Prime Minister Barzani and Turkey’s Energy Minister Taner Yildiz to speak at international energy conference in Erbil
The 2nd International Energy Arena Erbil–Making Connections, which is in its second year, will look at how the Kurdistan Region and Iraq will impact global energy security, the strategic relations between Western governments and suppliers, and at the potential fallout from Syria and the Arab Spring on Iraq’s exports.
The other conference speakers include the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) Minister of Natural Resources Dr Ashti Hawrami, foreign officials and analysts, other KRG ministers, and oil and gas company executives. They are expected to also discuss the changing nature of global energy markets, how to manage gas resources and convert gas to power.
With 45 billion barrels of oil reserves and 3-6 trillion cubic meters of gas reserves, the Kurdistan Region of Iraq is one of the last remaining conventional oil and gas frontiers on earth. In just five years, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) has attracted some of the world’s biggest oil companies, and Erbil has been called the ‘exploration capital of the world.’
With export targets of 1 million barrels of oil per day by 2015, and 2 million bpd by 2019, the Region will be a significant contributor to Iraq’s mid and long-term production goals, thus boosting the country’s revenues. The KRG is moving ahead with plans to build an additional export infrastructure network to transport the oil and gas to markets in Turkey, Europe and beyond, helping Iraq’s unity and stability and contributing to global energy security at a time of significant international tension.
The conference takes place at the Erbil Rotana Hotel and is hosted and organized by STEAM, Turkey’s Strategic Technic Economical Research Center, and by the conference organiser Making Connections Erbil. It is organized in coordination with the KRG Ministry of Natural Resources.
Please see the conference website http://makingconnectionserbil.com/ for more details of the speakers and programme.
