The energy transition should not crowd out any source of energy as all energy sources of today will be required for the foreseeable future, OPEC Secretary General Mohammad Barkindo said.
“We continue to urge all our member countries and the international industry to continue to invest in all sources of energy, including oil and gas, in particular using technology to mitigate against these emissions,” the head of OPEC added.
“For the industry, for OPEC, and all our member countries, and the global economy, all the energy sources of today will be required for the foreseeable future,” Barkindo told Amena Bakr, Chief Opec Correspondent at Energy Intelligence, in a The Conversation of the Century debate on the future of energy.
“For us in OPEC, and in the industry, and in the mainstream of the global conversation, the energy transition is not a transition from once source of energy to another,” Barkindo noted.
Transition is moving away from greenhouse gas emissions in the exploration, production, transportation, and consumption of fuels across the board to more sustainable sources of energy that would address the emissions issue, OPEC’s chief said, adding that the definition of ‘energy transition’ should not crowd out any source of energy.
Commenting on the Net-Zero report of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which suggested that a net-zero pathway would not need any new investment in oil and gas, Barkindo said that “you can invest as much as you want in renewables, but if the emissions problem is not addressed, net-zero goals would not be achieved.”
In the report, the IEA “punctured many holes themselves” because it was the Paris-based agency itself that was one of the first to raise red flags about a supply deficit after the 2014-2016 downturn, urging for more investment in oil and gas, Barkindo said.
Last month, an internal OPEC report, seen by Reuters, found that the IEA’s suggestion of no new investment in oil and gas ever could further raise the volatility in oil markets if investors heed the call.
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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Therefore, energy transition shouldn’t mean waging a war against fossil fuels. But this is exactly what the environmental activists and divestment campaigners along with the IEA’s la-la-land roadmap for net-zero emissions by 2050 are doing. Their current warfare against fossil fuels masks a political agenda.
They never stop for a minute to think that energy transition wouldn’t succeed without major contributions from natural gas and that the global economy will come to a standstill without oil.
Significantly reduced investments in developing new resources—which are already low after the 2020 oil price collapse—could lead to a supply crunch down the road. This will, in turn, result in oil price spikes even beyond $150 a barrel thus impacting very adversely on the global economy and causing immediate hardship to billions of peoples of the world.
Dr Mamdouh G Salameh
International Oil Economist
Visiting Professor of Energy Economics at ESCP Europe Business School, London