ASTANA – General Electric (GE), one of the global sponsors of the United States pavilion at EXPO 2017, hosted the June 21 forum Moving Forward, Fueling the Future. The session focused on emerging trends and technologies in the energy and transportation industries, including the digital revolution that is radically reshaping the industrial world.
GE also inked several agreements with Kazakh Temir Zholy (KTZ) on digital cooperation and with Eni S.p.A. on partnering on renewable energy. The document joining the two companies and the Kazakh Ministry of Energy outlined evaluating the possibility of building a 50MW wind farm and other projects.
“GE’s long-standing relationship with Kazakhstan Temir Zholy is a testament to our commitment and innovation within the rail space,” said GE Transportation President and CEO Jamie Miller.
“We are excited to expand our relationship and are confident in the value our digital solutions provide and excited to bring the most advanced digital rail solutions to the CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) region,” she added.
More than 100 top officials, senior business executives and global leaders came together for an interactive discussion on the transportation industry, focusing on Kazakhstan as an important trade hub between Europe and Asia. The experts highlighted the critical importance of digital technologies in transforming the rail industry.
The agreement with KTZ will implement GE Transportation’s digital solutions, including Trip Optimiser and Smart Intermodal Terminal, to lower fuel costs, enhance power distribution and increase terminal productivity.
Senior business and government leaders discussed the country’s oil and gas sector and noted its critical role in ensuring Eurasian energy security and the potential for a new virtual pipeline and LNG (Liquefied Natural Gas) technology to better leverage Kazakhstan’s abundant gas resources to support sustainable development.
“Rich in resources and a key trade corridor, Kazakhstan and the broader Central Asia region are hugely important to the global oil and gas industry,” said GE Oil & Gas President and CEO Lorenzo Simonelli.
“This is the perfect place for a global discussion and we welcome the opportunity to continue collaborating with our partners in the region,” he added.
The company had the opportunity to show the interactive electricity value network to more than 20,000 visitors to the pavilion in the past two weeks. The display focuses on the growing importance of renewables in the global energy mix.
After the forum, the guests were invited to Lokomotiv Kurastyru Zauyty (LKZ), a GE joint venture in the capital that manufactures high-efficiency, heavy-haul Evolution-series locomotives customised for the CIS market. To date, the facility has produced 300 TE33A locomotives, dozens of which have been exported to neighbouring Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Ukraine.
“GE has been contributing to infrastructure development in Central Asia for 70 years. We’re happy to be supporting Kazakhstan as the host of EXPO 2017 by providing a platform for open dialogue with our local partners about some of the most pressing challenges in the industrial world. Together, we’re taking concrete steps to reboot industrial productivity and help support the region’s long-term growth,” said GE Vice President Ron Pollett.
The announcements reaffirm GE’s long-term commitment to help some of Kazakhstan’s most challenging energy and transportation projects, as well as supporting the country as it embarks on the journey of digital transformation laid out in a 2017 address by Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev to harness the power of the Industrial Internet as an engine to accelerate growth.
GE is major digital industrial company, transforming industry with software-defined machines and solutions that are connected, responsive and predictive. The company is organised around a global exchange of knowledge, where each business shares and accesses the same technology, markets, structure and intellect. Each invention further fuels innovation and application across our industrial sectors. With people, services, technology and scale, GE delivers better outcomes for customers by speaking the language of industry, according to the company website.
