The Eighth Congress was held in Moscow from 13-18 June 1971. The Opening and Closing Cereminies of the Eighth Congress and a reception took place in the Palace of Congress, while the Russia Hotel was a venue for registration and the technical sessions. The Congress was officially opened by Frederick Rossini, the President of the WPC, after M. F. Efremov, the Deputy Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. In Moscow 5, 069 participants from 58 countries presented 169 papers. Twenty-two main tours were organized, and an additional 17 tours were arranged because of the high level of demand. A total of 1, 829 people from 41 countries took part in the technical tours to various research institutes and training establishments. The most popular tours were to Leningrad, Central Asia, Volgograd, Baku and multi-centre Tbilisi-Erevan-Sochi trip.
The 21st WPC will be conducted in Moscow from the 15-19 June, 2014. It is expected to be the largest event in the history of the WPC. Certainly, one of the factors determining the distinctive significance of the 21st WPC is the host country: Russia has been and remains one of the largest producers of hydrocarbons in the world. Still, organizers of the Moscow Congress are applying extra effort to increase its representativeness and number of attendees. In particular, it has been decided that the plenary sessions’ presentations will be simultaneously translated into Arabic, Spanish, Chinese, German, French, and Russian