One of Houston’s oldest and largest annual conventions — the Offshore Technology Conference — begins on Monday at Reliant Park. This is the 35th straight year that the conference has been held in Houston. Over 50,000 engineers and industry executives will descend upon Houston this week. More than 2,000 exhibitors from 27 countries will fill nearly 400,000 square feet of space at Reliant Center.
Although the size of the conference has varied through the years as a reflection of the state of the offshore oil and gas business, the conference is again in an upward mode as offshore oil production now accounts for about 30 percent of domestic production, and industry estimates predict that to increase to around 40 percent by the end of the decade.