OREANDA-NEWS. October 11, 2010. Saint-Petersburg hosted the 10th meeting of the International Supervisory Board (ISB), Energy Delta Institute.

Participating in the meeting were Sergey Khomyakov, Deputy Chairman of the Gazprom Management Committee; Paul van Gelder, Chief Executive Officer of N.V.Nederlandse Gasunie; Gertjan Lankhorst, Chief Executive Officer of GasTerra B.V.; Pieter Dekker, Vice President JV Governance of Shell Energy Europe; Eric Dam, Member of the Executive Board, Gasunie; Koos Duppen, Member of the Executive Board, University of Groningen; Robert Badoux, Vice President of Energy Delta Institute.

The meeting participants addressed the Energy Delta Institute performance for 2009–2010. It was noted that over the past year the Institute had successfully implemented a whole range of international educational programs focused on energy matters including the following master programs: Gas Business Management, and Finance & Control of Energy Industry.

Furthermore, appreciation was expressed for the efforts made to develop such short-term programs as Developments in LNG, Large Energy Projects, Gas Sales & Purchase Strategies in Liquid Markets etc. Members of the Supervisory Board also admitted the success of the project delivered by the European Business Congress in 2010 – the Fellowship on Energy Programme.

The meeting considered the plans for joint programs implementation in 2011, as well as new forms of cooperation and promising projects, namely, elaboration of the Master of Business Administration (MBA) program and improving the Natural Gas Wiki encyclopedia.

“Joint personnel training programs enable us to get better acquainted with our business partner, to reinforce and develop the brain capital of our companies that eventually lays the foundation for success of the development strategies. At the same time, the program data have to become a unique educational medium for practical skills training in the energy business,” pointed out Sergey Khomyakov.

“We are very glad to observe the development of Energy Delta Institute’s activity on an international scale. The Institute’s programs contribute to forming a new integrated energy society in Europe and a new generation of the energy sector managers who are to provide transition to the economy with sustainable energy supply and an optimal fuel and energy balance,” said Paul van Gelder.

“Energy Delta Institute may be proud that the 10th ISB meeting is taking place in Saint Petersburg and Gazprom is its host company. The number of people participating in the Institute’s educational programs is truly impressive. Under the auspices of Gazprom and other partners, Energy Delta Institute offers educational opportunities with a number of high-level programs focused on training talented energy administrators (EBC Fellowship on Energy and Finance & Control of Energy Industry master program). By creating new programs we go on extending the range of services for the benefit of our partners,” said Robert Badoux.
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 taken regular training courses at the Meerwold training centre in the Netherlands within the programs related to strategic development, market relations and economic aspects of the gas industry.

In 2003 Gazprom, Gasunie and Energy Delta Institute signed the Agreement of Cooperation in the areas of staff training and energy knowledge sharing.