DAVOS 2024 LIVE: WEF session: People, Policy, Finance: Realizing an Equitable Energy Transition

DAVOS 2024 LIVE: WEF session: People, Policy, Finance: Realizing an Equitable Energy Transition

is at the core of this panel uh it’s a
great uh panel I’ll come back uh to that
but we are faced in many ways with the
triangle and um one is energy access
There is close to 800 million people on
our planet that don’t have access to
basic
electricity let’s not forget that and
then uh in Europe uh we have learned a
lot about energy security also uh the
last year so you will have to have
predictability when it comes to energy
and the third part of the triangle is um
decoupling how can we reach all this and
continue development but also reaching
the international agreements that we
have made uh in Paris and and lately now
at cop 28 um in
Dubai uh how to uh square a circle or or
or or or maybe square triangle I don’t
know uh at least I I’ll leave this uh to
the panel that is is great his Royal
Highness Prince Abdul aiz has been such
a great uh supporter uh of our Summit
thank you uh your highness he’s also
asked as the host to speak last so just
so you know I’m not bypassing his His
Highness but this on his uh request but
we will come back to you um your your
highness and um we have uh from the Le
uh uh here for for you we have Darren
Woods chairman and CEO of exen mobile
welcome we have then wikii holl
president and CEO of idential and then
we have uh his Excellency sad bin
sharida alabi minister of State for
energy Affairs of Qatar and then uh we
have kri Simpson commissioner for energy
European uh commission so this will be
uh a very interesting and uh important
discussion let me start uh with you uh
Darren Woods um how is it possible to uh
make sure that we are able to secure
security for energy that we are able to
reach those that don’t have energy
making sure that energy is also
underpinning the necessary economic
growth that we need but also then
meeting the international obligations
and decouple this from a growth in
Greenhouse emissions is there a pth for
this and oh is Aon on that path yeah
thanks for the question I would I would
say I think the good news is this is not
the first time the world has faced
challenges or issues that are
multi-dimensional that you have to to
take into account and address a number
of competing interests just think it is
unique in that we are attempting to do
it at a scale that in the past has never
been attempted and we’re attempting to
do it in an area that is so critically
important to people’s uh Lifestyles uh
their prosperity and and the um
importance of it to economic growth so
that makes it particularly challenging
but I would say you know we have
approached this in the past Society has
different countries have approached this
as a one-dimensional problem that has
frankly been translated from reducing
emissions to uh reducing oil and gas and
I think we’ve gotten very fixated on a
very narrow uh solution set and put in
policies around the world to try to
address that very n narrow solution set
and we’re beginning to see the
consequences of that and so my view uh
is we need to step back and focus one on
the problem statement which is emissions
and then start thinking at a very Global
level how do you address uh reductions
in emissions and the good news is we
have done things like this in the past
across the globe and the first thing we
need to address is a mechanism and
method for accounting for
emissions uh we today the world no
country has a mechanism in place to
actually account for carbon emissions so
if you can’t measure it you sure can’t
manage it so start with understanding
and uh have a globally accepted carbon
accounting system in place and once you
have a carbon accounting system in place
you can begin to um put policy in place
to address the carbon emissions
associated with any product that society
makes uh through carbon intensity
specifications the beauty of that is you
don’t have to have the answer you’re not
focusing on a way of getting to an
answer but instead you’re focused on the
outcome that you’re after and you let
the markets Academia technology
businesses governments focus on how best
to achieve the outcome that unleashes
the power of capital markets and focuses
on an objective and doesn’t require
policy makers to try to come up with an
answer on their own but instead focus on
delivering a solution and this uh
fortunately is how we’ve managed many
other
um uh parameters that we’ve tried to
control with different products so think
of uh lead and gasoline think of sulfur
emissions and Diesel there’s a number of
examples around the world and around a
lot of different products that we’ve
already managed to re make improvements
through a more rational objective
process thank you uh thank you very much
uh I want to move to kri Simpson uh
commissioner for energy of the Au EU has
been uh through um quite a uh
transformation uh 40% of the natural gas
