After nearly 30 years the World Petroleum Congress is coming back to the USA. Houston the energy capital of the world won the bid to host the Congress in 2020. Following two previous attempts to bring the Olympics of the Oil & Gas Sector to the US, the third time proved the charm. Following a tense vote there were great celebrations from all involved in the US WPC Bid Committee.

Members of the World Petroleum Council (WPC) gathered last week in Bahrain for the annual WPC Council Meeting and voted between the candidate cities of Houston and Vancouver. With 70 member countries the WPC is the world’s premier global oil and gas forum representing all aspects of the petroleum sector.

Dr Jozsef Toth, President of the World Petroleum Council congratulated Houston on their successful bid and also acknowledged the excellent bids provided “We are privileged to have such strong support from our global members and Houston is an excellent choice – both Canada and the US led impressive bids and their campaigns ensured the high standards of the Congress are maintained”.

“This decision was due to the hard work of a diverse team that covered all the bases,” said Galen Cobb, Chairman of the US National Committee and US WPC Bid Committee. “The federal government, City of Houston, Houston First, Consular Corp, industry trade associations, energy company operators and service companies joined together for the common purpose of promoting Houston as the world energy city leader it is. We have so much to be proud of and want to showcase it to the world in 2020.”

The members of the US WPC Bid Committee were joined by the Mayor of Houston, Sylvester Turner in Bahrain where they presented and won their third bid to host this prestigious event.

“I want to thank the US Bid Committee for their hard work,” said Mayor Turner. “We spent six years building relationships with WPC delegates and it paid off. Houston is the epicenter of energy on the global scale and this is where the new technologies are being developed”. Known as the "Olympics of the oil and gas industry" and held every three years, Houston anticipates attracting 10,000 top-level international oil executives to the 23rd World Petroleum Congress. As one of the world’s key energy cities this will have a major impact on the city of Houston and bring many new business opportunities to the energy companies and businesses based there, as well as to the global energy industry. The US will officially launch the promotion of the 2020 World Petroleum Congress at the 22nd WPC in Istanbul which takes place from 9-13 July next year.