GAZ-SYSTEM to Host 10th GIE Conference in Cracow, Poland

GAZ-SYSTEM will jointly organise the 10th Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) Conference. The GIE Conference has for many years been the most important and most prestigious event in the European gas sector and is the first such meeting organised in Poland.

The 10th International Gas Infrastructure Europe Conference will be held on 24 – 25 May 2012 in Cracow, Poland.

Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) is an organisation representing the interests of gas infrastructure operators in Europe since 2002 and is concerned with issues connected with the transmission and storage of natural gas as well as LNG. GIE brings together 70 members from 25 European states. The mission of the organisation is the promotion of stable, reliable and coherent regulatory frameworks as well as the creation of favourable conditions for the development of the European natural gas market.

“We are translating our participation in the works of Gas Infrastructure Europe into the strategic goals and currently implemented actions of our Company. We are fully aware of the great significance and importance of the development of the transmission infrastructure in the European energy policy. These projects require high investment expenditures on a European scale which amount to tens of billions of Euro. The best experts and practitioners involved in the development of the transmission infrastructure and the natural gas market will be taking part in the debate on investment-related issues in Cracow. We greatly appreciate and value being a member of Gas Infrastructure Europe since 2005 and it is an honour and great pleasure for us to be the co-organiser and host to the GIE Conference Guests in Cracow,” – Jan Chadam, President of the Management Board of GAZ-SYSTEM S.A. commented.

The Conference will begin from taking a closer look at the gas market in the European Union in macroeconomic and political terms. The debate about the Energy Roadmap 2050 will attempt to answer the question: Does business and politics appropriately shape the gas market? The conference participants will discuss the concepts of a centralised market development planning within the EU energy policy on the one hand, and the functioning of market mechanisms, on the other. The GIE Conference has also foreseen time for a discussion about the strategic role of natural gas in the European Union energy mix as well as the promotion of gas as a clean and sustainable source of energy that is important for the future of the EU economies. There will also be an opportunity to raise issues related to innovation, R&D and new technologies for gas, thus  the challenges faced by the gas industry.

On the first day of the Conference, some of the issues to be discussed include:
• Actions geared towards extraction of unconventional gas,
• The development of carbon dioxide capture and storage technologies (CCS),
• The creation of a “renewable natural gas” – within the Power-to-Gas technology,
• The application of gas-based energy efficient heating systems.

The second day of the Conference will be dedicated to the particular segments of natural gas infrastructure business: underground gas storage facilities, which are crucial for the security of energy markets, and the new challenges faced by LNG markets will be discussed. The meeting will be an excellent opportunity to exchange the best practices of transmission system operators, storage system operators and LNG operators.

GIE has planned to dedicate the last panel to a discussion about European Network Codes, which are a crucial instrument in building a single, internal gas market in the European Union. These documents will form the foundation for future practical cooperation between European transmission system operators and will define inter alia the principles of capacity allocation, balancing and the interoperability of transmission systems. Work on the Codes is currently in progress with the participation of the European Commission and the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER).

This year’s GIE Conference will gather around 350 participants, including the representatives of all the European transmission system operators. Participation of the following key guests has been confirmed: Commissioner for Energy (European Commission) – Günther H. Oettinger, Minister of Treasury – Mikołaj Budzanowski, GIE President – Jean Claude Depail, Director of the Agency for the Cooperation of Energy Regulators (ACER) –  Alberto Pototschnig and President of the Management Board of GAZ-SYSTEM S.A. – Jan Chadam.

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LNG World News Staff, May 18, 2012