The new economic and scientific challenges faced by the natural gas sector in the Mena region will be discussed at a key summit in December.

The Jacob Fleming Group’s “MENA Natural Gas Distribution Summit 2009” in Cairo from December 8-10 will also address the fiscal and regulatory aspects of natural gas or the availability of natural gas.

The summit will be addressed by industry experts who have witnessed the potential of natural gas and have a considerable amount of foresight to envision the future of it.

The natural gas sector continues to show extremely strong fundamentals despite the havoc that the global recession has played. The Mena region is one of the world’s largest players in hydrocarbon supply and the robust economic growth in recent years has transformed the region into a major gas market in its own right with an expectant long term growth rate, said a statement.

The Mena region owns about 46 per cent of the world’s natural gas reserves. Whether it is the major structures in the Arabian Iranian Basin or the reservoir formation off Qatar, the natural gas potential this region holds is limitless.

The summit will strive to be an amalgamation of expert opinion and individual best practices so as to allow the growth and sustainability of natural gas investment, the statement said.
 
The summit participants will decipher the elements necessary to build and operate an effective natural gas utility, health, safety, security and environment (HSSE) compliance, infrastructure/retrofitting for CNG network issues and the importance of biomethane as a fuel for vehicle transport, it said.

The summit is an effort by Jacob Fleming to help disseminate knowledge about key positional assets, major players and effective buy options that could ultimately provide critical competitive advantages to serve markets in the future.

The speaker panel includes: Mahmoud El Newehy , BP Egypt, Commercial Director; B S Negi, Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board; Ashraf Farouk, Egusco part of Taqa, Arabia Gas Group; Khalid Awadi, Gas Operations Manager, Emarat UAE; Dr  Pramod Paliwal, P D  Petroleum University, India; Giijsbrecht van Schoonhoven van Beurden, CNG Services; Nitin Zamre, CRISIL Infrastructure Advisory, director-energy; Richard C Ford C Eng, GL Industrial Services; Dr Hamed Korkor, EGAS, Egypt – TradeArabia News Service