As foreign investment leaves oilsands, hosting World Petroleum Congress helps bring spotlight back to Canada

During the last World Petroleum Congress held in Calgary, I sat down with the chief executive of BP and talked about Canadian pipeline challenges.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The issue was a proposal to bring natural gas from the Mackenzie Delta, Beaufort Sea and Alaska down south, through Canada, to the lower 48 states.

The year was 2000. The CEO was Lord John Browne.

But the conversation about a gas pipeline (which was never built) underscores a larger point.

Many of the biggest players in the global energy business are drawn to the World Petroleum Congress.

And they will be returning to Calgary in September 2023 for an event often billed as the Olympics of the oil and gas industry.

The announcement Calgary will host the meeting was made Sunday in St. Petersburg, Russia, after several hours of tense voting to choose between five competing cities. In the end, Calgary edged out Baku, Azerbaijan, in a 21 to 20 vote between member countries.

With the decision, some 5,500 delegates are expected to come to Canada and talk about the challenges and opportunities facing the global energy industry.

“We think it’s going to be huge,” WPC Canada chair Denis Painchaud said Monday in an interview from St. Petersburg.

“Calgary has had a few challenges over the last few years. Hopefully, this is a shot in the arm.”

From a purely economic perspective, it should be. The conference will generate an estimated $65 million in direct economic activity, booking 22,000 hotel rooms in the city.

But it also shines a spotlight on Canada’s oil and gas sector at a time when it needs more attention.

The conference features technical elements and interesting papers, but it also pulls in CEOs and global industry leaders.

Back in June 2000, Halliburton CEO Dick Cheney — just months before he became the U.S. vice-president — and Jeroen van der Veer, managing director of Royal Dutch Shell Group, also spoke at the Calgary event.

Some of the new leaders will want to meet with Canadian companies and their counterparts in 2023 to talk about technology, emerging trends and potential deals, say organizers.

“We can certainly use some foreign investment to help our Canadian companies, either directly or through partnerships from foreign companies coming back to Canada,” added Painchaud.

This country has plenty to offer, including the planet’s third-largest oil reserves and prolific natural gas plays.

Yet, issues such as energy infrastructure constraints, fickle commodity prices and a drop-off of foreign investment have made it a tough slog for the oilpatch over the past four years.

A procession of foreign players has left or sold off some oilsands assets, including Devon Energy, Royal Dutch Shell, ConocoPhillips and Statoil.

It’d be a stretch to say any summit could solve these problems. But it will provide networking opportunities, bring energy leaders together in the city, and give industry a chance to discuss putting Canada back on the global investment map.

full story at https://calgaryherald.com/business/energy/varcoe-hosting-world-petroleum-congress-brings-huge-spotlight-back-to-calgary