Qatar Petroleum CEO warns of dangers of stopping oil & gas investments

CEO of Qatar’s state-owned oil and gas giant Qatar Petroleum has warned that depriving the oil and gas sector of new investments as the energy transition unfolds could result in big spikes in oil and gas prices in the next few years.

Saad Sherida Al-Kaabi, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs and the President and CEO of Qatar Petroleum, highlighted the importance of the ongoing energy transition and said we all have a responsibility to produce energy in a more environmentally sensitive way.

His remarks came during a session on Energy Transformations held as part of the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum in the Russian Federation with the participation of Alexander Novak, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, and Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud, the Minister of Energy of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, amongst a panel of energy leaders.

Minister Al-Kaabi said energy transition is very much needed and that the environment is front and centre of the strategies by all companies working in Qatar. However, he warned against being driven by an over-excited euphoria that envisages depriving investment from the oil and gas sector.

Minister Al-Kaabi cited a recent International Energy Agency (IEA) report, which called for stopping investment in oil and gas and said, “When we deprive the oil & gas sector from the additional investment you will have big spikes in oil and gas prices in the next few years which will deprive customers and nations from oil or gas and all the byproducts that come with it. This is a dangerous discussion that will harm humanity and about a billion people around the world, who don’t have electricity today”.

The IEA’s recent report has ruffled quite a few feathers, saying that climate pledges by governments to date – even if fully achieved – would fall well short of what is required to bring global energy-related CO2 emissions to net-zero by 2050 and give the world a chance of limiting the global temperature rise to 1.5 °C.

The roadmap sets out more than 400 milestones to guide the global journey to net-zero by 2050. These include no investment in new fossil fuel supply projects and no further final investment decisions for new unabated coal plants.

Stressing the importance of a responsible discussion about the much-needed energy transition, the Minister of State for Energy Affairs, the President and CEO of Qatar Petroleum, said: “We all have a responsibility to produce in a more environmentally sensitive way. We are using the best available emissions abatement technology, we are monitoring methane emissions to arrest it, and we are using carbon capture and sequestration”.

The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum is an annual business event for the economic sector, which has been held in St. Petersburg in the Russian Federation since 1997. Since 2005, it has been held under the auspices of the Russian President.