Qatargas is participating as a principal sponsor at the World Gas Conference 2015 (WGC 2015), being held from 1 – 5 June in Paris. The 26th edition of the largest and most prestigious conference in the global gas industry brings together thousands of executives and professionals in the energy sector.
Qatargas’ delegation to the event is led by the Chief Executive Officer Khalid bin Khalifa Al Thani. The CEO delivered a keynote speech on the opening day of the conference. The speech was focused on the theme “Natural Gas – A Core Pillar of a Sustainable Energy Future.”
The speech underlined the fact that LNG will play a major role in a sustainable energy future as it represents an attractive alternative to unsustainable, higher priced, higher polluting, and less reliable energy options.
As the global focus on climate change continues, countries around the world are seeking to diversify their energy mix with a focus on clean-burning fuels. Qatargas is proud to play an important role in meeting this global demand for reliable and cleaner sources of energy.
In his speech, the Qatargas CEO elaborated on Qatargas’ commitment to responsible resource utilization and the highest standards of environmental protection, that are fundamental requirements enshrined in Qatargas’ Direction Statement and Vision. The speech outlined the various initiatives through which Qatargas continues to promote the use of state-of-the-art solutions to further improve the environmental performance of its production facilities.
As the world’s population continues to grow, the demand for power generation will rise. However, at a time when there is an increasing focus on climate change, and specifically, on the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the use of fossil fuels needs to be properly managed.
Qatargas called for greater use of natural gas as a key solution to this challenge. The increased use of natural gas-fired power plants is inevitable, due to their significantly lower emissions. The speech also predicted increasing synergy between renewable energy and natural gas, allowing for reduced dependence on coal and resulting in a low-carbon, clean environment.
The CEO concluded his speech with three key remarks:
• The wide availability and comparatively lower cost of coal are greatly outweighed by the serious negative impacts of its use on people’s health and the environment.
• Renewable energy sources alone cannot meet the world’s demand for sustainable, clean energy. No energy portfolio can be considered reliable without natural gas.
• The increasing use of natural gas is indispensable to ensuring the supply of cost-effective, clean and reliable energy to the world.
In addition to the keynote speech by the CEO, Qatargas is also presenting five other papers in the conference, covering various topics including LNG supply and demand, long-term sustainability of LNG markets and Greenhouse Gas Emissions study.
Qatargas is also participating as part of the Qatar Petroleum pavilion in the exhibition being held in parallel with the conference. Over 4,000 delegates from more than 100 countries are expected to attend WGC 2015. More than 500 speakers will discuss current and future industry developments. The delegates will benefit from numerous social and technical networking events that have been organized as part of the conference.