Aberdeen, UK – The current crisis in the Gulf of Aden has drawn the world into a drama that has been the reality for those who work in the energy sector for over a decade. In the last year the number of incidents of piracy has exploded with estimates of incidents in the Gulf of Aden hot zone numbering in the thousands.
While the recent high-jacking of the Sirius Star has made headlines worldwide there are other insidious threats that are plaguing the energy sector. Things like pipeline terrorism, kidnapping, and cyber terrorism are all dangers of working in this volatile industry.
The energy sector is particularly vulnerable because of the sensitivity of their cargo. This creates risks for personnel and infrastructure in production, processing and transportation of oil and gas.
How to handle these threats is a point of much debate. Some are calling for possible partnership with governments, others like Tim Reilly of C2G Energy feel it’s time to introduce the private defence industry into Energy security as a potential partner to Big Oil, and create a new model of assurance. In a recent letter to the Financial Times Reilly wrote “Unlike the private security industry, defence has the commercial scale, national security clearance with defence ministries, technology and geographical footprint to create such a preventative model as a solution to this growing economic problem, essentially, one of security of supply”
Reilly will be addressing the delegation of IQPC’s Energy Security Summit (www.energysecuritysummit) in January along with 17 other industry experts offering leadership to executives who are faced with a growing number and diversity of threats.
According to Reilly, “security of supply bottlenecks are everywhere, not just in shipping…this is an emerging economic security problem in the C21 that affects not only the safety of personnel but corporate reputations, and increasingly raises liability and possible legislation issues for operators”, he goes on to say “the question here is what new strategy is there for the protection of oil and gas as an industry?”
The Energy Security Summit taking place 26 & 27 January 2009 in London will offer delegates a forum to benchmark with other security executives and benefit from case studies and panel discussions. Other speakers at the summit include:
• Robert Stephan, Assistant Secretary, US Department of Homeland Security
• Walied Shater, Director of Security, Middle East and North Africa, ConocoPhillips
• Alfio Rapisarda, Regional Security Adviser, Eni
• George Robinson, Chief Security Officer, Petrotrin
• Magnus Ek, Group Security Manager, Vattenfall
Visit www.energysecuritysummit.com for a detailed agenda and full speaker list or email enquire@iqpc.co.uk.
Posted by IQPC on Thursday, November 27, 2008 16:53
Category Company News Release
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