Out on the Range: A Recap of SGA’s Natural Gas Connect 2019

By Varun Adibhatla

Southern Gas Association’s (SGA) Natural Gas Connect Conference connected nearly 1,500 leaders from across the natural gas business, exhibited over 115 booths, included 150+ sessions, and had over 300 speakers from July 15–17, 2019.

Last week Urbint ventured south, to the Lone Star State, to participate in an exhilarating exchange of ideas and information with natural gas industry experts at SGA’s Natural Gas Connect in San Antonio. In true Texas fashion, there were big armadillos, line dancing and even bigger opportunities!

During the conference, Urbint showcased its AI powered Damage Prevention, Cross Bores, and Odor Call Forecasting solutions, which empower utilities to quantify trade-offs between safety, reliability, and affordability while reducing risk.

Benjamin Berry (left) and Brad Roulo of Nicor Gas (right).

Benjamin Berry, Head of Product at Urbint, co-presented, “Data Analytics and Reporting: Transforming Data into Actionable Intelligence,” with Nicor Gas. Nicor Gas, one of the largest natural gas utilities in the Nation with 2.2 million customers, partnered with Urbint to take a risk and data-driven approach to address the three root causes of damage: excavator-error, locate-error, and no one call tickets. Together we demonstrated the impact of Urbint Lens for Damage Prevention to reduce third party damages for Nicor Gas.

Urbint team members, left to right: Peter Griffen (Senior Strategic Account Executive), Amy Le (Senior Product Designer), Varun Adibhatla (Deployment Strategist), Tony Shay (VP of Strategic Development).

The event also featured roundtable sessions on asset management, public safety, field operations, and emergency response with gas distribution operation managers from across the country.

A notable session on best practices to decrease leak response times was very insightful and included operation managers sharing successes and challenges to effectively respond to customer odor calls. As deployment strategists at Urbint, we focus on how making tradeoffs plays a significant role in managing response times and customer experience.

The conference unequivocally was a great chance to learn and exchange with knowledgeable industry professionals in one place. If you didn’t make it to this year’s Natural Gas Connect and would like to learn more about our AI-powered solutions or Urbint partnership opportunities, contact us!

Varun Adibhatla is a Deployment Strategist at Urbint. Varun holds Master’s Degrees in Information Science, from Penn State University, and Applied Urban Science and Informatics from New York University’s Center for Urban Science and Progress.