Upbeat oil & gas industry turns out in force for AOG 2017

Feb 22, 2017 Event News

A forecast turnaround in the oil and gas industry has been reflected by a strong turnout for day one of the 36th staging of the Australasian Oil & Gas Exhibition & Conference (AOG) in Perth today.

Organisers are estimating up to 8,000 attendees will pass through the doors of the Perth Convention and Exhibition Centre (PCEC) over the three days of AOG 2017 to see more than 300 exhibitors from 15 different countries display their wares and to hear key industry updates from leading oil and gas operating and service and supply companies, government and industry bodies.

Those industry discussions kicked off with a bang when Bernadette Cullinane, Deloitte’s National Oil & Gas Leader, told an AOG Media breakfast that there were definite signs that there are “green shoots” of positive growth appearing for the local industry.

In a presentation titled “Time to Thrive for Australian Oil & Gas”, Ms Cullinane said that there had been positive announcements both locally and internationally that the leading oil and gas companies were now increasing their spending after two to three years of cutbacks.

While some industry observers have noted that an unprecedented the period of “mega” project construction in Australia was coming to end, Ms Cullinane said those mega projects will now offer up massive new opportunities for the local oil and gas industry over the next 40 years.

Ms Cullinane has estimated that upwards of $550 billion dollars is likely to be needed to be invested on maintaining and upgrading Australia’s string of world class LNG projects over the next 25 years.

She also highlighted that there will be another significant industry opportunity with the future decommissioning of aging offshore oil and gas infrastructure – which could be worth anything up to $27 billion.

The AOG 2017 was also the forum for National Energy Resources Australia (NERA) announcement of the release of its Sector Competitive Plan – a 10 year roadmap for the future of the energy resources sector in Australia.

NERA chief executive and AOG Collaboration Forum committee member, Miranda Taylor, says the country and industry needs to think outside the box to achieve generational, transformational change. If it did not do this, Australia would fail to realise the substantial social and economic benefits from the huge investment in resource projects over the last decade.

Ms Taylor said export opportunities would also be lost if industry leaders, researchers, SMEs (small to medium enterprises) and governments did not reset their thinking and find new connections and new business models, as would opportunities to commercialise new home grown technologies.

Speaking at the AOG 2017 Collaboration Forum, Woodside Chief technology officer Shaun Gregory emphasised the importance of developing the right culture and collecting the right people as the major key for innovation.

Identifying common problems, even between very remote industries is a first step in the collaboration process. Woodside, for example, is using its knowledge of pipelines to assist the    medical industry in combating restricted blood flow as a result of plaque build-up within the veins.

Woodside has also been able to develop long-term projects with a number of research institutions, including Monash University and the University of Western Australia, collaborating to meet the publication needs of academia, while also delivering business solutions to the company.

AOG Event Director at Diversified Communications, Bill Hare, says the AOG 2017 Exhibition and Conference has got off to an exciting start.

“There has been a real buzz around the exhibition hall and our Collaboration, Subsea and Knowledge Forums have been a tremendous success with packed attendances for every session.

“We are extremely happy with the turnout and the enthusiasm from the attendees, presenter and exhibitors so far and we really look forward to an exciting two more days of the same,” Mr Hare.

 

For media enquiries contact:

Colin Hay and Alex Baker at PPR
T: +61 8 9388 0944 E: colin.hay@ppr.com.au and alex.baker@ppr.com.au

 

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