On 6 October Russian National Committee of the World Petroleum Council held a huge international conference “Oil and Gas Industry Contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals”.
The sustainable development goals proclaimed by the UN General Assembly have become a major benchmark for countries and economies around the world. This pathway promotes balanced development of economic, social and environmental processes to improve the quality of life.
The oil and gas industry has tremendous potential and a wide range of opportunities to develop these positive processes. The high level of interest to the RNC WPC conference among representatives of government, science and business has confirmed that moving towards sustainable development goals is a major challenge today. All parties are interested in cooperation and finding the best solutions for harmonious development and improvement of the quality of life.
Authoritative Russian scientists took part in the discussion: academician Alexey Kontorovich, Alexander Shirov, Vasily Bogoyavlensky, Nikolay Eremin, Vladimir Kucherov, Mikhail Grigoriev.
Practical steps to achieve sustainability goals, opportunities and risks for oil and gas companies were discussed at the conference by Laszlo Varro, Vice President for Global Business Environment at Shell; Armin Ludwig Dorgathen Tapia, Vice President of Administration, Contracts and Control of Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos (YPFB); Natalia Tretiak, First Vice President at Gazprombank; Sergey Vakulenko, Head of Strategy and Innovation at Gazprom Neft.
Global trends and national specificities in the movement towards the sustainable development goals were explained by Tor Fjaeran, President of the World Petroleum Council; Didier Holleaux, President of the EUROGAS Association; Mohammed Zarei, Coordinator of Environmental Matters Unit at OPEC; Abdullahi Y. Shehu, Ambassador Extraordinary & Plenipotentiary of the Federal Republic of Nigeria to the Russian Federation.
The presentation on “Sustainable development and decarbonisation of the oil and gas sector” given by Tatiana Mitrova, Head of Research at SKOLKOVO Energy Centre raised a huge interest. This became one of the key topics at the conference.
The final session of the conference, initiated by RNC WPC Youth Committee, was dedicated to the specifics of oil and gas personnel training and retraining in modern conditions, the role and place of young professionals, and the continuity of generations. The following participants took part in the discussion: Michael Collins, CEO of Salym Petroleum Development N.V.; Kirill Molodtsov, Chairman of the Editorial Board of the National Industry Journal “Oil & Gas Vertical”; Oleg Romanovsky, Head of Personnel Evaluation and Development Department at PJSC LUKOIL; Artur Gataullin, Gazprom Global Account Director at Schlumberger; Ilya Dementyev, Rector of Gazprom Neft Corporate University.
Conference “Oil and Gas Industry Contribution to the Sustainable Development Goals” became part of the extensive technical programme of the 10th Saint Petersburg International Gas Forum.
Association “RNC of the WPC” became a co-organiser of SPIGF for the first time.
It is expected that future RNC WPC conferences will be held at the venue of Gas Forum annually.