Category Archives: events

FERC Commissioner John Norris Addresses the Natural Gas Roundtable

Posted on June 23, 2011 by Hannah Bozian | Comments Off

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On June 22, 2011, the monthly meeting of the Natural Gas Roundtable convened with keynote speaker, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) Commissioner John Norris.

Norris voiced his confidence that natural gas will play a large role in the future of America’s energy needs, but also spoke of the difficulties in getting investments for energy infrastructure that are needed for the natural gas industry to grow.

Norris noted that because natural gas is America’s energy future, in terms of infrastructure, “it is important we get it right.”

“Investing in this type of infrastructure is beneficial for the economy,” said Norris, “because a large investment will help America transition its energy usage while creating jobs. We need to replace much of this infrastructure anyway, because at this point, it qualifies for AARP benefits.”

In his speech, Norris remarked that America’s energy issue is “the biggest big-picture challenge we face as a country right now.”

There’s no doubt that natural gas is imperative to help reduce the country’s greenhouse gas emissions and satisfy other clean energy goals.

“No matter where I look in the energy debate,” Norris said, “it seems like it all comes back around to natural gas.”

We couldn’t agree more.

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Operations Conference by the numbers

Posted on June 7, 2011 by Juanita Spence | 1 Comment

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We’ve just closed the books on a spectacular week of technical committee meetings, conference sessions and exhibitions. This AGA’s Operations Conference and Biennial Exhibition had our largest attendance since the mid-90’s. Let’s look at the numbers – more than 1,600 in attendance (1800 with “Customer Day” attendees at the Exhibition!) including 600 operations management executives registered for the conference. That’s phenomenal! Our 30,000 square feet of exhibition space housed 200 vendors in over 300 booths. All of this was powered by no less than 500 gallons of coffee, 3500 sodas and 2000 candy bars, ice cream bars and potato chips! Who said you can’t live on junk food and coffee?

On Sunday morning volunteers from our members and staff worked on community service projects from fence building, to working in food distribution vans to cleaning up areas still damaged by last year’s devastating floods. Then our work week started in earnest with committees meeting for two full days on Monday and Tuesday culminating Tuesday evening with the conference and exhibit grand opening reception. The hall was packed as we visited as many vendors as we could…all the while enjoying the Southern hospitality and food that seemed to be everywhere we turned!

Conference sessions started Wednesday morning with subjects ranging from gas quality to safety, to public awareness and plastic materials. As well as presentations from AGA staff and industry experts, we heard from senior PHMSA, NARUC and NTSB reps. Make no mistake; this is THE natural gas operations event! There was standing room only for our first DIMP sessions on Wednesday afternoon so we quickly moved subsequent DIMP sessions into the Ballroom. Attendance at the DIMP sessions was beaten out only by the General Session! With 120+ presentations over the course of the week, this event really did offer something for everyone.

On Friday we closed out the conference and gave attendees a chance to unwind with a round of golf at the beautiful Gaylord Spring Golf Links.

If you followed #agaops on Twitter during the week, you’ll know there was time for work and play and attendees, exhibitors, sponsors and AGA staff had a great time! Be sure to check out our gallery and see if you can find yourself.

Posted in events | Tagged operations conference | 1 Comment

Operations conference photos

Posted on June 3, 2011 by Dan Gibson | Comments Off

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The Ops conference, or officially the Operations Conference & Biennial Exhibition, is always one of our best events and this year was no exception. Learning, networking, industry technology, recognition…it’s all there.

Juanita Spence from our operations team is working on a blog post for later next week with more about what happened at the event. Some of you might remember Juanita from her updates on twitter during the conference. In the meantime, we’ve had so many requests for photos I wanted to get a quick post up letting you know where you could find them.

I always ask people to take pictures when they go places I don’t get to go and I think you guys will be interested in the photos. The OPS team came through with flying colors. Debbie smiled when she handed me the jump drive and said, “we’ve got a few pictures we’d like to post.”

A few?

Try 200.

I pulled out some of my favorites below to give you a taste. Be sure to leave a comment if you were at the conference and had a good time. We enjoy reading those. You can view the entire collection on Flickr (we’re working on adding them to our Facebook page, too). We also broke them out into sets so it would be easier for you to find specific things.

Have fun, we sure did!

Posted in energy, events, people | Tagged photos | Comments Off

Getting ready for the 2011 AGA Operations Conference

Posted on May 24, 2011 by Dan Gibson | Comments Off

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If you’re gearing up for the 2011 AGA operations conference, or as it’s officially called the Operations Conference & Biennial Exhibition, I’ve got some last-minute notes to help you make the most of your conference experience. We’re actually doing a series of these during the week to highlight what’s going on at the event so be sure to check back.

First, as a good part of my world functions around the web, I wanted to let you know that we started a twitter hashtag for the event. It’s #agaops. So, if you’re commenting on the conference use #agaops with your tweet and anyone searching #agaops on twitter will see the message. Juanita Spence, part of our operations team, has already started tweeting about the event and even posted a few pictures.

You can also use the hashtag if you’re looking for help with something. We’ll be monitoring #agaops and will try to point you in right direction when we see your question. Twitter is great to use if you need help at the actual event. I’ve used twitter at events before to find people at the event when I didn’t have their contact information readily available or was in a place too loud to talk. People are already starting to use it, including a few of our exhibitors. Maybe there are a few giveaways in our future .

Second, be sure to visit the event landing page on aga.org to get copies of conference materials. They’ll be around the registration and exhibition areas to be sure, but in a pinch, here’s a link to download what you need to find your way around.

You’ll find everything from the conference-at-a-glance to the final program, and even a listing of the exhibitors and fun things to do in the area. I went ahead and grabbed the conference-at-a-glance for tonight and tomorrow for you. Click the image below to get the full pdf.

Finally, and most important, be sure to take advantage of being at the event. While we’ve all learned to get amazing things done by collaborating in our digital worlds, there is no substitute for actually being to look someone in the eye, smile and say “hello.” These are the type of networking events that help build lifelong relationships. So, when you’re at the Grand Opening Reception this evening, take a little time to make a new acquaintance.

Leave us a comment below or jump over to twitter and let us know what you think. Be sure to use the #agaops hashtag so we can find you. Here’s a link if you want to learn more about hashtags and how to use them.