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AOGA packs them in; event big success Alaska Oil and Gas Association’s 50th anniversary and conference agenda draws crowd; proceeds stay in the state KAY CASHMAN Petroleum News
A combination of interesting and valuable presentations, awards to Alaskans, and the fact that the money raised will stay in the state drew an estimated 450-plus attendees to the 50th anniversary celebration and conference of the Alaska Oil & Gas Association on May 25 in Anchorage.
“The success of any conference is whether or not the people attending learned something worthwhile,” Kara Moriarty, CEO and president of AOGA, told Petroleum News following the event.
The agenda for the anniversary celebration and first-ever conference, which Petroleum News described earlier in May as “fascinating” and “interesting,” was designed to offer a diverse group of presentations, Moriarty said.
Currently she and her staff are polling attendees to see what they liked and didn’t like about the event - and what suggestions they have for the next annual conference should AOGA’s board of directors approve an annual event.
“It’s important that we offer something of value to attendees,” Moriarty said. “This year we tried to do that by having a panel of experts for procurement people. We have a very stable group of oilfield service and supply contractors in this state, so panelists talked about what’s different and what’s the same in a low price environment and what contractors can do to survive the situation.”
A senior vice president of IHS talked about what IHS sees happening to oil prices in the next few years.
“By the end of 2017, he predicts there will be a 6 in front of the price of oil; in 2020, he said we may see prices in the $80 per barrel range; and by 2022, they could be in the $100 range again.”
A political panel gave a global perspective on energy and where Alaska fits in: “It was interesting to hear about other oil regions that are also struggling with low prices and what they are doing to attract more oil and gas investment,” Moriarty said.
The debate between two “insightful” members of the University of Alaska Anchorage’s debate team and Eric Epstein, author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, on the ethics of fossil fuels production was excellent, she said.
Attendance should be even better next time Attendance would likely have been higher except for the fact that the Society of Petroleum Engineers held a conference for the oil and gas industry in Anchorage on the same day.
“We weren’t aware of their conference, or SPE of ours, until late March. We were both too far into the planning to change the date,” Moriarty said. But because somewhere between 50 and 100 contractors and professional engineers couldn’t make the AOGA conference because of SPE, Moriarty and her staff are going to be more careful about checking for competing events for Alaskans next spring.
All the proceeds from AOGA’s conference stayed in Alaska. In addition, the event raised nearly $10,000 for a local charity, gave an award to an oil and gas project for environmental stewardship and innovation, a contractor of the year award for safety performance, a lifetime industry award, a rising star award and a scholarship to the University of Alaska. All the awards went to Alaskans.
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