that was consumed uh came from Russia uh
from one uh day to another most of that
gas was gone you pivoted uh into LG uh
both from Qatar uh the us but you also
uh started the process of rolling out uh
then uh Renewables uh listening then to
uh Mr woods but also your experience now
where do you see the energy future um of
the European Union and still staying
competitive thank you for your question
and good afternoon everybody every body
and thank you for your kind invitation
um it’s pleasure to attend today’s
special meeting and indeed it was just
couple of months ago when European Union
was able to announce that we are exiting
from the crisis mode so um for a couple
of years uh
our citizens and our industry they had
to face U very high energy prices and on
top of that there was um especially
during the winter season a concern do we
have enough natural gas at our disposal
to heat our homes and now um two years
since uh Russia started to manipulate
our gas market we can say that our
underground gas storage is are
sufficiently full and prices are down to
pre-war level so I do remember that in
2021 when we saw first signs that Russia
was manipulating our markets I was
visiting Qatar and um we did very
intensive Outreach to find alternative
suppliers um it was a challenging task
but luckily we had already um a um
impressive network of enery terminals
built out across Europe so indeed we
managed to um diversify our supplies and
saying that it was um a surprise for
many uh member states that one dominant
supplier can cut you out like this
because pipeline gas um interconnections
they were built um during sovet area
they connected um more than dozen member
states in Europe This Russian gas fields
and this uh situation that we were left
without Russian natural gas was not the
result of our um sanctions on the
contrary it was their unilateral
decision to to create difficulties
political difficulties for our
governments but then of course like we
already found out in
2021 um it was impossible to to replace
155 billion cubic meters overnight with
LNG um no LNG producer was able um to
increase their um production in such a
short notice so we had also to implement
emergency measures and we requested our
governments to cut gas consumption they
did so they cut their gas consumption
across the board uh by
18% how was it possible so onethird of
our um gas consumption is due to the
fact that we heat our homes so that we
had to continue we were not uh uh able
to announce that uh that people will
freeze another uh 30% goes to power
generation and there we made a
difference we brought online very fast
Renewables past two years have been a
record years for Renewables only last
year we brought online 73 gws of new
wind and solar installations that helped
us to cut gas significantly and that
brought prices down and this is a a uh
clear signal that our investors when
they had the opportunity to um to make
investment decisions prioritize
Renewables of course we have to invest
also um our taxpayers money to build up
the Creed infrastructure we plan to do
so just last year we presented our
Creeds action plan and this covers not
only our Mainland infrastructure but we
will also connect um offshore uh wind
farms we plan to bring online 111 GW of
new offshore wind uh Power Generation
and as you know the biggest um offshore
windmills are as tall as Eiffel Tower
280 M if you also uh take into account
the sapi foundations they produce uh
well they are 15 megawatt so they
produce as much as 20,000 households
need so we call our our um sea Basin
North Sea and Baltic Sea our future
green uh power plants and uh and this is
a promising development this is
something that we can also
um um advise other governments to follow
and uh and um clearly um I trust private
investors I do see that this is a money
this is the sector where they direct
their investment
what what do you say to uh those in the
European saying that uh lerg and natural
gas uh is not environmentally uh
friendly do you say that this is a
necessary uh Bridge or how do you
address that indeed for us uh natural
gas right now plays a very important
role well for many member states natural
gas power plants are the ones who help
us to uh to cover Peak demand when there
is not sufficient wind or or uh solar of
course we are also privileged to have a
a vast potential of hydro reservoirs at
our disposal but the most difficult year
summer 2022 we saw that there was a tro
in Iberian Peninsula and this created a
on top of Russian manipulation a very
difficult situation now on gas we just
presented our 2040 uh targets European
Union will cut CO2 emissions by 90% and
that means that uh only Renewables uh
well this clearly will not be sufficient
so we also brought online carbon capture
and storage strategy and also new uh
innovative solutions like smrs uh some
of our member states are very excited to
bring online new nuclear and this is um
totally accepted member states can
