Twenty-two years after the founding conference in 1997, the city of Bonn welcomed the IBC again in spring 2019. The representatives of the 88 member-companies of the Congress attended the 22nd Annual General Meeting. At the opening ceremony, Mr. Sigmar Gabriel, guest of honor and a former German Foreign Minister and former Vice Chancellor, welcomed guests and participants of the forum. The largest event of the Congress have been sponsored by Linde Group, Uniper CE and Wintreshal Dea GmbH.
Mr. Ch. Bruch, Member of the Board of Linde Group; Mr. M. Mehren, Chairman of the Board of Wintershall Dea GmbH; Mr. K. Martin, Member of the Board of Uniper SE; Mr. H. Fennema, Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of N.V Nederlandse Gasunie.; Mr. Jiao Fangzheng, CNPC Vice President; and Mr. T. Kehler, managing director of Zukunft Erdgas have been invited as speakers at the international conference “Natural Gas – Paving the Way to Ecological Economy”.
In 2019, there was an active change in the governing positions in the Congress. Due to the resignation of Dr. Klaus Schaefer, Uniper CE, from the position of Vice President of the IBC, the General Meeting elected Dr. Rainer Seele, OMV Aktiengesellschaft as his successor. The decision of the IBC Presidium to create a new position of the Chairman of the IBC Board and to elect Dr. Alexander Medvedev, Gazprom Export LLC, to hold this position was also approved. Mr. Udo Voelker announced his resignation from the position of the Coordinator of the Board of the IBC. Mr. Andreas Boeldt, Head of the OMV AG Representative Office in Russia, was elected as his successor. Dr. Andrey Kruglov handed over the post of the Chairman of the "Law, Banking and Finance" Working Committee to Dr. Famil Sadygov, Gazprom. Mr. Leonid Mukhamedov, Schneider Electric Industries SAS became the new Chairman of the “Information and Communication” Working Committee. It was also announced that the name of the IBC Working Committee "Human Resources, Education and Science" was changed to "Human Resources".
