Business programme

Restrictions on Russian oil exports, the uncertainty surrounding the Iranian nuclear deal, as well as OPEC lagging behind its schedule for increasing production have all combined to push oil prices higher than $100 per barrel. European coal prices remain above $200 per tonne, while gas prices have not fallen below $1,000 per thousand cubic metres even though winter has long been over. What’s next? How likely is the possibility of a shortage of raw materials and petroleum products on the market as a whole? The Northern Sea Route (NSR) is the shortest route to deliver raw materials from deposits in the Arctic and Siberia to Asia. Will cargo traffic via the NSR reach 80 million tonnes by 2024? What successes have the nuclear icebreaker fleet and port infrastructure achieved on the coast of the Arctic Ocean? The threat to Europe’s energy balance has softened the position of the Greens with respect to nuclear energy. Nuclear power plants, albeit with some reservations, have been included in the EU Taxonomy, a set of documents that rank the energy sectors in terms of their contribution to sustainable development. Will Europe increase the capacity of nuclear power plants in the coming years? Will there be a boom in the construction of small modular reactors? Hydropower also remains out of favour. The EU Taxonomy included only one category of hydroelectric power plant – those that are not equipped with an artificial reservoir, i.e. ones that are built in the mountains and are predominant in the EU. European officials attribute this to the presence of CO2 emissions from reservoirs. How justified is this position? Or is it a desire to ignore hydroelectric power plants outside of Europe, in particular in Russia, China, and Latin America?

Moderator
Sergey Brilev, President, The Global Energy Association

Sergey Brilev

President, The Global Energy Association

Russian TV presenter, writer and public figure. Deputy Director of the Rossiya TV channel for special informational projects, President of the Bering-Bellingshausen Institute for Both Americas (Montevideo), member of the Praesidium of the Foreign and Defence Policy Council (Moscow), the only Russian journalist to have interviewed both the last two Presidents of the Russian Federation and the USA: Putin and Medvedev, Bush and Obama.
Born 24 July 1972 in Havana (Cuba).
Graduated from MGIMO MID RF (1995, Moscow), the Montevideo Institute of Foreign Languages (1991, Uruguay), and finished BBC courses (1995, London).
Career:
1990–1993: Komsomolskaya Pravda. Trainee, scholarship holder, correspondent-intern in the department of science and education.
1993–1995: Moscow News. International department special correspondent. In parallel, Moscow correspondent of the Uruguay El Observador Económico and the Argentinian La Razón, as well as Russian State Duma Latin America expert.
Since 1995: Rossiya (RTR) TV channel, including:
1995–1996: Vesti special correspondent (including during the First Chechen War).
1996–2001: Bureau Chief in London.
First broadcast as presenter on 11 September 2001 (day of the terrorist acts in the USA).
2001–2003: presenter of evening Vesti.
2003–2007: presenter of Vesti Nedeli, Deputy Director, Directorate of information programmes.
Since 2008: presenter of the Vesti on Saturday programme, Deputy Director of Rossiya TV channel.
Author of a multitude of documentary films: Secret of Three Oceans, Constitutional Practice, Duma Thinking, Right to Right, Heavy Oil, Another Coal, The Caribbean Crisis. An Incomprehensible Story, Nazarbayev’s Line, etc.
Author of the books: Forgotten Allies in World War II (2012) and Fidel. Football. Falklands (2008).
One of the main spheres of his professional activity is interviewing heads of state. In particular, in Latin America: Chavez (Venezuela), Ortega (Nicaragua), Correa (Ecuador), Morales (Bolivia), Sanguinetti (Uruguay), Bachelet (Chile) and so on.
By order of the Russian President, awarded the Order of Friendship, the medals 300th Anniversary of St. Petersburg and 1000th Anniversary of Kazan (2005). Was the finalist and winner of the TEFI awards many times.
Speaks English and Spanish fluently.

Panellists
Alexander Dyukov, Chairman of the Management Board, Chief Executive Officer, Gazprom Neft
Alexey Likhachev, Director General, State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM
Leonid Mikhelson, Chairman of the Management Board, Member of the Board of Directors, NOVATEK
Alexander Novak, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation
Andrey Ryumin, General Director, Chairman of the Management Board, Rosseti
Mohamed Hamel, Secretary General, Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF)

Alexander Dyukov

Chairman of the Management Board, Chief Executive Officer, Gazprom Neft

Born on 13 December 1967 in Leningrad.
1991: graduated from the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute, specialising in aerohydromechanical engineering.
2001: awarded MBA degree.