choose Energy Mix and as you know um the
commitment of ours is to become climate
neutral so all the low carbon
technologies that help us to do so um
are welcomed what do you say to the
European countries that have said that
they’re not continuing with nuclear uh
in this situation on top of the
situation with the Russian
gas well this is mainly triggered by the
public acceptance issue and uh you will
remember that U globally there was lots
of discussion after Fukushima accident
so my biggest concern is that right now
Russian troops are occupying the biggest
European nuclear power plant this is
saparia power plant Ukraine and if they
will recklessly create some kind of
disaster then public opinion changes for
sure thank you uh very much let me then
uh move to you um Minister uh of energy
of kachar his Excellency Al kabi um two
two questions one is the global energy
demand if we know see global growth back
at
3.2% there will also be an increase
demand for energy where do you see that
energy coming from and where do you see
the role of LG uh in this and and the
long-term uh prospects for katar I think
you’re considering even increasing the
production of the northern um field with
like 80% or something it’s on the table
so maybe you can Enlighten us about
those uh uh plants thank you uh first
I’d like to uh thank uh his Royal
Highness Prince abdulaziz for inviting
me to attend here and thank you and the
Forum and thank everybody that’s
attending for attending this
distinguished Gathering really here um
regarding the outlook for uh the demand
uh in gas I think is is was your
question in general but I think energy
in total uh of course this green push
that we are talking about were all for
having having a good environment for us
and for our kids and Next Generation so
we’re all responsible citizens living in
this world if you will small world and
we all want to do what’s right the the
importance is to do it in a way that’s
responsible for this generation and next
generation and make sure that people
that want to grow and countries that
want to grow their economy have the same
rights that the Richer countries have uh
all along and and we take everybody
along for the right you we’ mentioned
800 million people not having uh basic
electricity I think the number is more
like a billion or whatever and if we
think about another billion and a half
to two billion uh being joining us uh in
in in the next you know 30 years or so
uh you need power for additional two
billion people coming on on Earth uh so
I think if we shouldn’t be selfish in
just talking about what we want in our
house and forget the neighborhood if you
will the way it has been pushed that you
know demonizing oil and gas all along
for the past almost decade now and and
really
um putting the oil and gas sector as if
we are not doing good for the for
Humanity and everybody that’s green is
trying to push that narrative and so on
I think now everybody’s turning to
understand that there is a need for oil
and gas for the long term and the the
people that were saying we need green
hyrogen blue ammonia green ammonia
whatever nobody’s is is coming up and
saying we can’t pay the price for that a
lot of governments are talking about
Green initiatives but they actually are
not paying for it and at the ultimately
you have consumers that will be paying
for um you know this green all these
green initiatives and they will not be
able to afford it even in richer
countries
the demand I think for oil is going to
be there for a very long time you need
petrochemicals that wind farms and and
solar energy cannot uh produce so you
need petrochemical plants you need all
the refined chemicals and so on that you
you will need for a very long time uh
gas is going to be uh needed to power uh
really uh all the the electricity that’s
needed for the expansions Uria that’s
that’s an ammonia that’s that’s used for
fertilizers and uh as mentioned uh by my
colleague here for the intermittency of
of solar and uh wind uh so so oil and
gas are going to be needed for a very
long time you can debate you know when
it speak oil when it speak gas but
that’s irrelevant in my view the
important thing is we all do it in a
responsible way and if you look at
everybody uh that’s that’s uh here in
the panel whether it’s you know my
colleagues from the American
companies uh you know his Royal Highness
around Koh here in in in Saudi Arabia
whether it’s in Qatar and around the
world everybody is is doing their best
in emissions in methane abatement in
spending billions in in carbon capture
and sequestration so everybody’s doing
it in a very responsible way to make
sure that we can develop and and have
growth for Humanity uh in a way that is
very responsible and I think we’re not
being given enough credit for for doing
all that and as mentioned by Darren
there isn’t a real mechanism to have a
proper accounting that we all have a
benchmark and everybody is really judged
