Conference and trade exhibition African Utility Week (AUW) has welcomed back a long-standing supporter – global energy giant Shell.

The oil company will again be a platinum sponsor at the conference and exhibition from May 16 to 18 in Cape Town.

“We are delighted to return for the third time as a platinum sponsor for AUW,” says Shell lubricants direct sector business-to-business marketer Tendani Ndwamise.

In addition to hosting a booth manned by experts from its global and local businesses, she notes that Dr Peter Smith will the company’s speaker for the event.

“He has over thirty years’ experience in the development of lubricants for use in the sector and will talk about why choosing the right oil is essential in meeting the challenges of the industry, both now and in the future,” she continues.

Moreover, Ndwamise points out that the main challenge in the industry currently is providing sustainable power supply to a population saddled with ageing infrastructure.

This, in turn, leads to the challenge of lowering costs to produce, distribute and transmit power for customers.

“Shell aims to help its customers with sustainable lower total cost of ownership of their assets, through [its] sector expertise and industry knowledge in addition to its technology-leading products.”

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. In South Africa, the company has been working closely with State-owned power utility Eskom to conduct field trials for Shell Diala S4.

“We have had confirmation from Eskom that [it has] approved the use of Shell Diala S4 ZX-IG in its 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 with competitor oils,” Ndwamise says.

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

“AUW is a high priority event for Shell as it gives us the opportunity to connect with not only 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 Africa have also chosen to attend the event,” she highlights.

Award-Winning Energy Platform

The seventeenth annual AUW will bring together over 7 000 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.

These range from generation, transmission and distribution, metering, technology and water.

The AUW expo offers an extensive technical workshop programme that consists of continuing-professional-development-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.

AUW, along with its debuting Energy Revolution Africa event, is multiple award-winning Cape Town-based trade exhibition and conference organiser Spintelligent’s flagship energy event. Spintelligent is a part of events organising company Clarion Events, 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.