Keynote Luncheons

With major transformations in the global energy system due to take place over the coming decades, Dr. Fatih Birol, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, will consider the role for natural gas and LNG in the future of global energy. Who will the big winners be in meeting energy demand in the next five, ten and twenty years? What factors will have the greatest impact in determining the global energy mix? How will energy transformation impact on energy security? And how will efforts to reach climate goals affect the transition taking place in the energy sector?

Leading executives from energy-intensive industries will discuss industry views on: the value of low, stable primary energy costs with respect to business and the economy; the role of natural gas and natural gas liquids as an industrial feedstock; how we can build on the legacy of natural gas in the industrial sector and technological or other obstacles to connecting natural gas to successful industrial products and processes.

Natural gas has the potential to play a transformative role in increasing energy access and reducing poverty worldwide. With nearly 1.3 billion people unable to access electricity, and 3 billion people heating their homes with biomass and coal fuelled fires, natural gas provides an affordable alternative with significant health and environmental benefits. In this session, Riccardo Puliti, Senior Director, Head of the Energy & Extractives Global Practice at the World Bank Group, will consider how to provide energy to some of the most challenging areas of the world; what mechanisms are needed to support developing economies as their energy needs continue to increase and how gas can be used to provide fuel for cooking, transportation and industrial development effectively and at the lowest cost.

As a wrap up to a week’s worth of intense and exciting discussions, two of the world’s leading authorities on all forms of energy – Daniel Yergin and Ernest Moniz – will discuss and debate the evolution of the world’s energy systems. What are the possible energy systems of the future? What are the new technologies? How will climate change, policy development and research impact on the development of the energy sector? Where will gas, coal, oil and renewables fit into the energy mix?