on the same basis if you will uh you
have different institutions eia and you
know whoever just puts out numbers and
most of it is politically driven is the
elephant in this room the
coal no Cole Cole Cole I think you see
replacing uh coal with gas and power uh
Cuts your CO2 into half but also I think
I think we should be reducing coal in a
big way but also as we are defending the
gas and the oil that’s needed for a very
long time you also need to do it in a
responsible way for the countries that
cannot afford to do it that quickly so
countries need time also to wean off
coal and I think if they do it in a
responsible way and and slowly you know
get off coal I think that’s also very
important because that’s an immedient
solution where you you cut off Co you
know you reduce your CO2 emissions but I
think the demand is going to be there
for a very very long time and Way Way
Beyond a lot of the projections that
people are talking about most of the pro
the discussion is driven by political uh
drives for elections but that’s that’s
the bottom line in my view I if the
demand for coal continues how will we
then be able to meet the commitments
from uh cup uh 28 in Dubai sorry again
who can we meet the commitments uh from
cop uh 28 in Dubai if Cole continues to
grow I think you have seen that Co has
been on record uh a record Pace uh so I
think I think you can’t meet it if if
Cole continues in the same pattern so uh
Darren has ask for uh short uh just a
clarification
yeah the Dubai C 28 talk about
unated call the phasing out of unated
call so abated call is
virtuous thank you for that very
important uh clarification uh your
highness I’ll go then a short um
response from Daren and I’ll go to uh
Vicky Hollow so Darren well I just
wanted to comment on the elephant in the
room which I think is it’s not coal per
se it’s cost and I think one of the
challenges uh associated with again how
society’s been advancing this is we’ve
taken very small sample sizes and extra
extrapolated to very large problem sets
and the reason why coal continues to be
a dominant energy source today around
the world is because of the cost
advantages associated with that and the
fact that developing nations and people
people who are trying to raise
themselves and their prosperity levels
require cheap energy and coal is a
source of that so the the elephant in
the room is how do we address the cost
and we’re not going to do it by focusing
on an isolation of one or two solutions
instead it’s trying to engage uh the
broader Capital markets uh broader
technology set to find ways to start
reducing cost so that you can reduce
emissions as his Excellency said
responsibly and part of respons POS
emission reduction is doing it
affordably so that Nations can do that I
would just make one point uh with
respect to Europe and the response to
the high prices um there was luck
involved in this that there were very
two very warm Winters which allowed the
demand for gas to be low and that
allowed inventories to build which was
fortunate for the people of Europe a
price that’s been paid but hasn’t been
fully recognized yet is
de-industrialization of Europe and the
fact that many companies are going out
of business and is very difficult to
compete on the world market
with a lot of the policies that are
being prescriptive policies are being
put in place in Europe and the cost of
that will begin to manifest itself over
time and so huge implications to to
addressing this huge challenge but we’ve
got to start doing some real math
looking at the cost extrapolating and
understanding the the total problem set
rather than very micro and I think to
his excellency’s point we got to stop
the propaganda and the politics and get
down rolling our sleeves up and the
world needs to develop a realistic plan
for for making progress in this space if
it’s okay we can the commissioner just
comment shortly on that she’s asked for
for the floor before but you will have
ample time together with his hisus uh
commissioner just a short response to
that if you want thank you Bor and be
aware that each time when you mention
Europe I I have to reply uh but but
first I wanted to mention that uh on
coal well this night I will take
overnight flight back to Italy because
we will have G7 energy ministers meeting
and one issue that we will discuss there
again is how to avoid new investments
into Cal production because we are very
much aware that in Europe the cold fire
power plants are already nearing their
end of life cycle so we ask um some
power plants that are as old as 40 50 60
years old to retire this is normal thing
to do but in Asia the average age of
coal power plant is 13 so you ask
teenager to retire and this is different
uh challenge of course we have
help these nations to replace um um most
polluting Alternatives with cleaner ones
and this is the reason why European
Union championed a global pledge to
Triple Renewables by 203 because um
according to our understanding
