The 17th International Caspian Oil & Gas Exhibition and Conference Incorporating Refining and Petrochemicals took place at the new exhibition and conference hall Baku Expo.
Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev attended the opening of the Baku Exhibition Centre and got familiarized with its building and made a speech at the opening ceremony, got acquainted with the pavilions of the exhibition. This year the exhibition was attracted by 280 companies from 26 countries worldwide.
Thus, the area of the exhibition increased by 15 percent compared with last year, while the number of companies represented in it rose by 10 percent. The current exhibition presented a wide range of machinery and equipment for oil, gas and petrochemical industries, production of oil and gas industry, new technologies and services.
Over 40 percent of the exhibition area was taken up by world famous companies, most of whom were regular participants of Caspian Oil & Gas - BP, Itochu, OMV Gas International GmbH, StatoilHydro ASA, Total, TPAO, the State Oil Company of Azerbaijan (SOCAR) and many others. The participants included National Group of Great Britain, China, Russia. For the first time, this year's exhibition was attended by national stand of the UAE.
Along with commercial organizations, the exhibition and conference was attended by government agencies - SOCAR, Azerenerji JSC, National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan, etc.
On the second day of the exhibition - June 2, the conference center of Hyatt Regency hotel hosted a traditional opening of the Caspian Oil & Gas 2010 International Conference, which was attended by over 400 delegates, including senior representatives and leading players of oil and gas industry of Azerbaijan, as well as VIP delegations from different countries. The conference program included reports of representatives of ministries of Azerbaijan, Georgia, USA, Turkey, Czech Republic, as well as the management of a number of companies.
Particular attention at the conference was paid to the resources of the Caspian basin and the increasing role of Azerbaijan as a transit country. The conference was opened with a plenary session on "European energy policy and the role of Azerbaijan". Then, attention was drawn to the topic "The significance of the Caspian region in energy security of Europe." The second day of the conference was devoted to the exploration and development prospects of energy resources in the Caspian basin, as well as "Natural Gas Infrastructure in the Caspian region. The geopolitics of pipelines".