8-th Offshore Mediterranean Conference (OMC) Ravenna, 28-30 March 2007

Technical challenges in the Petroleum Upstream Sector are growing and becoming more and more difficult to face. The continuous increase of fossil fuel demand means producing more and being able to replace production with new reserves at the same speed. The task is not easy, especially if we consider the present situation: the lack of easy targets for exploration, the decreasing quality of discovered hydrocarbons, the shortage of skilled human resources, the more stringent environmental rules, the need to contain CO2 emissions, the growing prices of raw materials, … just to mention some of the issues we have to face. The only key to overcome all these issues is technology. Given the extent of the challenge, in order to be effective our efforts must focus on priorities. First of all sustainability, because in all its aspects it is a major concern for the future of the Oil and Gas Industry and therefore all papers dealing with related topics have been particularly appreciated. GHG and CO2 management, whose impact on all the different activities is growing fast, is a subject extensively discussed during OMC 2007 and is still a topic to devote time to in 2009. It is quite obvious to stress reserves replacement as a fundamental issue for all Oil Companies but much less obvious is how to solve the problem: fresh ideas about new frontier exploration and how to increase recovery factor will be very positively evaluated. In the context of reserves replacement particular emphasis has been given to all types of unconventional resources including not only heavy oils, tight gas, coal bed methane but also highly sour gas and deep gas. All aspects related to economic and effective exploitation of these resources have been considered particularly worthy of attention. Methane hydrates, among unconventional resources, are playing an emerging role but a lot of technical work is still to be done, therefore contributions on this topic have been most welcome. It is evident how important gas is in reserves replacement, but sometimes factors such as its location far from the markets, or its occurrence in small quantities associated to oil, could be a hurdle for economic exploitation; as a consequence of these considerations papers dealing with different aspects of the gas value chain heve been appreciated and carefully considered for the final program. OMC 2007 Conference and Exhibition was an unprecedented success thanks to the quality of papers presented and top level Exhibitors from worldwide. The event has recorded an important increase both in attendance and exhibition area. OMC 2007 figures reveal clearly that OMC 2007 was the best ever since the first one which dates back to 1993. OMC grows each time and it is now the main international meeting of the petroleum & gas industry in the Mediterranean area, targeting mainly the Northern and Southern shores of the Mediterranean Sea. At OMC 2007 attended: 14 Official Delegations (Algeria, Azerbaijan, Croatia, Egypt, Ecuador, Kazakhstan, India, Libya, Nigeria, Qatar, Romania, Turkey, Russia, Tunisia); 932 Delegates from 35 Nations (Albania, Algeria, Saudi Arabia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Congo, Croatia, Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Ecuador, France, Germany, Greece, India, United Kingdom, Iraq, Libya, Luxembourg, Nigeria, Norway, Poland, Qatar, Romania, Russia, Spain, Sudan, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Tunisia, Turkey, Hungary, USA). 111 Papers were presented in 21 Technical Sessions http://www.omc.it/2009/index.php?id=267