Renewables are already the most cost
efficient way to produce electricity uh
what is happening in in Europe since we
announced our green deal we do see that
uh our green deal is also our grow
strategy so uh indeed uh first mover
Advantage is something that our
businesses are crossing and uh this is
also covered with our net sale IND act
so we do have 12 promising new clean
tech Solutions where we will um um
invest some of our research and
Innovation funds but also we will
support European producers so the very
moment when when there is a concern that
we cannot compete with American
companies due to the fact that we don’t
produce gas natural gas ourselves but
Americans to cover their domestic demand
we have to be Innovative and opt for
homegrown Alternatives this is what we
are doing thank you and before coming to
you uh Wiki I tried with one theory on
elephants in the room Cole Darren said
cost could I also launch a third
candidate and that is subsidies what we
do know that coal is heavily subsidized
in many uh countries more taxpayers
going money going to subsidizing Coal
than it’s uh for energy uh transition
but well let’s keep those elephants
there and you feel free to comment on
them or even launch new elephants uh
Vick over to you okay so I’m not going
to launch any elephants I hope but uh
but I’ll address the one ones that are
already in the room and uh that is I
agree with Darren that there has to be a
mechanism in place that drives the
incentive for the whole world to respond
to the situation that we’re in and uh
we’re certainly in a dire situation
because of the fact that um some are
distracting uh the the world from the
real problem and the real problem is
that um we have to decarbonize oil
because
it doesn’t really matter how you look at
it wind and solar are fine for
generating electricity but wind and
solar are not going to be the answer for
Aviation and Maritime and Trucking and
and people uh especially those people in
Texas who want to drive their trucks
everywhere uh every family has multiple
vehicles and EVS are not the first two
uh EVS are usually a third choice uh and
they’re the fun Choice they’re not the
choice that that really provides the
means to get around
um that may change over time but that’s
not changing very quickly in the US so
the situation we’re in to me is while
we’re working policy and while we’re
working the incentives we have to work
the technology we can’t push that out
and so I think that uh our industry has
faced big challenges before we’ve always
been able to step up and address those
challenges um we’ve done it with the
development of Si 3D seismic with
enhanced oil recovery we’ve done it with
um within the United States when our
production dropped down to less than six
million barrels a day the shell
Revolution took over it took 10 years to
to make that work and so um now it’s
going to take us some time to make
direct air capture work and to make some
of the carbon capture on point sources
work but the way we view it at oxy is
that even if you put stopped all the
emissions from every industrial site
around the world you still need to
reduce CO2 out of the atmosphere
and the strategy that we’re pushing and
hoping the energy will the industry will
adopt and I know some are are um doing
adopting it now and starting to execute
a plan to do it and that is to take CO2
out of the atmosphere use it in enhanced
or recovery in the reservoirs that we
have today it’s a way to generate Net
Zero oil which then generates Net Zero
fuels for maritime and Aviation and
gasoline um also that would um and be a
lower emission source of oil too because
the infrastructure would already be
installed so there are multiple ways
that generating Net Zero oil could be a
solution for our industry and could be
adopted um as we advance the
technology and uh just as wind and solar
took about a decade to drop their cost
dramatically I think um the challenge
for us is dropping the cost of uh
director capture I believe with the with
the aid of digital twins winds and
computing power that we have today when
wind and solar did not have that same uh
tool available to them I think that we
can drop the cost uh we’re we’re
building a facility that will extract
500,000 tons of CO2 out of the
atmosphere in the perian um in the
United States and we’re already before
we even start the third and fourth train
we’re already seeing um a uh Improvement
in technology uh we’re seeing that um AI
is also a help to to make that happen so
I believe uh director capture has to
work there’s also a revolutionary
technology to generate electrical power
and it’s called in the United States net
power it’s something that combusts
hydrocarbon gases with oxygen instead of
air so there are no volatile organic um
emissions and it captures the CO2 and
fresh water as a part of the the
chemical reaction uh so instead of us a
user of water it’s a provider of water
and the CO2 drop the turbine to create
