SPE International Professionals in Energy Conference concluded in Kuwait

Ganesh Thakur, 2012 SPE President, said during the opening ceremony that this was the first conference of its kind organised by SPE worldwide. "SPE has a commitment to helping women in the industry to advance and improve their career, just as this conference had been developed to do," Thakur said. "The event offered an opportunity to share success stories and learnings."

The two-day event was inaugurated by Farouk Al-Zanki, Deputy Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), who delivered a keynote speech on behalf of the Minister of Oil, Hani Al Hussain, Minister of Oil and Chairman of the Board of KPC. Al-Zanki said that the event was just the beginning of a series of similar events in the future that will focus on the broader topic of women in the oil and gas industry.

"Women currently represent 14% of Kuwait's oil sector total population, of which, 19% of all managerial and supervisory positions are occupied by women," Al-Zanki said. "We aspire to see these numbers increase, with more and more women professionals entering the field."

Al-Zanki talked about the current obstacles and challenges facing the promotion of women in the sector, but he said that they are ready to meet these challenges which should only strengthen and drive them further to achieve our goal. "We must collaborate and work together to overcome these obstacles and sharing responsibilities of paving the way for future generations," Al-Zanki said.

Hosnia Hashim, Deputy Managing Director, North Kuwait, Kuwait Oil Company (KOC), said that Kuwaiti companies do care about the promotion of women into leadership roles. "I was proud to chair this conference, and lead the KOC initiative Professional Women Networking (PWN), where we nurture skills of professional women exposing them to very fine role models, installing in them an attitude of No Barriers," Hosnia Hashim said.

The event continued with panel sessions where panelists representing various companies shared their success stories and experiences, focusing on how to achieve a more balance leadership between the two genders, and have more women on board. The panel sessions also covered subjects like work conditions for women in the oilfields, attracting and retaining women in the oil and gas industry.

Sponsors of IPEC included—Kuwait Petroleum Corporation as the Platinum Sponsor; Baker Hughes, Schlumberger, and Shell as Gold Sponsors; Chevron, ExxonMobil, and Saudi Aramco as Silver Sponsors; and Total as the Conference Gala Dinner Sponsor. Oil & Gas Middle East was the official media supporter, and DEW Journal, Oxford Business Group, and Petroleum Africa were other media supporters.