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II CONCEPT pad capacity King Carl Gustaf XVI of Sweden (to the left of the tower on the right) at the last Offshore Goteborg Trade Fair on opening day OFFSHORE GOTEBORG 85 International Trade Fair And Conferences Gothenburg, Sweden—February 25-March 1 Offshore Goteborg '85, Sweden's third offshore exhibition and con- ference, will be held February 25 to March 1 in the Swedish Trade Fair Foundation's Exhibition and Con- gress Centre at Gothenburg. It is expected to be even larger and more comprehensive than its two prede- cessors held in 1981 and 1983. At Offshore Goteborg '81, 527 companies were represented on 134 stands, and there were some 14,000 visitors. At Offshore Goteborg '83, 676 companies, exhibiting on 233 stands, attracted 16,400 visitors from 39 countries. More than 2,500 delegates took part in the two con- ferences. It is already clear these figures will be exceeded by this year's event, not only because of the suc- cess of the earlier exhibitions but also because of active and growing cooperation between East and West—most notable between the USSR and the Scandinavian coun- tries—in the Barents, Laptev, Kara, and Siberian Seas, with Japan also becoming increasingly interested in arctic offshore exploration. Political tension in Central Amer- ica and the Middle East, which has cast a shadow over two of the world's most important sources of petroleum products, must inevita- bly focus even greater attention on operations in northern, and espe- cially arctic, waters, where Swedish technology has always been pre- eminent. To meet this upsurge of interest, the Swedish Trade Fair Foundation has under way a major program of reconstruction and expansion, both in exhibition space and other facili- ties, all to be completed in time for Offshore Goteborg '85, which will be the first show to benefit from them. A total of 20,000 square meters of stand space will be provided by replacing the existing Hall A with a much larger hall with 4,100 square meters of stand space and a roof height of 10.3 meters (almost 34 feet). Congress facilities will include seven large lecture halls for up to 900 people, and a number of smaller rooms for conferences, meetings, and receptions—all provided with the latest telecom systems, includ- ing simultaneous translation. The new Sara Hotel Gothia will form part of the reconstructed com- plex, standing beside the main en- trance, with its lobby opening onto the 600-foot-long gallery overlook- ing and connecting exhibition Halls A, B, and C. Offshore Goteborg '85 exhibition and conference will cover every as- pect of offshore technology, includ- ing such recent developments as ice- breaking tankers, ice-borne and sea- borne refineries and methanol plants, planning and management of the sea bed, remote radio control of hydraulically operated valves on seabed wells, problems connected with seabed permafrost, and ice- scouring of the ocean floor. International Conferences "Advantage Offshore," the third international conference to be held as part of Goteborg '85, will open at 1:00 pm Monday, February 25, with speeches by P.G. Gyllenhammer, president of AB Volvo, and by the conference chairman, Fred H. At- kinson, head of the Offshore Divi- sion of Lloyd's Register of Shipping. During the four days of the confer- ences there will be 18 sessions, at which a total of 84 papers will be presented. Two additional sessions will comprise discussions by panels of experts. On Tuesday evening from 6:00 to 10:00 there will be a special conference organized in co- operation with Trygg-Hansa, where topics of particular interest to a Nordic audience will be discussed. The first main conference session on Monday afternoon will present an overview of oil and gas market developments, and will attempt to relate these developments to plans for Norway, the North Sea, and oth- er areas around the world. The ses- sion chairman will be Gunnar Ag- fors of Swedish Petroleum Explo- ration AB, with Prof. Jan Stefen- son of Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, as co- chairman. A keynote paper titled "Oil and Gas Market and Likely Price Devel- opments—View from IEA" will be delivered by Herman Franssen, chief economist to the International Energy Agency, France. Other speakers will present views from Norway and Southeast Asia. In par- (continued on page 14) 12 Maritime Reporter/Engineering News
