MOSCOW, June 16, /ITAR-TASS/. The 21st World Petroleum Congress begins work here on Monday and is to run until June 19 at the CrocusExpo center.

The Congress has been held once in three years since 1933. The latest one was held in Qatar in 2011. The Congress is organized by the World Petroleum Council with head office in London. Sixty-nine countries are the Council's members. Ukraine became a new member of the WPC in autumn last year.

Despite sanctions with regard to Russia over Crimea's reunification with the RF, Western company have decided not to boycott the Congress in Moscow. "Only Canada's Alberta Province (the country's main oil producing region) has declined to participate in it," an official at the forum organizing committee told Itar-Tass.

Over 4,000 delegates, among them 30 ministers and 400 top managers and heads of sector organizations from more than 80 countries, have confirmed their participation in the Moscow congress, the World Petroleum Council reports.

Notwithstanding the already paid fee for participation in the Congress, a Ukrainian delegation is unlikely to be present at the Moscow Congress, for the only member of its delegation has fallen ill, an official at Ukraine's national organizing committee told Itar-Tass.

Such large companies as Chevron, ExxonMobil, General Electric, Siemens, Total, Saudi Aramco, and Petrobras regularly participate in the Congresses. The following persons are among participants in the Congress in Moscow: Robert Dudley, Executive Director of the BP Company, Abdalla Salem El-Badri, OPEC Secretary-General, Petrobras President Maria das Gracas Silva Foster, Maria van der Hoeven, Executive Director of the International Energy Agency, executives of the Norwegian Statoil Company, the Chairman and Managing Director of the Indian oil and gas corporation ONGC, and Rex Tillerson, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Exxon Mobil Corporation.

"Responsible Provision of Developing World with Energy Resources" is the main theme of the forum. Those present at plenary meetings will consider such matters as traditional and non-traditional resources of oil and gas, the financing of the sector, relationship between the producers and users of petroleum products, the ensurance of environmental safety, and guarantees of energy supply stability.

Russian Minister of Energy Alexander Novak told Itar-Tass, "The petroleum industry is one of the most dynamically developing sectors of the world economy. The Congress provides a fine opportunity for specialists from various countries to share advanced experience and get an expert assessment of the most acute problems of the present-day oil and gas industry".

Novak added, "Within the framework of the Congress, participants will comprehensively examine and discuss matters regarding the extraction, development and transportation of oil and gas, projects in the Arctic, the management of the sector development, and many other ones."

The opening ceremony of the Congress was held on Sunday in the State Kremlin Palace.