Keynote speakers

Gardiner Hill

Gardiner Hill is the Senior Advisor on CCS Technology, Regulations and Policy for BP Alternative Energy. He is responsible for developing strategies and advising on all matters related to carbon capture and storage across the portfolio of the BP group of companies.

Hill graduated from Edinburgh’s Heriot-Watt University with BSc and MSc degrees in civil and petroleum engineering and then joined the British National Oil Company which became Britoil, which was later taken over by BP in 1989.

He was involved heavily in the early stage of the research and development of Enhanced Oil Recovery (EOR) and in 2000, Hill joined BP’s central Group Technology function and project managed the CO2 Capture Project, the first international joint industry scheme of its kind, involving 11 organisations including oil companies, the European Union, US and Norwegian governments, which together contributed $25 million to be spent on technology development.

Hill sits on the board of a range of associations and special projects including; Chairman for the Carbon Capture and Storage Industry Association, Chairman for the CO2 Carbon Capture Project, Vice Chairman of the Zero Emissions Power Technology Platform in Europe and is the manager accountable for the BP relationship with Princeton CMI programme and the Harvard Kennedy School ETI programme.

Michael Gibbons OBE

Michael Gibbons is Commercial Director at Powerfuel Power Ltd, an independent power generation company formed to develop the world's first large scale integrated gasification combined cycle (IGCC). The near zero emissions power station with carbon capture capability will be delivered in two phases over the next five years.

Prior to his current post, Gibbons started his career at ICI, following a series of management positions in the USA and Europe, he became responsible for all energy purchased by ICI in the UK before moving on to Powergen in 1991 where he performed a variety of roles at Director level. This included the purchasing of all fuels for the UK power stations, having the responsibility as Managing Director for Powergen’s gas business which encompassed gas trading development and the renegotiation of key contracts before being appointed as Director of UK Communications, responsible for government and external relations, the press office and internal communications.

Gibbons was awarded an OBE for services to regulatory reform in 2008. Throughout his career, he has held a wide range of commercial and public appointments including: Chairman of UKWEC, Director of Powerfuel Power Ltd, Director of Carbon Capture and Storage Association, Director of British Management Data Foundation, Chairman of Regulatory Policy Committee, Member of High Level Group on Administrative Burdens for the European Commission, Member of the EU Strategic Business Advisory Group and Member of the Ministerial Challenge Panel, he also operates a small energy consultancy.

Claudio Allevi

As Refinery Development Manager, Allevi is currently responsible for the Refinery Technical Development Department in Saras SpA. He began his career in 1987 as Process Engineer in FCC Plant at Enichem ANIC (ENI Group) before working on their new Coking and Gofiner Projects. In 1992, Allevi joined Saras, one of the largest European refineries, and became Chief of the Technical Department of Sarlux, a Saras project company. He was responsible for the technical issues and on duty as Commissioning Manager for the Sarlux IGCC project.

Allevi holds a Laurea in Industrial Chemistry from the University of Milan, Italy. Following the Laurea he held the positions of Research Fellow at the University of Kent and Research Assistant at the University of Liverpool.

He has published around fourteen papers on organometallic chemistry in major scientific magazines and several papers on IGCC and refinery issues in international publications.