Industry pride, energy inclusivity, the future of oil and gas, and the next generation of energy professionals were recurring themes at the International Petroleum Technology Conference (IPTC) held in Riyadh from 21-23 February
Tens of thousands of energy professionals attended the event, held under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prince Mohammed bin Salman bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, Crown Prince, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, and with Saudi Aramco as exclusive host. The three-day conference and exhibition brought together industry leaders and experts, energy professionals, academia, and students, to discuss, debate, and share insights about the latest developments, challenges, and trends in the industry. More than 220 exhibitors showcased their latest products and innovations.
In the CEO Plenary Session, themed ‘Leading the Global Recovery for a Sustainable Future’, Amin H. Nasser, president and CEO, Saudi Aramco said, “We need to have better engagement to work together with the support of policy makers around the world. Demonising the industry is not going to solve anything, and this is what is happening today. This industry is being demonised, and now we have a crisis, and they are looking back at this industry and saying we need the solution. We can have a solution, but we need to work together. We need to ensure there is adequate investment, there is decarbonisation with support of regulators. You cannot look only at alternatives; you need to work in parallel and look at existing energy sources and new energy sources. And unless you have a plan B fully done and completed and ready, you cannot ditch plan A.”
Adif Zulkifli, executive vice president and CEO, Upstream, PETRONAS, said, “I think there is a lot of focus now in terms of cleaning our industry, a lot of focus on decarbonisation, putting investment into technologies that will allow us to decarbonise, and I reckon that oil and gas, especially gas, can be a lot more competitive when compared to other green energy and with that, we should be able to attract enough funds and capital to continue to invest and bring capacity up.”
Vicki Hollub, president and CEO, Occidental Petroleum, shared her thoughts about the next generation, saying, “I am so proud of our industry because over the more than 100 years we’ve been in the industry, we’ve always been able to solve our problems because normally they’ve been technical problems. And there’s no doubt, as has been said many times, that the people who are coming to replace us in our industry are people that I believe are a lot more confident than I ever was, we’ve got a lot of youth that are about to take over our industry and will do amazing things.”
Talking about the future, Olivier Le Peuch, CEO, Schlumberger, said, “We have a challenge, but I think we can turn it into an opportunity. We can contribute to accelerate the decarbonisation of oil and gas through technology and it’s not only the shift from oil to gas; I believe it’s using technology at every step of the upstream, midstream and downstream to decarbonise operations... …If we do that well, our industry will not only thrive in the future, but we’ll survive and be more resilient than we ever anticipated to be.”
Clay Neff, president, Chevron Middle East, Africa, South America Exploration and Production Company, said, “All forms of energy are going to be needed. Oil and gas is going to be a critical part of the mix—any rational analysis of the future sees oil and gas as continuing for decades to come, but we are going have to do that in a responsible way. We are going to have to continue to drive down emissions and while we are doing that, we have to continue to build these scalable material businesses like in hydrogen, carbon capture and renewable fuels and others....We are optimistic about the future. I think that as much difficulty we’ve been through in the last couple of years, optimism drives creativity, innovation and sound risk-taking, which is going to require all of us working together to navigate through this energy transition.”
The Excellence in Project Integration Award was awarded to Eni for the Zohr project. The award recognises completed projects of US$500mn or more, that add value to the industry by exemplifying strong teamwork, solid geoscience knowledge, reservoir and production engineering acumen, determined and watchful construction, outstanding facilities engineering practices, pervasive culture of HSE, and a positive impact on the country, the region, and the world.
