The 19th World Petroleum Congress at Madrid witnessed significant participation from and honours for  India.

IndianOil was honoured with the World Petroleum Congress Excellence Award 2008 in the technical development category for its path-breaking work in hydro-processing technology.  The other companies in contention for the award were Chevron, USA and Saudi Aramco.  The award was received by Chairman, IndianOil and Chairman, PetroFed Mr. Sarthak Behuria from the King of Spain H.E. Juan Carlos I during the inaugural session.

Mr. Dinesh Kumar Pande, Director (Exploration), ONGC won the election to become Vice President of Youth & Gender of the World Petroleum Council. Mr. V.K. Dewangan, Director, MoP&NG was elected as the Member of the 2011 WPC Programme Committee.  Ms. Manisha Bhargava, Senior Officer (BD-PC Projects), IndianOil was elected member of the Youth Committee of the Doha WPC.

The well-attended Ministerial Session on India was chaired by Mr. Murli Deora, Hon’ble Minister of Petroleum & Natural Gas.  It was also addressed by the Ambassador of India to Spain, Ms. Sujata Mehta. The Ministerial session was also addressed by Secretary, MoP&NG, Mr. M.S. Srinivasan and a presentation was made by Mr. V.K. Dewangan, Director, MoP&NG.

The Secretary, MoP&NG also chaired the Plenary Session on ‘Accessing Reserves and Investing in Infrastructure’.  Chairman IndianOil and Chairman, PetroFed Mr. Sarthak Behuria & CMD EIL, Mr. Mukesh Rothagi also chaired a session each.  In two sessions Mr. B.N. Bankapur, Director (Refineries), IndianOil was the Vice Chair while in one session each the Vice Chair was Mr. R.K. Singh, Director (Refineries), BPCL and Mr. B.M. Bansal, Director (P&BD), IndianOil. Dr. R.K. Malhotra, ED, IOCL (R&D) was also a speaker of one of the sessions.

PetroFed has been assisting the Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas in coordinating for the 19th World Petroleum Congress. We were able to secure positions for two Chairs, four Vice-chairs, three Speakers from India, besides selection of 12 papers and 22 poster presentations. Two students from India, one from IIT Kharagpur (Ms. Khushboo Arora) and the other from IIT Roorkie (Mr. Himanshu Barthwal), were selected under the Students Grant Programme with waival of delegate fee and free accommodation. Their travel and incidental expenses were borne by PetroFed.

PetroFed had also assisted in the designing of the India pavilion at the 19th WPC which was inaugurated by the Hon’ble Minister of Petroleum  & Natural Gas, Mr. Murli Deora.  The India brochure distributed during the exhibition was produced by GAIL with assistance from PetroFed.  The PetroFed publication ‘Skills Energised. Potential Maximised’ on the training capabilities of the Indian oil & gas sector was also available at the India pavilion.  Also available were the PetroFed publications – ‘Fuelling India’s Growth : Past Trends & Scenarios 2011-12’, ‘Fuelling India’s Growth : Vision 2030’ & ‘The Green Imperative : Future of Natural Gas in India 2030’.

The Congress which drew over 4000 delegates from across the world facilitated global inter-company interactions and networking for better understanding of different points of view.