Highlights Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference

Today Offshore Energy Exhibition & Conference was opened by Ko Colijn, General Director Clingendael. Visitors, exhibitors and delegates from the offshore industry came together in Amsterdam RAI to visit the more than 500 exhibitors, to attend conferences, panels, masterclasses, to network and to meet new relations.

Official Opening: The state of the world
By the push on the button of Ko Colijn, Coert van Zijll Langhout, Managing Director Navingo BV and Sander Vergroesen, managing director at IRO, the Association of Dutch Suppliers in the Oil and Gas Industry, the sixth edition of Offshore Energy opened its doors. Vergroesen spoke about the offshore business which is in the middle of worldwide developments and comes with challenges, threats, demands and a lot of opportunities. In addition Ko Colijn, general director at Clingendael Netherlands Institute of International Relations, addressed the current and expected political consequences of the conflict in the Middle East in relation to the oil and offshore sector.

Drilling and Dollars Panel: outlook on upstream and service activities
Organized for the first time during Offshore Energy and unique in the Netherlands, the Drilling &Dollars Panel discussed the investment opportunities in the oil & gas industry. Financial experts like Rob le Mair (director energy at ABN Amro), Wim van Wijngaarden (vice president oil & gas at NIBC Bank) and others talked about the quest for alternative funding in oil and gas under the supervision of chairman Jan-Hein Jesse, advisor in the area of oil, gas and finances.

Earlier today, the Industry Panel was hosted by John Andrews, consultant editor at The Economist. This panel, with some of the best positioned industry representatives, offered a mix of presentations and interactive discussions with the audience.

The topic for this year’s Panel were the changing industry fundamentals – from geology to geopolitics and from technology to tech talent shortages.

Informal yet highly driven by content, John Andrews led, in a talk-show-style setting, an engaging conversation on projects of ever increasing scope and complexity, changing societal expectations and shaping and reshaping partnerships with clients, subcontractors and other service providers. Also Human Capital was, like last year, a main theme. This discussion will be further explored during the Human Capital panel, which takes place tomorrow at 10.30 am. Among the guests were Chris Stouthamer (Engineering and Maintenance Manager, ONEgas, Shell) and Horst Fischer (vice president industrial applications oil & gas, chemicals at Siemens AG). The session ended with some promising predictions about the offshore industry for the next decade: “Growing and challenging”, “Absolutely booming” and “Exiting and deeper”.

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