GVF Global Conference Series Positions Kuala Lumpur and South East Asia as Center-Focus
by Martin Jarrold
London, UK, November 3, 2011--Economic stagnation and financial uncertainty across U.S. and European markets, the continuing significant political unrest manifest in the “Arab Spring”, the litany of manmade conflicts and natural disasters across the globe (including serious flooding in Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, and the Philippines), concerns over hydrocarbon-based energy supplies, consumption, prices, and climate change impact – short-, medium-, and longer-term problems, and justified news headline-grabbers all!
But, over the medium- and longer-term, all is not doom and gloom, at least as far as one of the key industry building blocks of a number of Asia’s economies is concerned. During a recent World Economic Forum (WEF), the President of Indonesia described Asia as the “continent of the future”, and its pan-national growth rate has placed the continent securely at the heart of the global economy. With economic growth there has been a parallel resurgence in the oil & gas industry – most clearly evident in the South-Eastern region where a proliferation of joint ventures and mergers and acquisitions have been indicative of the region’s scaling-up on expertise and technology to better meet its future energy needs.
In one national example alone, in Malaysia, South East Asia’s regional energy security framework is being consolidated with joint ventures facilitating expertise and technology upgrades that are taking place between foreign and local partners. Similar developments and trends are evident in relation to the oil (and gas) resources of the Philippines, Cambodia, Brunei, Thailand, Laos, and elsewhere in the region, signalling a coming of age of South East Asia’s oil & gas industry. Independent exploration & production (E&P) companies and national oil companies (NOCs) have begun placing their investments in this “continent of the future”.
However, in regard to this regional resurgence in the oil and gas industry, certain key questions must be answered, specifically:
- Is the regional O&G industry optimizing its production and exploration activities?
- How can upstream domestic production be enhanced?
- What technologies are needed for enhanced oil recovery?
The answers to these key questions lay within the realms of multiple disciplines and perspectives, but must include reference to the fact that mission critical operational success in the upstream E&P environment is dependent on access to the most efficient information and communications technologies (ICTs), and to the wealth of sophisticated applications these technologies bring to the disposal of the teams of geologists, geophysicists, drilling engineers, seismic data analysts, etc., etc., who locate new oil & gas reserves and get them out of the ground and from beneath the ocean floor through the collection of massive amounts of disparate data in multiple formats (including GPS, acoustic, compass and other sensor data) and using the information for predictive analysis.
Such key issues on the current regional oil & gas upstream (E&P) – and downstream refining and distribution – communications and applications networking agenda will be prioritized, together with other topic areas arising from the international energy environment and the wider global economy, during the GVF & EMP conference Oil & Gas Communications South East Asia 2011: ‘Redefining the Digital Oilfield Onshore, Offshore, Deep & Ultra-Deepwater’ (O&GCSEA2011), which will bring the GVF Oil & Gas Communications Series to its landmark 13th event.
The questions cited above are only some of the most recent additions to the list of compelling reasons for this annual event, which, once again, will facilitate an ICT-oriented dialogue at the crucial interface of the demand for solutions by the energy vertical and the supply of those solutions from the communications industry.
Working in association with major oil & gas industry-related organizations, as well as the communications sector, GVF & EMP have again chosen the Crowne Plaza Mutiara Hotel in Kuala Lumpur, as the venue for extended networking opportunities for communications end-user and solution vendor expert practitioners, set within the context of a conference program in which the nature of the applications and connectivity imperatives of the energy market vertical will be fully addressed.
Communications solutions represent a small fraction of energy companies’ total CAPEX and OPEX, yet well-managed ICT networks play a disproportionately great role in reducing expenditures not only in exploration, drilling, and production, but in every other area of operations. Such E&P cost-cutting will be essential as oil & gas consumption increases in South East Asia, driving the search for new supplies that will extend the region’s proven hydrocarbon resources.
Over two days the conference will examine a combination of satellite-based communications, and integrated satellite-terrestrial hybrid communications solutions, to which the oil & gas industry upstream segment (and downstream segment) turns to play a vital role in providing the essential connectivity and access to vital applications.
Through the use of ICT, widely spread and remotely located experts can see oil & gas field data as it is collected in real time and can determine the size and potential value of a payload before any actual drilling begins, a capability that can significantly reduce the amount of time and other resources wasted on drilling sites that don't have a strong yield potential. In the upstream in South East and East Asia specifically, exploration for new hydrocarbon reserves has moved increasingly to dangerous, difficult (and otherwise very expensive) environments, where the extreme physical conditions of a hostile climate and multiple geographic/topographic obstacles are as equally challenging as the investment imperatives that must be faced in the remote deployment of drilling equipment.
Sophisticated ICT solutions not only make E&P activities more efficient and cost-effective, but are also an ideal fit for streamlining supply chain management and refining processes, leveraging off information gathering from all data points along the supply chain, from production to delivery to the petrol pump. With reliable information sharing and collaboration between points on the supply chain, analysts, operators, and managers can optimize their communications and get product where it needs to be, when it needs to be there.
This meeting of key leaders and experts from the oil & gas sector as well as the communications and commercial applications sectors in one high-level forum will create opportunities for companies in the oil & gas vertical to call upon all ICT solutions providers – terrestrial wireline, wireless, and satellite in the communications field, together with developers/vendors in the digital applications field – to match their offerings more closely to the specific demands and requirements of the onshore, offshore and deepwater ‘oil & gas patch’, and beyond.
At time of writing the organizations contributing to the conference as a combination of sponsors, speakers, and delegates number as follows: Acasia Communications; Baker Hughes; Brunei Shell; Codan; FPSO Ventures; GVF Training SE Asia; Harris CapRock; HeiTech Managed Services Berhad; Hermes Datacomms; Hess; Hughes; iDirect SatManage/iDirect Asia; Intelsat; iPerintis Sdn. Bhd; Kebabangan Petroleum Operation Company Sdn Bhd; Marine Technologies; MEASAT; MISC Berhad; Northern Sky Research; NTT Communications; Pacnet; Petronas; Petronas Carigali; PTS Thailand; Puncak Oil & Gas; Sarawak Shell; Scopetel; Spacenet Thailand; SpeedCast; Stark Moore MacMillan; Talisman Energy; TC Communications; TE Management; Technip; Telekom Malaysia; Telekom Malaysia Enterprise (Energy, Utilities & Logistics); Telekom Malaysia Global; Time dot com; UMW; Veerappan & Company; and, Weatherford.
Details of the event program, which is also supported by the Asia Pacific Satellite Communications Council (APSCC), can be seen at the dedicated conference website www.uk-emp.co.uk/13th.O&GSEA.2011/.
Readers of this column with an interest in contributing to the event are welcome to contact me, in my capacity of Chairman of the GVF Oil & Gas Communications Conference Series (martin.jarrold@gvf.org), or my colleague at EMP, Paul Stahl (paul.stahl@uk-emp.co.uk).
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Martin Jarrold is Director of International Programs of the GVF. He can be reached at: martin.jarrold@gvf.org
