Shell’s Stuart Bradford says natural gas will play key role in lower carbon energy future

Dec. 20, 2011 - PRLog -- Shell Energy Europe’s Stuart Bradford says he believes natural gas is not only the fuel of choice today compared to oil and coal – it is economically attractive and emits substantially less Co2 in applications such as power generation.  According to Bradford:  “natural gas is also an essential part of the solution for tomorrow, where natural gas power plants can be retrofitted with CCS and will also provide the essential flexible capacity in a power grid comprising a significant proportion of intermittent renewable power capacity.“

Stuard Bradford, Shell Energy Europe’s Head of Strategy, Marketing and Regulatory Affairs will join fellow leading industry experts, including Werner Auli, Head of Gas & Power, OMV Aktiengesellschaft and Sergei Komlev, Head of Directorate, Contract Structuring and Price Formation, Gazprom Export at the upcoming European Gas Conference in Vienna from 24 January.

Transition to more liquid markets
According to the Shell top executive, the main challenge that currently most occupies his part of the Shell group, which deals with European gas, power and environmental products marketing and trading, is the transition in parts of continental Europe to more liquid markets.  He continues:  “this requires us to adapt in a whole number of ways – speed of decision making with our customers, the need to offer new products, the need to respond to changes in regulatory regimes around gas storage and balancing.“

Stuart Bradford explains:  “we anticipated this challenge two years ago in our decision to merge our gas marketing and trading business, and have found that by integrating these two disciplines, we are able not only to meet these challenges but also to offer our customers and business partners new products and services that leverage a combination of these skills.”

Don’t take regulation of industry too far
According to Stuart Bradford it is difficult to imagine that the current European gas market would have been achieved through pure national initiatives and that “the policies pursued by the European Commission have been a key component in the creation of the flexible, liquid European gas market that we see in large parts of Europe today.”

However, he adds that:  “we must also be careful that regulation of the industry is not taken too far.  Along with many other major energy producers, we in Shell are worried that the current suite of legislation being drafted for the financial sector, which may be extended to energy commodities trading, could increase costs for market participants, decrease market liquidity, and therefore increase average prices and price volatility for our customers.“

More speaker highlights at the European Gas Conference:
•  Reinhold Mitterlehner, Federal Minister of Economy, Family and Youth, Austrian Government
•  Valery Nemov, Contract Structuring and Price Formation, Gazprom Export
•  H.Haken Unal, Expert, Gas Transmission Management, BOTAS
•  Walter Pareraer, CEO, Fluxys
•  Kjetil Tungland, Managing Director, Trans Adriatic Pipeline AG
•  Paul Corcoran, Finance Director, Nord Stream
•  Reinhard Mitschek, Managing Director, Nabucco Gas Pipeline International GmbH

Event dates and location:
24 January 2012:  Global LNG Day
25-26 January 2012:  Conference days
27 January 2012:  Post-conference master class
Location:  Vienna Marriott Hotel, Parkring, Vienna, Austria

Event website:  www.europeangas-conference.com

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