How international oil companies and national champions are redefining cooperation across continents

Only by coming together can we develop practical solutions that make meeting rising energy needs more manageable. As the debate over the future of upstream oil and gas intensifies, industry leaders are increasingly focused on how to sustain robust production, deliver shareholder value, and embrace the demands of energy transition and decarbonisation. At the center of these challenges lies a critical question: how can oil and gas companies achieve the right balance between growth, capital discipline, sustainability, and innovation?

This theme dominated discussions at the recent “Beyond the barrel: The future of upstream strategy” panel. The session convened heavyweights Rich Howe, Executive Vice President for Conventional Oil & Gas at Shell, and Udy Ntia, Executive Vice President for Upstream at Nigeria’s NNPC Limited, to share their approaches for navigating an industry at a crossroads.

Bakr set the tone with a reminder of enduring global demand, stating, “We’re still going to see oil demand at 100 million plus till 2040, which means that we need a lot of oil and gas. This is not new to us, but maybe new to others outside the industry.”

Her challenge to the panel was pointed: How can operators scale and expand amid calls for cleaner energy? Udy Ntia of NNPC did not shy away from the complexity, declaring, “In Nigeria, we’re currently producing a highland condensate. We have a target to grow to about 2 million [barrels a day]. That's practice. And then I know how the minister talks about 2040, so we’re just steadily growing within the constraints, of course, but we've got the capacity, and we have our partners.”

He spoke of expansion across “land, onshore, shallow waters, and deep water,” but insisted that future growth depended not only on volume, but on doing better: “It’s not going to be more oil. It’s better oil, efficient or clean oil—all in all, better oil.”

Ntia illuminated Nigeria’s dual challenge of striving for development while respecting environmental imperatives, noting, “The upstream industry's at an inflection point, pressured by energy transition demands, technology, and the need for more collaboration.” He was candid about the growing necessity for partnership: “We find ourselves collaborating more.

There’s a lot of collaboration between NOCs, between IOCs partners to see what they can do together. Less competition and more collaboration.” On regulatory demands, he acknowledged, “We can decarbonise from a regulatory standpoint... Let’s clean it up, decarbonise it, monetise the gas. So we’re seeing end to end in these areas where we can monetise and decarbonise, and everybody’s happy.”

With Africa’s contribution to global emissions under 3%, he reasoned, “Maybe we carbonise before we decarbonise. But the intentionality of that is what we say in Nigeria right now... You have to go make your own lunch.”

Rich Howe of Shell responded to these challenges by underscoring the necessity of financial prudence and honoring commitments. “For us, it’s really about investing consistently through the cycle with capital discipline. It's resisting the temptation to make radical swings in your capital allocation,” Howe emphasised, citing Shell’s performance: “We’ve delivered more than $3 billion returns to the shareholders and buybacks…committed to return 40 to 50% of our CFO back to shareholders.”

He described Shell’s strategic focus: “Investing through the cycle, maintaining capital discipline, honoring your promises, then you get into your corporate strategy...growing our Integrated Gas LNG business, keeping our liquids flat at a minimum, and continuing to focus on downstream and renewables and marketing.”

When asked about regional focuses, Howe said, “We’ve got a global portfolio…the Middle East is especially important and interesting to me… Argentina continues to be highly attractive… Our businesses in Brazil and West Africa have been incredible stories of success and growth. Back to capital discipline: two of our three FIDs in the last 18 months have been in Nigeria, where the investment climate has transformed.”

Technology and artificial intelligence, Howe warned, must be deployed judiciously. “There are wasteful ways to deploy AI and there are constructive ways that create actual, tangible efficiencies… Productive technical monitoring is one way... If the oil, gas flows, the data also flows.

But AI is incredibly energy intensive, so you do have to think about… how you fund, from an energy perspective, the creation of that insight from that data... you have to be selective where you deploy.”

Both leaders stressed that the new era will be defined by partnership and mutual value creation. Ntia summarised: “It’s more: what can we do for everybody? How do we increase the size of the pie so everybody is happy?” Howe reinforced this, stating, “You can be fierce competitors and powerful collaborators at the same time... What I would like to see from NOCs is an openness to what are the differentiated things that the IOC brings.”

The panel closed with a reminder that finding balance is not a one-time decision, but an ongoing, collective commitment to responsible progress. Howe captured the central lesson: “For us, it’s really about investing consistently through the cycle with capital discipline. It's resisting the temptation to make radical swings in your capital allocation.”