Since the IGU’s inception, the United States has played host to three World Gas Conferences
Since the early 1930s, forward-thinking gas industry leaders have recognized the need to enhance international cooperation.
On June 2, 1931, representatives of the national gas associations of Belgium, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom met in London for the inaugural council meeting of the International Gas Union.
The United States joined the following year, and more than 20 years later, in 1955, it played host when the sixth International Gas Conference was held outside Europe for the first time—in New York City, then the home of the American Gas Association’s headquarters.
More than three decades would pass before the United States would host again, in 1988, when the International Gas Union’s 17th World Gas Conference was presented in Washington, D.C.
That meeting drew gas industry representatives from 56 nations, including the former Soviet Union. “We would like to propose a closer relationship between our ministry of gas and the AGA,” said then-Soviet minister Viktor S. Chernomyrdin, according to a 75th anniversary story in the July 1993 edition of American Gas.
Fresh off a visit to the Soviet Union, President Ronald Reagan addressed the World Gas Conference and touted natural gas as “a clean-burning, abundant, competitively priced fuel found within our borders, poised to play a major role in containing the rise of imported oil from insecure sources while keeping America energy-secure.”
Reagan referenced a natural gas bus that would soon be tested in New York City and quipped, “And you know what the song says: ‘If you can make it there, you’ll make it anywhere.’”
In June 2018, the 27th World Gas Conference took place once again in Washington, D.C., and offered the most comprehensive program to date for the natural gas industry. For the first time, the conference included topics for professionals from finance, trading, law, sustainability & renewables, policy & government, and more.
The June conference marked another historic milestone: It was the first time the conference was held in a country—the United States—that is both the world’s largest gas-producing and gas-consuming nation.