THE GLOBAL energy giant Shell, will again be a platinum sponsor again at the African Utility Week conference and exhibition from 16-18 May in Cape Town.

The 17th annual African Utility Week will gather over 7000 decision makers from more than 80 countries to source the latest solutions and meet over 300 suppliers. Along with multiple side events and numerous networking functions the event also boasts a five track conference with over 300 expert speakers.

The conference programme will address the latest challenges, developments and opportunities in the power and water sectors: ranging from generation, T and D, metering, technology and water.

“Choosing the right oil is essential”

“We are delighted to return for the third time as a platinum sponsor for African Utility Week,” says Tendani Ndwamise, Shell Lubes Direct Sector B2B Marketer at Shell South Africa. She continues: “in addition to hosting a booth with experts from our global and local business, we are proud to announce Dr. Peter Smith as a speaker for the event. He has over thirty years’ experience in the development of lubricants for use in the sector and will talk about how choosing the right oil is essential in meeting the challenges of the industry, both now and in the future.”

According to Tendani the main challenges currently in the industry are: ”providing sustainable power supply to the population, with aging infrastructure. This in turn leads to the challenge of lowering costs to produce, distribute and transmit power for our customers. Shell aims to help its customers with sustainable lower total cost of ownership of their assets, through Shell’s sector expertise and industry knowledge in addition to our technology-leading products.”

She adds: “In the last five years, Shell has launched two new ranges of products for the power sector – Shell Diala S4 for use in transformers and Shell Turbo S4, our premium turbine oil range. In South Africa, we have been working closely with Eskom to conduct field trials for Shell Diala S4. We have had confirmation from Eskom that they approved the use of Shell Diala S4 ZX-IG in their fleet of transformers. We have also supplied a number of projects in South Africa with our premium turbine oil, Shell Turbo S4, which provides superior performance in a number of key areas, compared to competitor oils.”

On the rest of the continent, Shell has supplied a number of projects with both ranges, notably the Ethiopian Renaissance Dam project and the Mega project in Egypt.

“African Utility Week is a high priority event for Shell” says Tendani, “as it gives us the opportunity to not only connect with manufacturers and utilities in South Africa, but also the wider African continent and also internationally. We are delighted that a number of our customers outside of Africa have also chosen to attend the event.”

Award-winning energy platform

The African Utility Week expo offers an extensive technical workshop programme that are CPD accredited, free to attend, hands-on presentations that take place in defined spaces on the exhibition floor. They discuss practical, day-to-day technical topics, best practices and product solutions that businesses, large power users and utilities can implement in their daily operations.

African Utility Week and Energy Revolution Africa is the flagship energy event organised by the multi-award winning Spintelligent, leading Cape Town-based trade exhibition and conference organiser, and part of Clarion Events Ltd, based in the UK. Other well-known energy events by Spintelligent are Future Energy Nigeria (formerly known as WAPIC), Future Energy East Africa (formerly EAPIC), Future Energy Uganda and Future Energy Central Africa.

Earlier this year, Spintelligent won four major awards at AAXO’s ROAR Organiser and Exhibitor Awards, with African Utility Week named the joint winner for Best Trade Exhibition 6001-12000 sqm category (with the World Travel Market).

Dates for African Utility Week and Energy Revolution Africa

Conference and expo: 16-18 May 2017
Awards gala dinner: 17 May 2016
Site visits: 19 May 2016
Location: CTICC, Cape Town, South Africa