With gasoline prices nudging $3 a gallon, oil prices topping $70 a barrel and tensions in the Middle East maintaining a constant tightness on energy markets, a collection of energy-industry experts next month will put their minds to work dissecting opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

In Great Bend.

The Midcontinent Oil and Gas Expo and Prospect Fair is set for 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sept. 12 at the Highland Hotel and Convention Center, where 64 companies and other operations that serve the oil and gas industries will set up shop.

Representatives will show off their new technologies, services and other offerings that can improve the businesses of the 200 to 300 people expected to attend the free event. Others will be seeking partners or investors to help make their product or service dreams a reality.

“This will be a big event for the oil and gas industry in the mid-continent,” said Rodney Reynolds, director of the North Midcontinent Region for the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council and director of technology transfer for the Tertiary Oil Recovery Project at Kansas University. “Events such as this provide networking opportunities for service companies and operators, which helps sustain oil and gas production from our mature marginal reservoirs in Kansas and surrounding states.”

The Midcontinent Oil and Gas Expo and Prospect Fair will bring together 64 companies and other operations that serve the oil and gas industries Sept. 12 in Great Bend. Mike Glaze, who's been drilling wells for decades, took a call last year in front of a new well just west of Gardner.

That’s what Andy Rupp is counting on. The co-owner and executive vice president of Insurance Planning Inc., a Hays-based insurer, is looking forward to his firm gaining even more exposure in a market it already knows well.

Insurance Planning Inc. already has more than 500 businesses and individuals as clients who are affiliated with oil production in Kansas and nearby states. With the value of production equipment on the rise and labor costs increasing, the industry’s interest in insurance coverage is far from drying up.

“Drilling is up, and along with the cost of drilling and production and all the related materials – they pay more for labor, more for drilling pipe and other types of supplies – the cost of insurance is driven up,” Rupp said. “It’ll be good to get in front of people involved in different facets of the oil business: the drillers to people handling production and all the servicing areas involved. We’ll make them aware of who we are and what we do.”

Expo exhibitors will be coming from all over the state and region, said Lisa Love, who is coordinating registrations for the Petroleum Technology Transfer Council and Tertiary Oil Recovery Project at KU. Among them will be River City Engineering Inc., a Lawrence-based provider of engineering support for the oil and natural gas refining and related industries.