His Excellency Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa, the Minister of Oil, opened Monday morning, 23 January 2017 at the Ritz Carlton, Bahrain, the Middle East Refining Technology Conference, which was organized by the World Refining Association, in collaboration and coordination with the National Oil and Gas Authority (NOGA) and the support and patronage of Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO), international oil companies and prominent participation by experts, specialists, and managers of companies engaged in oil refining, as well as stakeholders interested in refining technology and research and academia community.
His Excellency the Minister of Oil expressed appreciation and gratitude for selection of the Kingdom of Bahrain for hosting this event for the first time on the Kingdom's territory thanks to the good reputation that the Kingdom enjoys across the world in organizing conferences and specialized functions in this vital field. His Excellence warmly welcomed all participants in this significant technological event and hoped that they would benefit from the scientific papers to be presented and discussed during the various sessions of the conference and explore the state of the art and sophisticated technologies featured in the exhibition organized in tandem with the conference.
Several topics were presented and discussed during the sessions of the conference with more than 250 participants who addressed a host of topics related to refining, future technologies and the strategic projects intended to upgrade and promote the standards of the refineries, especially as the Kingdom of Bahrain is bent on the execution of a refinery upgrade project to increase its production from 260,000 barrels a day to 360,000 barrels a day. The modernization project will also involve production of environmentally friendly and value added clean products. The conference will also address and discuss the carbon emissions management technologies, regional projects, growth plans, talent strategies, optimal investments on development research, commercial utilization thereof, integration of opportunities in the fields of refining and petrochemicals, 2030 Saudi Vision and the National Transformation Program. All these topics will be discussed by globally renowned experts and specialists of more than 40 keynote speakers.
His Excellency Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa highlighted the fact that the National Oil and Gas Authority is quite keen to execute the directives of the wise political leadership relative to the need and importance of taking the initiative and review of the priorities of reduction of green gas emissions in the various sectors in preparation for implementation of Paris Agreement which was adopted in Paris in 2015. He further stated that the National Oil and Gas Authority is currently bent on preparing its strategy on climate change considering the fact that the oil sector is the sector that is most impacted by the climate change issues particularly after the climate change agreement reached in the French cosmopolitan in the year 2015 where global delegations representing 176 states, including the Kingdom of Bahrain. Most of the GCC states participated in the signature celebrations at the United Nations' premises in New York. The Paris Agreement on Climate Change requires its signatory parties to seek to control the rise in global temperature within much less than two degrees centigrade, coupled with sustained effort to hit the target of 1.5 degrees centigrade, thereby requiring all countries of the world, including the Kingdom of Bahrain, to submit their commitments and initiatives for reduction of the green gas emissions by the year 2020 based on the Nationally Determined Contributions (NDCs).
The National Oil and Gas Authority is in the process of setting up a carbon management registry system for the oil sector in the Kingdom of Bahrain in collaboration with its subsidiaries. It is fully prepared to identify and calculate separately the volumes of green gases of the oil sector for all companies attached to the Authority. It is also working on the execution of increment of two of the gas emission mitigation options in addition to organizing a workshop of carbon harvesting, exploitation and storage, besides other future events and functions, such as the Middle East 20th Oil Conference and Exhibition, the Middle East Operations Engineering Conference and Exhibition (MEPEC 2017) which are regularly held every two years in the Kingdom of Bahrain under the patronage of His Royal Highness the Prime Minister.
In Conclusion, His Excellency Shaikh Mohammed bin Khalifa Al-Khalifa, the Minister of Oil, expressed his thanks and gratitude to the World Refining Association, the Consulting Committee of this specialized conference which was set up from senior officials of a number of national, Gulf and international companies, including the National Oil and Gas Authority, the Oil and Gas Holding Company, Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO), SABIC, Saudi ARAMCO, SADARAH Company, all sponsors of this event, including CBA Company, Chevron, Lumos Global Company (the golden sponsor), Fluor and Floss (the silver sponsor), as well as the exhibitors, all keynote speakers and the audience. He wished all a successful conference and realization of the objectives they sought.
His Excellence also opened the accompanying exhibition and met with a number of exhibitors who displayed their best achievements in modern refining technologies, including CH2m Company, Exxon Mobil Company, AGRICO Company, Chevron Company, Lumos Global Company, Fluor Company, Albemarle Company, in addition to Bahrain Petroleum Company (BAPCO), JERAISY Company and a number of other international companies.
