Aramco President & CEO Amin H. Nasser said on Monday that there is a need for a “realistic pathway” for the energy transition that includes oil and gas.
His comments were made during a keynote speech at CERAWeek 2024 in Houston, Texas. He added that the current energy transition“is visibly failing on most fronts as it collides with five hard realities”.
“We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas and instead invest in them adequately, reflecting realistic demand assumptions. We should ramp up our efforts to reduce carbon emissions, aggressively improve efficiency, and introduce lower carbon solutions. And we should phase in new energy sources and technologies when they are genuinely ready, economically competitive, and with the right infrastructure,” Amin told the crowd.
According to him, these hard realities include the need to reset global efforts to meet climate ambitions, the inability of alternatives so far to displace hydrocarbons at scale, the costs associated with alternatives, energy requirements of the Global South, and the potential for further emissions reductions from hydrocarbons.
“Despite the world investing more than $9.5 trillion on energy transition over the past two decades, alternatives have been unable to displace hydrocarbons at scale,” he said.
The head of the world’s largest energy company said that the global oil demand is expected to reach an all-time high in the second half of this year.
“Likewise, gas remains a mainstay of global energy, growing by about almost 70% since the start of the century… All this strengthens the view that peak oil and gas is unlikely for some time to come,” he added.
His comments comes few months after countries including Saudi Arabia has reached a new climate agreement during COP28 that calls for a tranition from fossil duels.
