QatarEnergy LNG’s ‘19th Engineering Conference’ Drives Innovation and Knowledge Sharing in Energy Sector

QatarEnergy LNG hosted the ‘19th Engineering Conference’ bringing together industry professionals, academics, and partners to exchange new ideas, share lessons learned, and to strengthen networking across the oil and gas sector.

The conference held at the Qatar National Convention Centre recently, was attended by experts from QatarEnergy LNG, shareholders, local and international companies, and leading local universities.

The event served as a premier platform for the exchange of technical knowledge, innovative technologies, and practical lessons learned, while offering valuable opportunities for professional networking and cross-sector collaboration.

It also emphasised meaningful engagement between the energy industry and local academic institutions, enabling productive dialogue and potential partnerships that contribute to the sustainable growth of Qatar’s energy sector.

QatarEnergy LNG CEO Sheikh Khalid bin Khalifa al-Thani opened the conference with a message that underscored the strength of partnerships in Qatar’s oil and gas sector and the privilege of hosting such a milestone event.

He stated: “This conference marks an important milestone for QatarEnergy LNG. Engineering excellence, innovation, and operational resilience and reliability remain at the core of our progress and today we reaffirm that commitment. We are not only gathered here to share knowledge, but to also align, challenge, and inspire one another.”

This year’s conference marks a transition from an annual engineering forum to a biennial conference. Moving to a two-year cycle enables the company to gather richer insights, highlight meaningful project milestones, and engage in forward-looking discussions that reflect the rapid evolution of the industry.

The conference concentrated on four core themes that drive performance and sustainable growth in the LNG and broader oil and gas sector: digitalisation, cyber security, and artificial intelligence; decarbonisation initiatives; aging facilities and asset life extension; and energy efficiency and yield improvement.

The conference hosted a management panel discussion titled: ‘Expansion & Sustainability - Enabling QatarEnergy LNG’s Future’.

The discussion focused on QatarEnergy LNG's commissioning and operational integration of expansion projects as the panellists shared insights into the company's future plans and strategies in this field.

The event included five technical panel discussions, forty technical presentations, eighty poster sessions showcasing key innovations and field achievements, and fifteen booths from our shareholders, various academic institutions, industry partners and QatarEnergy LNG highlighting advanced solutions and the latest technologies and research in the oil and gas industry, providing valuable insights to enhance operations.

On the first day, attendees explored parallel sessions across the four thematic tracks, with key technical presentations and topics spanning collaborative development of in-house ‘Predictive Emission Monitoring Systems’ for QatarEnergy LNG, a pilot study for boilers and turbines, a slated Closed Flare Retrofit Industrialisation project, and a structured approach to asset life extension ensuring safety and integrity.

Other notable presentations included discussions on synergising conventional and unconventional reservoir completion technologies, disruptive decarbonisation through lower carbon aviation fuel and industrial CO2 recycling, and the use of artificial intelligence agents to revolutionise reservoir characterisation and optimisation.

Additional papers highlighted resource optimisation on legacy DCS controllers, energy efficiency strategies for reducing natural gas consumption in rolling mill reheat furnaces, and ongoing poster presentations from industry and academia focusing on reliability, digital twin technology and process safety.

The day also featured sessions on AI-enabled reservoir forecasting, data-driven maintenance, and digitalisation efforts across the asset base, all designed to foster practical knowledge transfer and collaboration.

The second day continued with a focus on digitalisation, cyber security and artificial intelligence, decarbonisation initiatives, aging facilities and asset life extension, and energy efficiency and yield optimisation, with further technical presentations, case studies and interactive discussions.

Highlights included explorations of artificial intelligence in energy systems and process optimisation, decarbonised heat production for LNG plants with hydrogen and CO2 integration concepts, subsea pipeline damage assessment and repair, and the role of mixed refrigerant technology in achieving energy and cost savings through digitalisation.

Attendees also heard about streamlined well surveillance through digitalisation, automation and production data optimisation, sustainable hydrogen supply chain networks with cross-industry collaboration, and reliability paradigms supported by AI-enabled predictive maintenance for LNG facilities.

Other sessions addressed eco-friendly transformation of end-of-life membranes for industrial wastewater treatment and asset life extension, aging LNG facility lifecycle environmental challenges, and advances in physics-informed neural networks for transformer insulation degradation prediction, complemented by discussions on smart maintenance and corrosion inhibition for aging LNG facilities and AI/ML applications in the process industry.

Additional topics included innovative pump technology for downhole wet gas compression and finite element analysis of LNG pipelines with virtual flame sensing for turbines.

A vibrant posters programme complemented the technical programme, featuring practical case studies and research from QatarEnergy, QatarEnergy LNG, ExxonMobil, Qatar Shell, North Oil Company, QCHEM, Qafco, Qapco, Qatar University, HBKU, University of Doha for Science & Technology and Texas A&M Qatar.