oil & Gas on the Russian Arctic Shelf: the Current Status and Future Prospects, was one of the key highlights. The keynote speakers included: Aleksey KONTOROVICH (member of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Chairman of the RAS Research Council for Geology and the Development of Oil & Gas and Coal Resources, winner of the Global Energy Award), Vadim PETRENKO (Gazprom PJSC), Andrey PATRUSHEV (Gazprom Neft PJSC), Denis ROZHENTSEV (LUKOIL PJSC), Dmitry FISHKIN (Far East Agency for Investment and Export Support), Sergey KHRUSHCHEV (Department of Government Policy and Regulation in Meteorology and the Exploration of the Arctic, Antarctic and the World Ocean at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation), Maksim KULINKO (Rosatom State Atomic Energy Corporation), Igor SHAKALO (United Shipbuilding Corporation), and Nils Andreas MASVIE (DNV GL). The discussion was moderated by Alexander GLADKOV, Director of the Department of Oil and Gas Extraction and Shipping at the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation. The discussion participants described RAO/CIS Offshore as a professional debate platform that encourages a continuous exchange of experience and free dialog on the most relevant current issues, and delivers insights that may later drive new research and promising projects related to the Russian and foreign shelf.

How should Russia develop oil extraction in the Arctic today? What are the current status and prospects of producing equipment for offshore oil and gas extraction? Who is responsible for securing marine shipping of oil and gas from the Arctic? How can we preserve the Arctic's vulnerable ecosystem? These are just some of the questions that the researchers, professional experts, government officials, and members of the business community tried to answer during the RAO/CIS Offshore 2019 conference sessions.

CONFERENCE

The Forum's program spanned three days and featured over 10 panel sessions and discussions. The event's 149 speakers (including representatives of the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation, Gazprom, Gazprom Neft, Lukoil, Rosneft Oil Company, Novatek, United Shipbuilding Corporation, Atomflot, Rubin CDB, Corall Central Design Bureau, Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, Sevmash, Afrikantov ÐÐÐÐ, Severstal, ChelPipe Group, Zvyozdochka Shiprepairing Center along with a number of leading foreign companies, such as DNV GL, TechnipFMC, Kvaerner, Aker Arctic Technology, Total, Oglaend System, Swagelok and many more) introduced their innovative solutions that will meet the needs of geologic exploration, mining, and raw material processing and shipping in the Russian Arctic, in addition to helping conserve resources and manage the ecosystem in a sustainable way.

Young Session

Over the course of 4 weeks before the event, young researchers and experts that were planning to contribute to RAO/CIS Offshore 2019 worked on a case study aimed at designing the Northern Sea Route development concept, basing their efforts on the current status of shelf exploration in the Arctic and the Far East. On October 3, the best research findings were awarded with diplomas and prizes.

The conference fully met all expectations, and its participants received ample opportunity to share their wealth of knowledge and skills, talk to their peers about their new plans and projects, and put forth groundbreaking ideas on how the Arctic and its shelf deposits might be explored in the future. Overall, the sessions brought together more than 570 experts representing 236 companies from Russia, Great Britain, Kazakhstan, Norway, Finland, and Switzerland.

EXHIBITION

The exhibition segment of RAO/CIS Offshore was of no lesser interest to the experts: it featured a variety of new technology and equipment for extracting offshore hydrocarbons, as well as mining projects in the Arctic and the continental shelf, and safety and security resources. Some of the participants included: Gazprom Neft, Gazprom Flot, Sevmash, Swagelok, CRISM "Prometey", Svarog, the Shipbuilding Innovation Territorial Cluster of Arkhangelsk Region, Afrikantov OKB Mechanical Engineering, and others.

CONTEST

The exhibition also served as a traditional platform for awarding the winners and runners-up of a research contest, hosted by the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation and aimed at selecting the best scientific, technical, and innovative insights into the development and exploration of the Arctic and the continental shelf. The judges described the contest entries that they had selected as a collective achievement of researchers and highly qualified engineers, with a suitably high level of in-depth detail. In some cases, the entries were even ready for practical implementation.

RAO/CIS Offshore International Conference and Exhibition proved that the Russian shelf has a tremendous development potential.

The Forum was organized by: Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment of the Russian Federation, Federal Subsoil Resources Management Agency, Russian Academy of Sciences, Gazprom, Rosneft Oil Company, Kurchatov Institute National Research Center, Gazprom VNIIGAZ LLC, RAS Research Council for Geology and the Development of Oil & Gas and Coal Resources, and RESTEC® Exhibition Company.

General sponsor: Gazprom PJSC. Official sponsors: Gazprom Neft PJSC, Rosneft Oil Company; Conference session sponsor: DNV GL AS; Young session sponsor: Gazprom Dobycha Shelf Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk. Partners: Gazprom Flot LLC and NORWEP (Norwegian Energy Partners).

For more information, please visit the event's official website www.rao-offshore.ru