the electricity and then captures off
the side a um a stream of CO2 that can
then be used and enhanced or recovery so
looking at a circular system here where
you could actually have uh the ability
to continue to produce oil and gas um
the the lowest cost highest intensity
fuel in the world and do it in a way
that helps you to get more oil out of
the reservoirs we’re producing today uh
that in the end creates the econom ICS
that will work to make that a viable
solution so that we don’t have to
discontinue oil it becomes an emission
free part of of of the energy
mix thank you uh do you want to come in
now your highness no you I thought you
would going to ask me yeah I will ask
you a question so uh I like this uh yeah
yeah me me too I I thought it was very
interesting I was tempted to ask uh
Darren and the minister if they share
this vision of the no no carbonized oil
and CO2 out of the
atmosphere um and dropping cost like we
seeing on solar uh in these areas is is
this the this decarbonized oil uh
yourness is that a wish you share with
if you can move the questions to to
Darren and sad and then I will okay so
um Dar enjoying the somebody’s doing the
homework for my behalf so so Darren you
heard uh you heard Wick de carbonizing
oil she’s putting a lot of money uh into
carbon capture and storage to try to see
if we could see the same uh development
there as we saw for solar fell with to
one/ Tenth of the price uh and also
capturing CO2 uh from uh the atmosphere
are are you sharing this vision and and
you are you optimistic that we can see
these kind of breakthroughs and I’ll
have that question uh to uh Darren and
then uh to his Excellency and then we’ll
we’ll we’ll see what uh his Royal
Highness uh thinks so I think technology
is needed advancements in technology and
breakthroughs in technology are going to
play a very important role here I would
say that to date um there hasn’t been
enough work done in that space or enough
incentives for uh people to make the
kind of advances that the world needs
but it is starting and I know Vicki’s
working on that space Exon Mobile has a
uh a brand new technology that we’re
working on trying to drive the cost of
direct air capture down there are many
other companies doing that and so I
think the good news is there is work
going on in this space uh in the
technology space the bad news is the
costs remain today I think Pro
prohibitively high you can apply it in
very um small applications often times
at high prices and and the challenges
how do you develop a technology that you
can broadly distribute to uh deal with
the issue across the world and I so I do
think it’s going to be important comes
back to the point I was making before we
shouldn’t be focused on the molecules of
hydrogen and carbon and that go into
crude oil we should instead be focused
on the emissions oil is going to be
around for a long time people have to
remember that the issue that we’re
trying to deal with is the combustion of
oil products so combustion and the
emissions associated with it deal with
the emissions you can still combust even
without combustion of oil products today
oil goes into and if you look at the
demand for growth for oil going forward
it goes into chemical products that are
absolutely essential to Modern Life
That’s not going to go away and so the
the idea that you’re going to eliminate
uh oil and gas I think from the equation
in total I just think is isn’t based on
the reality of the molecules of those uh
those feed stocks and what they go into
to support the standards of living that
everyone around the world is either
enjoying or aspiring to and so you got
to find a technology to address the Miss
Mission so I’m very aligned with Vicki
on in terms of that opportunity set I
think the challenge is at what stage
does society make the breakthroughs and
how far can we get the cost down but you
don’t you won’t make progress if you
don’t get started and I think that’s the
message that Vicki has that’s the
message that I
have San sir yeah I’ll I’ll maybe tackle
the second part of the CO2 which is the
capturing from actual production I think
the direct capture was one I think Daren
uh cover it very well on the direct on
the capture of of CO2 from our
production if you look at we what we’ve
done in qar we’ve been injecting 2 and a
half million tons of CO2 that we’re
capturing from our facilities in LG
since
2015 uh 2 and a half million tons perom
so before anybody was talking about CO2
sequestration or capture we were already
doing it in our uh production increase
that we are going to have uh we’re we’re
actually in con construction today to go
from 77 million tons to
126 million tons we’ve announced also
going on another phase to 142 but just
in the first phase of development to 126
we’re going to

A special session at the WEF addresses energy security amid the transition to clean energy – particularly in developing markets.

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