“Although being one of the smaller countries in the region, Bahrain, in its own right will attract about $20 billion investment over the next 15 years,” Dr. Abdul Hussain bin Ali Mirza, Minister of Energy, who opened the PETROTEC Bahrain 2012, said.
“The industry estimates that over the period The Middle East, in addition to its role of being the lead producer in the world, is becoming one of the fastest growing areas of demand. Demand in the region accounted for 6.6% of world consumption in the year 2000. Today, it represents just over 9% of world consumption,” he added.
Dr Mirza while highlighted the importance of the 8th session of a conference said it grew from strength to strength since its inauguration that first took place in 1996.
“The number of exhibitors and participating companies have increased despite some challenging times witnessed by the country, showing the growing level confidence by the investors in Bahrain,” Dr Mirza in an exclusive interview said.
Petrotech, he said, hosts all heavy weight GCC players including Aramco from Saudi Arabia in addition to participation of Kuwait, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Oman as well leading global players.
PETROTECH 2012 which remains open till Wednesday, according to Minister, will see more number of visitors compared with the last year, making this year’s conference and expo a great success.
“We all know that the world experienced strong demand growth culminating in price levels nearing the $150 mark during July 2008. During that time, value creation was predominately directed towards the shareholders. Customers and society were harmed by the high prices. In those days of lofty prices we hardly foresaw the looming financial and economic crises that were to follow in the span of a few months, crises that confronted all mature and developed economies of the world and repercussions of which are still unfolding to this very day. The world was spared a total and catastrophic global collapse of the economies by the new economic powers that are budding in Asia – namely China, India, and the Middle East. This development, with the center of gravity of economic activity moving to Asia, adds value to society. The lives of millions and millions in the emerging economies improved as a result,” he said.
“Technological advances are present all around us and touch us in our everyday life to a greater and greater extent. While visiting the GEO and MEOS oil shows, as well as some other shows held recently in our Kingdom, I was simply astonished at the technological advances that took place over the past few years in all areas of the energy value chain – from exploration and production, to refining to distribution of petroleum products. Technological advances have created a whole new vocabulary in our lives. All of us have noticed the addition of a whole new family of words into our day-to-day usage – and I refer to the “I”-words such as I-phone, I-pod, and I-pad. These words were the product of a few other I-words – namely I-deas, I-ngenuity, I-novation and I-mplementation. The latter are not new and they, in fact, form the basis of technological advancement.
“In particular I wish to highlight some of the technological advancements that took place in the NOGA companies. Tatweer Petroleum – the joint venture between nogaholding, Occidental and Mubadala, turned data into information across the organization by using integration and system standards that have turned Bahrain’s traditional oil field into a Smart Digital oil field. Recently Bapco deployed E- procurement by using “cloud” technology. This initiative which will greatly increase productivity, (value creation) will be later extended to include all companies in the NOGA family as well as other associated industries in Bahrain.”
“One does not have to go far to see the fruits of the investment dollars at work. In the relatively short time of its existence, Tatweer reversed the decline in production of oil by employing the advanced EOR technologies of our partners, Occidental and Mubadala. To date their activity resulted in an increase of 50 % in the production of domestic oil over the immediate pre-Tatweer period,” the Minister said.
“Two weeks ago I opened the 20th Middle East Petroleum and Gas Conference. During the proceedings it was very apparent that industry observers have concerns that the rate of refining capacity additions that are coming on stream worldwide is outpacing the expected growth rate in demand for refined products. This overcapacity might lead to tighter refinery margins which in turn would dry up investment in modernization and new ventures,” he added.