THE ENERGY CHAMBER’S flagship Trinidad & Tobago Energy Conference kicks off on the 23rd January 2023 at the Hyatt Hotel, Port of Spain. This is our first return to our traditional pre-Carnival slot since the pandemic and I am very excited about the conference this year, which looks like it is going to be one of the biggest and best attended editions ever, with a good number of new international visitors registering to attend. I always look forward to the Energy Conference and it is something in which I take great personal and professional pride.
In the early days, the event was small, held in an auditorium in Gulf City, San Fernando. Today, it is the biggest energy conference in the Caribbean, certainly in terms of delegate numbers. Over time, we have seen the conference grow and develop along with the development of the industry. In the early days of the conference the focus was very much on the oil sector, with the very successful lease-out farm-out programme for idle onshore acreage coming directly out of recommendations made at the first two editions of the event.
When I took over the running of the event in 2003 the focus was still mainly on the upstream, though with natural gas obviously playing a crucial role. Then, as the Trinidad LNG and petrochemical industries took off in the first decade of this century, there was increased discussion and focus on the mid and downstream gas industry. In the past decade, we have slowly but steadily increased the focus on decarbonisation; first with a focus on energy efficiency, then a push on renewables, and now we are seeing a merging of focus into greener fuels and greener petrochemicals.
After we switched venues to the new Hyatt Hotel, we put a lot of effort into building a successful tradeshow to run alongside the Conference. This has created a whole new stream of activity, with a focus on the energy services sector who especially welcome the chance to network and meet with potential customers and partners. For many of our visitors, the trade show is now the main event, rather than the presentations and panel discussion on the stage.
The global pandemic had a major impact on the Conference, as it did for all in-person events. We were fortunate that in 2020, the Conference took place early in the year, while Covid was still mainly restricted to east Asia. In 2021, in the midst of the pandemic and with shutdowns in effect across the region and travel severely restricted, we had a fully virtual event.
We learnt a lot from that experience. And in 2022, when we returned to a face-to-face Conference (taking place in June rather than our usual pre-Carnival January/ February slot) we managed to incorporate a lot of lessons from that virtual experience and to offer a true hybrid package, with content being delivered both in the room and virtually. We have been careful to make sure that the virtual offering is not just a “webcam pointing at the stage” and that virtual delegates get a full conference experience, including the chance to interact with other delegates and tailored online content.
Despite the high commodity price environment of the past 12 months, business conditions are still tough for many of our service company members. But we are getting a strong sense of excitement and anticipation for the event this year and at the time of writing we have seen strong registration numbers.