ASME Delegates Meet with Engineering Leaders from Brazil

ASME Delegates Meet with Engineering Leaders from Brazil ASME Delegates Meet with Engineering Leaders from Brazil ASME Delegates Meet with Engineering Leaders from Brazil ASME President Madiha El Mehelmy Kotb (left) presents the 2013 Global Pipeline Award to Lin Song from PetroChina Pipeline Co. at the 2013 Rio Pipeline Conference and Exposition. A delegation of ASME's senior volunteer and staff leadership traveled to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, last month to meet with representatives from a number of the country's engineering and petroleum organizations. The ASME contingent, which included the Board of Governors, senior vice presidents and the Executive Leadership Team, also participated in the 2013 Rio Pipeline Conference and Exposition that took place concurrently. In their open meetings, the ASME leaders heard presentations from Alvaro Toubes Prata, secretary to the Technology Sciences Ministry; Carlos Tadeu da Costa Fraga, executive manager of Pre-Salt Project, Petrobras; Antonio Machado Neto, executive director, Petroleum, Gas, Bioenergy and Petrochemicals, ABIMAQ (The Brazilian Association of Equipment and Machinery); Dr. Kenneth G. Herd, general manager of General Electric's Brazil Technology Center; and Brian Brisson, Minister Counselor for Commercial Affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Brazil. The presentations and resulting discussion covered a range of topics, including advances in engineering technology, public policy and engineering, workforce development, international cooperation between the various societies, and the challenges and opportunities related to innovation. ASME President Madiha Kotb at the Global Pipeline Award presentation during the Pipeline conference. While in Brazil, ASME President Madiha El Mehelmy Kotb and other members of the ASME group also attended the 2013 Rio Pipeline Conference and Exposition, which was sponsored by IBP with participation from ASME and the ASME Pipeline Systems Division. The Pipeline conference, which took place Sept. 24-26, is a premier venue for professionals from the petroleum industry to share technological advances and operational experiences and to present important ongoing pipeline projects to their peers. The Pipeline conference also attracts companies from different segments of the pipeline industry operation, construction, engineering, research and development, training and equipment suppliers every two years for one comprehensive pipeline event. At this year's conference, ASME President Madiha Kotb provided remarks during the opening and closing sessions, and presented the ASME Pipeline Systems Division's 2013 Global Pipeline Award to Petrochina Pipeline Co. and the Institute of Chemistry Chinese Academy of Sciences. The award, given every two years at the Rio Pipeline Conference, acknowledges outstanding innovations and technological advances by organizations working pipeline transportation field. President Kotb also recognized Marcelinio Guedes Gomes, president of Petrobras' Abrue e Lima Refinery, as a new ASME Fellow during the conference's closing assembly.