Asia Regional Meeting September 17th - 20th, 2001, Shanghai, China

The first WPC Asia Regional Meeting was formally opened in Shanghai on September 17, 2001 and lasted for four days. In his opening address, President of the WPC Eivald M.Q. Røren pointed out that the main topic of this meeting is "Technology and cooperation - a fundamental strategy for Asia's petroleum industry." He also told the audience that this regional meeting will focus on a number of key issues facing Asia's petroleum industry such as the management of petroleum resources - the mainstay of the development of the petroleum industry, development of natural gas in the 21st century, new technologies for offshore oil and oil refining and petrochemical industries, environmental protection, petroleum industrial cooperation and management, and international Cooperation.

As the chairman of the Meeting Organization Committee, Dr Wang Tao, Senior Vice President of WPC and chairman of the Chinese National Committee for WPC thanked WPC for deciding to hold its first regional meeting in China. He said in his speech that China would do its best to make the meeting a successful one. He added that this meeting would embody the wisdom of Asia's petroleum community and further promote mutual understanding, friendship and cooperation among Asian petroleum participants. Mr. Xu Kuangdi. Mayor of the host city of this meeting. showed his warmest welcome and greetings to the participants from various countries on behalf of Shanghai Municipal People's Government and the Shanghai people. He expressed the wishes that friends came to Shanghai for technical exchange and cooperation from international petroleum community will take this opportunity to promote the development of the Asian and the world petroleum industry.

Main Speeches:

Senior governmental and petroleum industry officials from a number of countries were invited to deliver speeches to the plenary part of the meeting. They analysed and reviewed the current situation and future development, and focused on some "hot-spot" issues facing Asia's petroleum industry. Six high-ranking officials delivered speeches, from the angles of national economy and petroleum industrial strategy. Those speeches made clear-cut elaboration and in-depth analysis of the issues of common concerns. They include relations between the rapidly developing national economy of Asian developing countries and their petroleum industries, how to solve the problem of shortage in resources caused by rapid economic development, application of new technology for petroleum and petrochemical industrial development, reserves of the resources and environmental protection. Those speeches are of great significance and value to the development of Asia's petroleum industry.

Wang Tao, Senior Vice President of WPC, Chairman of the CHNC for WPC

I believe that every participant will benefit from the valuable comments and views reflecting the development trends of the petroleum industry in Asian countries as well as from exchanges and discussions over the focused and interested issues of public attentions.

Eivald M. Q. Røren, President of the WPC

There are increasing calls for corporate responsibility and accountability covering economic. environmental and social issues within our petroleum industry. Meeting society's increasing demand for energy and strong environmental and social performance in the 21st century will be a decisive challenge for energy companies. The petroleum industry is destined to play a very significant rule in fuelling economies and delivering products in Asia.

Xu Kuangdi, Mayor of Shanghai

The Shanghai Municipal People's Government has decided to establish a first-class chemical industry zone in the world that concentrates on crude oil, in-depth processing and natural gas chemicals. Shanghai will warmly welcome friends from the world oil community for technical exchanges and cooperation.

Shri Ram Naik, Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, Government of India

The prospects of Indian oil industry

At present, India imports 70 percent of its crude oil requirements. In the past 15 years. the country's demand for petroleum products has risen at an annual rate of about 6 percent while the oil production has been more or less constant at around 32 million tons per year. The current demand for crude oil in India is close to 112 million tons. The country should increase 190 million tons of crude oil during 2011-2012. The current natural gas production in India is about 80 million cubic meters per day while the country's demand is around 150 million cubic meters. The natural gas demand is estimated to exceed 300 million cubic meters per day within the next decade. The gas sector in India currently' provides business opportunities for gas production facilities, pipeline construction and the marketing infrastructure. Therefore, India will have many opportunities for its oil and gas industry development. The country has a great potential for oil and gas exploration. The sedimentary area of the geological basins in India with commercial hydrocarbon production constitutes only about 17 percent of the total area of' about 3,14 million square kilometers. No commercial production is available today from the remaining 83 percent of the area, which includes vast deepwater and other frontier areas of the country. It is expected that, with the favorable policies from the government, more than 25 percent of India's sedimentary basins will be brought under exploration by 2005.
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Ali l. Al-Naimi, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Saudi Arabia

Four trends in world oil outlook

Some important trends of world oil supply and demand can be discerned. - Fossil fuels, and especially oil demand will continue to grow with growth in the world economy. - Most of the growth in oil demand will come from the developing countries and especially those of Asia. Oil demand in Asia by 2020 will likely be in the range of 30-35 million barrels per day, or some 35% of total worldwide consumption. - The Gulf region and especially Saudi Arabia will be the major supplier of oil satisfying this rising demand. Saudi Arabia. with 4O% of the Gulf region's oil production and 70% of the worlds excess production capacity is well situated to provide Asia and the world with a sizable share of the increase in demand. - The forth trend in world energy outlook is the increasing importance of environmental concerns and their incorporation into production and consumption decisions.
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Zeng Peiyan, Director of State Development Planning Commission. P.R. China

China speeds up to develop the western region and its oil industry

The development of Western China will offer unprecedented opportunities for the Chinese petroleum industry. The tapping of the hydrocarbon resources in Western China forms an integral part of China's strategy to develop the western region. Mr. Zeng Peiyan summarized the region's petroleum industry development in five aspects: Firstly. more efforts will be on oil and gas exploration aiming to increase the reserves in Western China and hence to turn the region into the major substitute area for China's oil and gas production. Secondly, more efforts will be made to raise the technical and economic evaluation and to lower the development costs. Thirdly, the same emphasis will be placed on natural gas development as with oil. Further efforts will be made to accelerate exploration and development of natural gas resources and speed up construction of long-distance natural gas pipelines as well as the downstream projects. Fourthly, more effort will be made to facilitate technical progress and innovations. Fifthly, China will still stick to the opening-up policy so as to capitalize on the markets and resources both at home and abroad. Further deregulation will fuel the oil and gas industry development in Western China.