Positions:
1996 — 1998: held consecutive positions of Financial Director and Director General at St Petersburg Oil Terminal.
1998 — 1999: Director for Economics and, during 1999, Acting Director General, the St Petersburg Sea Port.
2000 — 2003: Chairman of the Board of Directors of CJSC St Petersburg Oil Terminal.
2003 — 2006: President of SIBUR;
2006 — 2011: Chairman of the Board of Directors, SIBUR Holding.
Since 2011: Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors, SIBUR Holding.
2006 — 2008: President, JSC Gazprom Neft;
Since January 2008: Chairman of the Management Board, Chief Executive Officer, Gazprom Neft PJSC.
2019: elected President of the Football Union of Russia (FUR), re-elected for a further four-year term in 2021.
2021: elected a voting member of the UEFA Executive Committee for a four-year term.

Alexey Likhachev

Director General, State Atomic Energy Corporation ROSATOM

Alexey Likhachev is Director General of ROSATOM. He assumed office in October 2016. Mr. Likhachev has since been responsible for overseeing the entire spectrum of the state corporation’s activities.
Before joining ROSATOM, Mr. Likhachev worked in the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia, where he held a wide variety of leadership positions. He joined the ministry in 2007. He worked as an advisor to the Minister of Economic Development until 2008, in 2010 he was appointed Deputy Minister, and in February 2015 he was promoted to the position of First Deputy Minister of Economic Development.
Throughout his career, Mr. Likhachev held senior positions in other governmental bodies and public organizations as well. He was a member of the State Duma (the lower house of Russia’s parliamentary body), serving as Deputy Chairman of the Committee for Economic Policy, Entrepreneurship and Tourism (2000-2007). Previously, he worked as managing director of Social Industrial Insurance Company ‘Aval’ in Nizhniy Novgorod (1992-2000).
Mr. Likhachev graduated from Gorky State University and started his career as an engineer in the Gorky Research Institute of Instrumentation (1985-1987). In 1998 he graduated from the Economic Faculty of Nizhniy Novgorod State University with a Ph.D. in economics.

Leonid Mikhelson

Chairman of the Management Board, Member of the Board of Directors, NOVATEK

Andrey Ryumin

General Director, Chairman of the Management Board, Rosseti

Born on June 12, 1980
In 2002, Andrey Ryumin graduated with honors from the Faculty of Mechanics and Mathematics, Lomonosov Moscow State University.
In 2004, he earned a Candidate of Science degree in Economics from the Market Economy Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
In 2002–2011, he held managerial positions at leading Russian investment and industrial companies.
From 2011, he was the First Deputy Director General of United Energy Company. In 2013, he was appointed as the Director General of United Energy Company.
In 2014–2016, he worked in business.
In 2016–2017, he was an independent director and a member of the Board of Directors of Mosenergo.
In 2018–2021, he was the Director General of Rosseti Lenenergo (formerly, LENENERGO).
On January 14, 2021, Andrey Ryumin was elected as a member of the Management Board of ROSSETI and appointed as the Acting Director General and Chairman of the Management Board of ROSSETI.

His awards include the Medal of the Order for Merit to the Fatherland (2nd Class) and letters of honor and gratitude from the Ministry of Energy of the Russian Federation, the Governor of Saint Petersburg, and the Governor of the Leningrad Region.

Mohamed Hamel

Secretary General, Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF)

HE Eng. Mohamed Hamel is the fourth Secretary General of the Gas Exporting Countries Forum (GECF), an intergovernmental organisation based in Doha, State of Qatar. He assumed office on 1 January 2022.
Prior to joining the GECF, Eng. Hamel was for seven years senior advisor to the Minister of Energy and Mines of Algeria. His long-standing relationship with the GECF dates back to 2016, during which time he served as a Member of the Executive Board of GECF.
Eng. Hamel has been a Member of the Board of Governors of OPEC since 2015 and Chairman of its Audit Committee. In 2016, he chaired the OPEC High-level Committee of the Algiers Accord and co-chaired the OPEC/Non-OPEC High-level meeting.
In the preceding decade, Eng. Hamel joined the OPEC Secretariat in Vienna in 2002, where he stayed for 12 years, as Head of Energy Studies Department and then as Senior Advisor to the Secretary General.
He spent most of his first 21-year professional career with Sonatrach, where he had the opportunity to evolve through all segments of the oil and gas value chain. He began as Reservoir Engineer in the Production Division. He was then promoted to Director of Studies and Synthesis in the Exploration Division, and finally to Vice President in charge of Strategy and Planning. In addition, he has served as a Member Executive Committee and Board of Directors of Sonatrach.