OPEC Seminar

The OPEC International Seminar is today regarded as one of the premier events on the world energy calendar.

Seminar participants customarily include Ministers from OPEC Member Countries and other oil-producing and oil-consuming nations, as well as heads of intergovernmental organizations, chief executives of national and international oil companies, in addition to other industry leaders, academics, energy experts and the specialist media.

The seminars have taken various forms over the years, but they have always had a wide reach across the energy sector and beyond.

The latest in the series of seminars, which began in 2001, has provided fresh impetus to key industry issues and developed existing and new avenues of dialogue and cooperation. Insightful presentations and panel discussions have sought to move the energy debate forward, with high-calibre speakers discussing a wide range of topical issues affecting the industry, both in the short and long term, against a backdrop of uncertainty and instability.

The seminars have increased in size and scope over the years, embracing, as time has passed, such related areas as global finance, sustainable development and the environment, and their reputation has grown steadily. While an early seminar in 1978 was attended by some 200 participants, there was nearly four times that number over three decades later in 2012. The 2015 instalment attracted a record 800 participants and featured 30 presentations.

The very first OPEC seminar, although not part of the present series, was held in Vienna on 30 June–5 July 1969, with the topical theme of ‘International oil and the energy policies of the producing and consuming countries’.

There was then a gap of more than eight years before the next seminar, which turned out to be the first in a mini-series, listed as follows:

• October 1977 — ‘The present and the future role of the national oil companies’
• October 1978 — ‘Downstream operations in OPEC Member Countries: prospects and problems’
• October 1979 — ‘OPEC and future energy markets’
• November 1981 — ‘Energy and development; options for global strategies’

Another decade passed before there was a one-off ‘Seminar on the environment’ in April 1992, to help acquaint OPEC Member Countries with key environmental issues in the build-up to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in the June of that year.

The new and current series of the ‘OPEC International Seminar’ began one year into the New Millennium. It comprises:

• September 2001 — The First OPEC International Seminar (as it was then called), ‘OPEC and the global energy balance: towards a sustainable energy future’
• September 2004 — The Second OPEC International Seminar, ‘Petroleum in an interdependent world’
• September 2006 — The Third OPEC International Seminar, ‘OPEC in a new energy era: challenges and opportunities’
• March 2009 — The Fourth OPEC International Seminar, ‘Petroleum: future stability and sustainability’
• June 2012 — The Fifth OPEC International Seminar, ‘Petroleum: fuelling prosperity, supporting sustainability’
• June 2015 — The Sixth OPEC International Seminar, ‘Petroleum — an engine for global development’
• June 2018 — The Seventh OPEC International Seminar, ‘Petroleum – cooperation for a sustainable future’.