This is the seventh Oil & Gas Conference, hosted this year by EnerCom Inc., American Stock Exchange, Netherland Sewell & Associates, Inc., Oil & Gas Investor Magazine, Credit Lyonnais Securities (USA) Inc., and KPMG LLP. Over 700 attendees from leading institutions, investment banks, commercial banks and the energy industry are attending the four-day conference from August 5-8. The conference showcases more than 50 of the world's leading exploration and production companies and oil service providers. For more information on the conference and its participants, visit www.theoilandgasconference.com.
"The American Stock Exchange is pleased to be part of a conference that has year after year attracted the best of the energy industry," said Salvatore F. Sodano, Amex Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.
Speaking on some of the foremost challenges facing the nation's capital markets today, Mr. Sodano remarked that, "We have seen corporate scandals, politics, public policy issues and world terrorism quickly erode investor confidence and witnessed the impact it has had on the economy."
"These events can have a devastating effect on a company's access to capital markets, especially small- and mid-cap companies. Small companies are often our nation's principle source of job creation and future economic growth, and clearly this is a sector we do not want to see fail," continued Mr. Sodano.
"Wall Street and Congress have already begun to respond to the growing crisis of confidence, including the Amex," said Mr. Sodano. "It is critical that we restore investor confidence in the markets. The Amex has established a framework for the development of new corporate governance rules. It is our goal to establish rules that ensure accountability, transparency and oversight while also recognizing the importance of diversity and critical needs of companies at different stages of development."
"The global economy is changing rapidly and it is increasingly more important that the rules governing our nation's capital markets are on a competitive and level playing field with the rest of the world. We live in an age of delicate economic equilibrium. Bound together in a global economy - every action we take can result in reverberations in the far corners of the earth. As a nation, we need to accelerate our efforts to reach agreement on a set of common global accounting standards. Restoring investor confidence is paramount," concluded Mr. Sodano.
