Northern Australia’s largest petroleum conference will feature over 300 industry participants in the Australian and Asian petroleum sector.

Speakers will include APPEA chief executive Belinda Robinson, Federal Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane, East Timor Prime Minister Jose Ramos-Horta, ConocoPhillips Australia president Laura Sugg and MEO Australia managing director Chris Hart.

Other Australian companies presenting include Coogee Resources, Oil Search, Liquefied Natural Gas Ltd, Nexus Energy, Australia Pipeline Trust and Northwest Shelf Australia, along with a number of international delegates.

Issues discussed will include government perspectives and policy, local exploration and production updates, LNG demand and trade, downstream industry development, environmental focus and economics and innovation.

Northern Territory Chief Minister Clare Martin said she hoped the conference would provide a forum to promote debate on the establishment of downstream industries, which will add value to Australia’s “bountiful” gas resources.

“The SEAAOC program will cover all the issues and trends in the petroleum sector relevant to our region, such as local exploration and production updates, energy security and environmental sustainability, and downstream industry development,” Martin said.

She also described the Northern Territory as one of the “most exciting new gas development areas in Australia at present”.

Darwin became Australia’s second LNG hub in 2006 when ConocoPhillips opened its 3.7 million tonne (MMt) per annum facility, which has approvals in place to increase this to 10MMt.

“More gas will be arriving onshore from the Blacktip field in the near future when Italian company Eni establishes an onshore processing facility on the NT’s west coast and MEO Australia has committed to an aggressive exploration and appraisal program in 2007 to prove sufficient gas resources to underpin its proposed offshore LNG and methanol projects,” Martin said.

“Participants to SEAAOC 2007 will have the opportunity to hear from these and other regional players plus government leaders from Australia and throughout the region.”

The conference will also include a tour of the Darwin LNG plant and a number of pre-conference workshops to complement the event.

These will focus on exploration and production project economics, a Timor Sea petroleum geoscience update, gas monetisation options available to Asian gas producers and trends and developments in the Asia-Pacific LNG industry and market.

SEAAOC will be held at Darwin’s Holiday Inn Esplanade.

To register, phone: (02) 9080 4090, fax: (02) 9299 3109, email: info@iir.com.au, or visit the website, www.seaaoc.com