Changing the narrative as energy giants seek to add muscle to cop28 mission

Energy titans have a seat at the COP28 table and should be viewed as a friend of the transition journey as well as embracing the opportunity it represents. This was among key messages in a Strategic CEO panel featuring six of the industry’s most powerful players.

Discussing Actions for a net-zero world: solving the current energy trilemma, Vicki Hollub, Occidental’s President & CEO, cited “really exciting times for our industry”, but touched on public trust. “I don’t see where we are today as something that’s going to end our industry - as we’ve done in the past, we’ll find ways to innovate out of the situation that we’re in,” she said. “The biggest challenge harder to address than the innovation around technology is just getting people to trust our industry, to understand what the data really says. Right now, there’s a lot of misinformation out there that’s driving some wrong conclusions.”

Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi said companies had to be credible, transparent and consistent. “This transition is real for everybody. We cannot be seen as the enemy of the energy system.” He said “each period has its own challenges” and the current “challenging but very interesting” scenario had energy producers seeking to maintain balance; keeping prices down for customers who seek energy security, while investing in technology and satisfying shareholders.

Citing the old saying “rough seas make the best sailors,” Tengku Muhammad Taufik, Petronas President & Group CEO, said: “We see some of the best sailors on stage here today and we are traversing a period I believe is the defining moment for the industry. “There’s a mandate to not only provide for energy security, we’ve got to step up to the plate and prepare to decarbonise systems of the future. Can you keep everyone happy? If you want to keep everyone happy, sell ice cream. “We have to make some tough decisions. And we have to be bounded by facts, rationality, practical steps, but we will get there. Everyone has to commit to this step up, or fade away”

Patrick Pouyanne, Chairman and CEO, TotalEnergies, underlined the importance of energy now in light of 2022 events which showed supply running behind demand through lack of investment. He said companies such as his had the engineers, skills and capacity to be “major participants of” the lower emissions future but had been made the scapegoat for climate change and price. Wael Sawan, Shell CEO, cited this as the worst of times and best of times. “We continue to polarise the debate more rather than actually converge given that we are trying to solve arguably the world’s biggest problem,” he said.

“But it’s also the best of times because despite all the negative rhetoric, if you look at what the world has done over the last few years and the significant uptick in investment in both low carbon and conventional energy, it’s been good. We are nowhere close to where we need to be, but we should not lose hope, we should actually build on the hope.”

On the notion of energy majors being “in the tent” for COP28, Hollub said it was important they be included “because we have solutions that will help mitigate climate change in addition to improving energy security around the world”, including providing net-zero oil.

bp’s Interim CEO Murray Auchincloss said the industry had to “talk about action measured in months and years rather than decades. He added: “Of course, I’d love to go faster, but you have to recognise the constraints that sit inside the system. What I do know is that the world needs oil and gas today.”

Sawan added: “This is an incredibly complex transition that requires system thinking end-to-end, all the way from demand, back to sources of energy, and everything in between.” And when it came to the transition-driving tech, he said it was up to shareholders to judge whether options were investable, “but if there is a sector that knows how to play long shots, it’s our sector”.