Groningen, the Netherlands hosted the 13th meeting of the International Supervisory Board of the Energy Delta Institute (EDI).

Taking part in the meeting were Sergey Khomyakov, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee, Han Fennema, CEO and Chairman of the Executive Board of Nederlandse Gasunie, Gertjan Lankhorst, CEO of GasTerra, Pieter Dekker, Vice President JV Governance of Shell Energy Europe, Eric Dam, President of EDI, Elmer Sterken, Rector of the University of Groningen, Viktor Martynov, Rector of Gubkin Russian State University of Oil and Gas, Member of the Gazprom Board of Directors.

The meeting addressed the Energy Delta Institute performance in 2012 and 2013. It was pointed out that over the said period EDI had successfully delivered various international educational projects focused on energy issues, such as Executive Master of Gas Business Management program, Finance & Control for Energy Industry, as well as specific projects, including Strategies of Gas Trade at Liquidity Markets, New Developments in LNG Industry, Underground Gas Storage, Gas Transportation & Shipping, and the Professional Energy Community project.

The meeting participants visited the University of Groningen, which celebrates its 400 anniversary this year.

At the end of the meeting, Sergey Khomyakov was awarded the title of the Honorary Fellow of the Academic Board for outstanding contribution to the EDI development.

 “Today not only does EDI provide an educational milieu for training the oil & gas industry professionals, it also serves as the base for creating a professional community to share experience and knowledge in the energy sector. We highly appreciate EDI as the unparalleled educational project uniting the potential of the leading European oil & gas companies and academic knowledge of the oldest European university,” said Sergey Khomyakov.

“It is now more than 10 years that we closely cooperate with Gazprom in the sphere of personnel training and knowledge exchange in the energy industry. And today it is my pleasure to announce that Mr. Khomyakov, Deputy Chairman of Gazprom Management Committee is rewarded with an EDI Honorary Fellow title with which we express our warmest gratitude for his input into the development of EDI, which is hard to overestimate. And thus I express my hope that our further cooperation will strengthen from day to day and together we will provide the industry with young and competent professionals who will be ready to meet the challenges of the changing energy world,” said Eric Dam.

Background

In 2001 Gazprom and Gasunie put forward the initiative of launching a joint project to exchange the knowledge and experience in the energy sector. The initiative was supported by the Russian and Dutch Governments. The project was given the working title of “Gas University”. Subsequently, the University of Groningen joined the project and set up the Energy Delta Institute in cooperation with Gasunie, GasTerra, Shell and other companies.

Since September 2002 experts from Gazprom, Gasunie, Shell and other companies have been taking training courses within the programs related to strategic development, market relations and economics of the gas industry.