The 5th Lebanon International Oil and Gas Summit (5thLIOG 2019), which took place at the Hilton Habtoor Grand Hotel Beirut April 2 to4 concluded successfully with record participation and business activities, insightful discussions andvaluable recommendations.
The LIOG 2019 Summit in its 5th edition was held under the patronage of the Minister of Energy and Water HE Mrs. Nada Al-Boustani Khoury, and with the support of major national and international organizations.
In addition to the nine sessions during the first two days, the summit included this year a technical day, a new addition, that included a couple of plenary sessions with an emphasis on digitalization within the oil and gas sector as well as the latest in exploration and production technologies.
The Summit consolidated its position again as the leading oil and gas event in Lebanon, hosting over 500 participants from around the world. Participants included top-officials from the public and private sectors, representing over 200 local and international companies and organizations, with foreign participation exceeding 50 percent.
LIOG 2019, was held during very crucial times for the petroleum industry in Lebanon where the start of exploration drilling in two maritime blocks will start around the year-end; the launch of the second licensing round offshore Lebanon which was approved this afternoon, and the introduction of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) for the first time to the Lebanese market through FSRUs.
LIOG has proved another timethat it is a real platform not only for exchanging thoughts and networking, but also for holding actual business meetings.
This year the summit witnessed again impressive business activities in the dedicated networking area, with higher number of exhibiting companies, and increase in number of visitors. A remarkable number of pre-arranged one-to-one business meetings were organized on the premises through the conference's business matching service, apart from the regular meetings which occur through conventional networking.
Such activities fit the main objectives of the summit to maximize the contribution of this sector to the Lebanon's economic growth and job creation; and to re-position Lebanon on the world's oil and gas map, said a statement by the organizers.
This summit has always been viewed as a major driver to boost business activities across the oil and gas value chain, and to highlight the potential for economic growth and job creation in Lebanon.
The summit welcomed 48 speakers who shared their valuable insight on different strategic and technical topics distributed over nine sessions in the 2-day strategic part of conference and five sessions and workshops in the remaining technical day.
With the hope of having positive exploration discoveries in the coming years, the conference was concluded with the following remarks:
1- This year's edition moved forward in a strategic manner to cover the whole value chain including upstream, midstream and even downstream activities in the sector discussing possible scenarios and needed preparations and recommendations.
2- The Summit included for the first time a technical day where the recent technologies in the petroleum industry were discussed particularly in terms digitalization and the newest exploration technologies.
3- The programme introduced the project of FSRUs as an interim arrangement to boost the energy mix in Lebanon and discussed two important themes of midstream and downstream sectors for the Natural Gas in the country.
4-The event also included two important workshops. The first was facilitated by Chartered Institute of Arbitration - Lebanon branch on "Dispute prevention and settlement in the oil and gas industry". The other discussed the latest in the Gas-to-Power technology.
5-This year also the event had visible presence of petroleum engineering students and related majors, through a competition which was organized by the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) Beirut Branch.
6-In the LIOG 2019 Summit, delegates also noticed a visible and appreciated increase in the presence of women. Women's participation was truly impressive, whether on the level of delegates, business representatives or speakers.
7-The strategic conference included important sessions related to the strategic role of the insurance industry. This session was made possible with the contribution and support of the FAIR Oil and Energy Insurance Syndicate from Bahrain, along with national support of Association des Companies D'Assurance au Liban (ACAL). This formed a clear indication that support sector are getting more and more aware about the available opportunities in the sector.
8- The strategic part of the conference also included important sessions on the Supply Chain and on HSE, as well as the subject of transparency and governance in the sector.
Finally, with the remarkable success of the technical day in this year's edition, the organizers will develop this part of this conference further, starting preparations at an early stage.
