Breakthrough to excellence

The 2019 edition of SPE Offshore Europe is set to host a wholesome debate on key topics in the upstream oil and gas industry, while also enabling companies from all over the world to display their latest developments in offshore E&P

Within the first full week of September, Scotland’s brand-new, state-of-the-art events venue will open its doors to host SPE Offshore Europe for the very first time, establishing itself as the event’s new home. Aberdeen’s P&J Live opened only earlier in 2019 and its 48,000 square metres of exhibition space are ready to welcome hundreds of oil and gas companies and in excess of 36,000 attendees.

Scheduled to take place between 3 and 6 September, Offshore Europe is recognised by professionals as the continent’s leading event in offshore E&P. Attending the exhibition will bring visitors up to date with the most significant technologies, enabling them to engage directly with technical experts from more than 900 suppliers. These include international market leaders, as well as new innovative technology companies presenting their effective solutions for the attendees to source and compare.

In addition, the industry’s largest free-to-attend conference – produced in association with the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) – will allow visitors to expand their technical knowledge with second-to-none insight and best practices discussed at length over the four days of the event. The SPE is a renowned resource for technical knowledge related to the oil and gas E&P industry, whose members number more than 164,000 individuals from 143 countries worldwide, and whose long-standing support has defined the immense popularity Offshore Europe has enjoyed over the years.

The previous edition of the event (2017) saw companies from 130 countries take part as exhibitors, of which almost 60 per cent stated their intention to return this year. The possibility of making a big impression on thousands of potential customers is clearly there, with 2017 stats showing that 72 per cent of the visitors had the ability to either initiate or influence financial transactions on behalf of their company. Countless opportunities for networking and setting up valuable business relationships are also available, as well as the chance to reach your targeted audience and gain exposure to the crème de la crème of the energy community.

Among the main highlights of the exhibition will be a newly-created feature called The StartUp Village. As the name betrays it, the zone will allow new UK and international start-ups to showcase their latest technologies, products, and solutions, and make these innovations easy to find for attendees. Dedicating a specific area to these sorts of companies reflects the desire event organisers have to help start-ups get noticed and to encourage delegates to discover cutting-edge innovations from various sectors.

Following the success of the inaugural ENGenious Exhibition and Symposium in 2018, the second edition of the event, which aims to drive radical digital transformation across the upstream oil and gas industry, will be launching at SPE Offshore Europe 2019. Tying in perfectly with the exhibition’s focus on data analytics, machine learning, and artificial intelligence, ‘ENGenious at OE’ will provide digital companies with a platform to demonstrate their capabilities before ENGenious returns in 2020.

Another highly popular feature from 2017 that will be present again this year, is the free-to-attend Decommissioning Zone. Expected to bring over 11,000 industry professionals, it will include decommissioning technology and service providers, together with a conference theatre programme.

Some of the major talking points at the SPE Offshore Europe Conference will be artificial intelligence, energy diversification, and the transformation of the workforce. Senior international industry figures will co-chair the keynote sessions, which will also include late life and decommissioning, underwater innovation, transformation technologies to lower the carbon footprint, digital security, integrated technologies, digitalisation, standardisation, and finance. In order to streamline the content that is to be presented, a technical committee was selected and charged with shortlisting more than 80 technical papers, which will be revealed to attendees over the course of Offshore Europe.

Michael Borrell, Senior Vice President, North Sea and Russia at Total, will be the Conference Chair during the 2019 edition and he is optimistic that an excellent programme has been developed, which gets to the heart of the main opportunities and challenges facing the region. “Offshore Europe 2019 is a great opportunity for us to challenge ourselves in the North Sea basin. I want the event to not just look at what is going well in the North Sea, but to engage with the best of what is happening across the world. It is only by sharing best practice and being open to new ideas that we truly have the opportunity to break through to excellence,” he commented, making a reference to the theme under which this year’s event will be held – ‘Breakthrough to Excellence – Our licence to operate.’

The opening session of the Conference will bring together industry luminaries, as well as an internationallyrecognised leader on global climate change. The executive keynote address will be delivered by Patrick Pouyanné, President & CEO of Total. Bernard Looney, Chief Executive of Upstream at BP; Wael Sawan, Shell’s Upstream Director; Doug Pferdehirt, TechnipFMC CEO; Karl Johnny Hersvik CEO of AkerBP and Hinda Gharbi, Schlumberger’s Executive Vice President Reservoir & Infrastructure will form the opening plenary panel, alongside Christiana Figueres, former UNFCCC Executive Secretary and Convenor of Mission 2020.

“We have a truly world-class selection of speakers at this year’s Conference. As well as leaders from the oil and gas industry such as Patrick Pouyanné, we also have senior international figures from the climate change debate such as Christiana Figueres. This will allow us to have a really high-quality discussion about our license to operate and the future of energy,” Mr Borrell enthused.

In another first for this year’s event, SPE Offshore Europe is partnering with the Financial Times to provide delegates with an insight to the role of finance in the upstream oil and gas industry. The FT Oil & Gas Finance and Investment Forum will take place on the second of the four days (4 September) and its main theme will be ‘Securing the Future in a Rapidly Evolving Energy Landscape.’

With only a couple of months remaining before Offshore Europe kicks off, registration for the exhibition and the conference is still open and potential exhibitors are urged to book their space before the venue is filled to capacity. Gathering the elite of offshore E&P, Aberdeen is the place to be in early September, if businesses are to take advantage of the latest industry developments.
SPE Offshore Europe 2019
Venue: P&J Live, Aberdeen
Dates: 3-6 September 2019
Show hours:
Tuesday, 3 September 09:30 – 18:00
Wednesday, 4 September 09:30 – 18:00
Thursday, 5 September 09:30 – 18:00
Friday, 6 September 09:30 – 14:00
For further information please visit: https://www.offshore-europe.co.uk