Film Screening "Billion Dollar Bonfire" on Thursday, August 30 from 12:00 to 1:00pm in J1-050

The InfoShop, Oil, Gas, Mining and Chemicals Department, Sustainable Development
Network,
Africa Region External Affairs Department, and Global Gas Flaring Reduction

Partnership

cordially invite you to the screening of a TVE/BBC documentary on gas flaring,
featuring Nigeria and Russia

Billion Dollar Bonfire
The flaring and venting of Natural Gas is wasting valuable resources and
contributing to climate change.

The World Bank's Global Gas Flaring Reduction partnership estimates that 150
billion cubic meters of gas are burnt off or 'flared' every year - enough to
supply the whole of the United States for three months. And the 40 bcm of gas
burned in Africa annually could generate half of the electricity currently
produced in that continent.

Gas flaring and venting also puts about 400 million tonnes of carbon dioxide
into the atmosphere every year.

A new programme in TVE's Earth Report series, which run on BBC World, goes to
Russia and Nigeria to assess the scale of the problem and to examine possible
solutions.

Billion Dollar Bonfire, TVE's Earth Report series, which ran on BBC World, was
produced with the support of The World Bank?s Global Gas Flaring Reduction
Partnership.

A brief discussion following the showing of the documentary will focus on:
How gas flaring reduction and gas utilization fit into the new energy matrix
Gas utilization potential contributions to climate change mitigation and
energy security
The World Bank's GGFR role in global gas flaring reduction
Challenges and opportunities for the period 2007-2009

Thursday, August 30, 2007
12:00 - 1:00pm
World Bank J Building, Auditorium J1-050

Introductory Remarks
Kristalina I. Georgieva
Director
Strategy and Operations, and Acting VP
Sustainable Development Network
World Bank

Chair
Somit Varma
Director of Oil, Gas, and Mining
World Bank

Brief Discussion and Q&A
Bent Svensson
Lead Energy Economist and Manager
Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership (GGFR)
________________________________________________________________________________________________________
About GGFR
In 2002 the World Bank and the Government of Norway started the Global Gas
Flaring Reduction (GGFR) initiative, which now has 12 country partners and 10
industrial partners, including the world?s largest petroleum companies. GGFR?s
main goal is to bring all major stakeholders around the table so that they can
together reduce the barriers to eliminate gas flaring to minimum levels. These
main barriers include lack of an effective regulatory framework for associated
gas utilization, lack of markets and lack of infrastructure to take the gas to
those markets.

About the InfoShop
The InfoShop is the public information center of the World Bank and serves as a
forum for substantial debate on international development. Our extensive events
program consists of more than 250 events over the past two years and has hosted
many internationally recognized speakers including Queen Noor, Francis Fukuyama,
Jeffrey Sachs, Amartya Sen, Joseph Stiglitz, Thomas Friedman, and Carly Fiorina.
The InfoShop functions as the only publicly accessible space at headquarters and
provides internal and external audiences with over 15,000 titles published by
the World Bank, international organizations, and other publishers on development
issues.

For more information on gas global gas flaring, visit: www.worldbank.org-ggfr
For more information, visit: www.worldbank.org/infoshop
Comments about the events program: http://go.worldbank.org/TDG9T8O9K0