Offshore Europe
Offshore Europe is a biennial conference and exhibition for the oil and gas industry taking place in Aberdeen, Scotland (known as the Oil Capital of Europe). People and companies involved in the oil and gas industry from all over the world attend Offshore Europe in Aberdeen, with excesses of 25,000 people from over 100 countries. It takes place at the Aberdeen Exhibition and Conference Centre.
Offshore Europe is the eastern hemisphere's largest oil production and oil exploration event of its kind. It has been running since 1973, created by Spearhead Exhibitions Ltd and the Society of Petroleum Engineers.
The 2009 conference took place 8–11 September, with a record 49,000 attendees, and more than 1,500 exhibiting companies.
Offshore Europe owes its origin to the first Offshore exhibition in Europe called Oceanex 70, which was organised by Multidene Ltd and was held at the Caister Holiday camp site just outside GtYarmouth in October 1970. The publishers of the trade magazine Hydrospace, Spearhead Publications, became interested in running an associated conference called Technology Offshore and it was held in Gt Yarmouth the following year as an integral part of Oceanex 71. An agreement was then signed between Multidene Ltd & Spearhead Publications in which Multidene would be responsible for organising an annual Offshore exhibition with the title of Oceanex 72/73/74 adinfinitum with Spearhead being responsible to run the associated conference with the title of Technology Offshore at each year of Oceanex. It was also agreed between Multidene and Spearhead that they would always work together on similar Offshore exhibitions/conferences anywhere in the world, but with particular emphasis on Europe. Hence the origin of the title Offshore Europe.
However, it became obvious in 1972 that the centre of offshore activity was going to move from Gt Yarmouth to Aberdeen and the two partners discussed the timing of moving the exhibition & associated conference to Aberdeen in 1974. But Spearhead jumped the gun and held secret discussions with the Highlands & Islands Development Board (HIDB) & SPE to hold a combined exhibition and conference in Aberdeen in 1973 called Offshore Europe! HIDB contributed funds and support and Multidene was faced with a fait accompli and realised that the industry would not support two exhibitions/conferences & so Oceanex 74 plus the associated Technology Offshore conference (which was run very successfully by Multidene itself) was the last. However Multidene did run a two-day Offshore Conference called The Aberdeen Offshore Conference in Aberdeen at the Station Hotel in July 30/31 1974.
Multidene Ltd was subsequently wound up and its original directors have since tried without success to establish that the rights to the name,"Offshore Europe", which were transferred to the personal ownership of those directors, are legally theirs.