Yasuo Fjuiware, Senior Vice President, Japan Petroleum Institute

The Petroleum Industry in Japan

A number of issues need to be discussed about Japan's petroleum industry, such as the countrys oil supply and demand, dependency on crude oil imports from the Middle East and crude oil development in Japan. Other issues include the governmental policies on the oil industry, marketing of oil products, its financial position of petroleum industry in Japan, stockpiling of oil and technical challenges to environmental protection. Japan started to deregulate its petroleum industry in 1987 and then issued a series of policies and rules to clear the hurdles for the country's petroleum industrial development. Decisions included the elimination of a gasoline production quota, abolishment of the rules on service station transfer and the quota on crude and the liberalization of petroleum oil products exports. The deregulation of the energy industry in Japan has not only reduced the barriers among the different energy forms but also created business opportunities for the country's petroleum industrial development. The author pointed out that Japan's marketing of petroleum products had been realigned around four major company groups - Nippon Mitsubishi Oil and Cosmo Oil, ExxonMobil, Showa Shell and Japan Energy. Those four groups now control over 97 percent of the market for fuel oil, The author also stresses the importance of environmental protection, a challenge facing the petroleum industry, by analyzing the properties of fuel products, fuel choices and desulfurization of fossil fuels,
Alexei Mastepanov, the representative of Ivan Andereevich Matlashov, Senior deputy minister of Russian Energy Ministry

Oil industry strategy for Russia

The oil and gas industry is one of the most important sectors in the economy of Russia. West Siberia will keep its position as the main gas-producing region in the country although its share will decline to about 64 percent from the current 87 percent. The prospective gas production in Russia will reach 665 BCM in 2010 and 700 BCM in 2020. The oil and gas export is also one of the most important parts of Russia's state policy in terms of economic and energy security. The large-scale exploration of the hydrocarbon resources on the Siberian platform and Sakhalin shelf and the prospective reserves increase fully indicate that the east part of Russia is likely to considerably boost its national annual oil and gas production to reach 60-70 million tons and 50-55 billion cubic meters respectively. As for the natural gas projects, it is necessary to formulate a national strategy for the development of a unified gas supply system including East Siberia and Far East Regions.
Surya Suryantoro, the representative of Purnomo Yusgiantoro Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources, Indonesia

Energy demand grows rapidly in Indonesia

In the next five years, Asia Pacific is predicted to be the region with the fastest oil and gas demand growth. Thanks to the rapid economic development, the oil demand is expected to rise at an annual 5 percent rate is while the natural gas demand is expected to grow by 8-10 percent. Asia Pacific will account for about half of the world's total energy demand growth over the next five years. Therefore, the Asian energy industry is facing three major challenges, satisfying the ever-increasing energy demand, the need for huge funds for infrastructure expansion to ensure rapid energy growth and to deal with environmental issues. Indonesia possesses a wide range of natural energy resources. With some 160 TCF of natural gas reserves and the country is the second largest country in Asia in the proven and potential natural gas reserves. The country also has considerable coal reserves, totaling about 36.6 billion tons, The proven and potential oil reserves total 9.6 billion barrels. At the current production rate, the coal reserves are expected to last for more than 230 years while the oil and gas reserves are expected to last for 20 years and 58 years respectively. However, the countries oil and gas industry is facing enormous economic and technical challenges, such as drilling and operating in deep water areas, producing oil from more complicated reservoir structures and stimulating oil recovery from mature and even depleted fields.

2001 Shanghai International Petroleum and Petrochemical Exhibition

Shanghai International Petroleum and Petrochemical Exhibition 2001 was held at the Shanghai Everbright Exhibition and Convention Centre on September 18-21 at the same time as the WPC-Asia Regional Meeting. This exhibition was organized jointly by the Chinese National Committee for WPC and the four oil giants of China. That is CNPC, SINOPEC, CNOOC and SINOCHEM. The exhibition space was around 10 000 m2 and more than 220 companies from 16 countries and regions took part in the event, of which 73 companies come from overseas. Big Asian oil companies taking part in the exhibition included the state-owned oil companies from Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Indonesia. The participants also include some big-name companies in the world like Chevron, GE, Halliburton and CGG from France, During the period of the exhibition, 12 technical forums were held at the exhibition center. Examples include forums on technology used in the West Gas to East Transportation Project and EOR technology for old oil fields presented by CNPC. Meanwhile the forums on efficiency stimulation for refineries, petrochemical information management and environmental protection technology for oil and petrochemical enterprises also cause great interest. The exhibition provided a good opportunity for further promotion of technical exchange and cooperation.

Guests gather at the opening ceremony, and visiting the exhibition