Oil chiefs at ADIPEC ponder where energy market is headed
Abu Dhabi’s annual ADIPEC conference opened on Monday, bringing cabinet ministers, oil executives and investors to the UAE capital from around the world to ponder where the energy market is headed.
Kicking off the four-day event was Dr. Sultan Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, Group CEO of ADNOC, Chairman of Masdar and COP28 President, who pointed to the growing power appetite of AI data centers.
“No single source of energy is going to be enough to meet this demand,” Al Jaber said in an address to the opening session at Abu Dhabi’s ADNEC hall. “We need to integrate renewable energy, nuclear energy and gas in the most cost and carbon-efficient way.”
On the eve of ADIPEC, Al Jaber hosted a gathering for industry leaders called ENACT Majlis that included Microsoft President Brad Smith, Mark Carney, the Chairman of Brookfield Asset Management who serves as U.N. Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance; Shell CEO Wael Sawan, BP CEO Murray Auchincloss and Princess Beatrice, founder of the U.K. advisory organization BY-EQ.
Amid OPEC production cuts and pressure to shift away from fossil fuels, CEOs from some of the world’s biggest oil companies at ADIPEC rated conflict in the Middle East and friction between the U.S. and China among their top concerns.
BP CEO Murray Auchincloss said he was worried about protecting personnel and safeguarding supplies because of the geopolitical tensions in the region, Bloomberg reports.
“The conflict in the Middle East is probably the top risk of all right now,” Auchincloss said during a panel discussion on Monday. “We operate across five or six countries in the region — we are worried obviously about the security of our people and the security of energy supplies.”
Shell CEO Wael Sawan pointed to today’s U.S. elections and Donald Trump’s campaign promise to increase tariffs on China. “Longer term, what happens on the U.S.-China axis” is a concern for oil companies, Sawan said at the conference.
Oil companies are concerned, Sawan said, about energy demand, supply chains and the impact that sour U.S.-China relations “could have on the redrawing of the energy complex globally.”
UAE Minister of Energy and Infrastructure Suhail Al Mazrouei, meanwhile, said during his opening remarks at ADIPEC that his country plans to invest up to $54 billion to meet sustainable energy demand over the next six years, aiming to “decarbonise our economy and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.”
Musk, oil prices, soccer dominate stage at Qatar Economic Forum
Heads of state, oil executives and the richest man in the world pondered the prospects for a U.S. recession this week during the Qatar Economic Forum.
The three-day conference in the capital city of Doha, which concluded on Wednesday, focused on matters ranging from the global economic slowdown and escalating crude prices to whether Qatar can rustle up enough beds to handle 1.2 million ticket-holders for soccer’s 2022 World Cup in November.
Elon Musk, however, stole the show when he injected new uncertainty into the question of whether he will ultimately buy Twitter and talked about where he’s spending other portions of his $220 billion personal fortune.
Musk, the 50-year-old chief executive of electric carmaker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, said there were still “unresolved matters” holding up his $44 billion bid for the popular social media platform.
“There is the question of will the debt portion of the round come together and then will the shareholders vote in favor,” he said in an interview on Tuesday with John Micklethwait, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, who was onstage in Qatar while Musk was in the U.S. talking by video feed.
Asked about the U.S. economy, Musk said a recession is inevitable and outlined the job cuts he’s ordered at Tesla that will reduce the salaried workforce by 10%. “As to whether there is a recession in the near-term, that is more likely than not.”
Bloomberg LP was media sponsor of the conference, which was streamed live on its website. The company’s billionaire founder, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, delivered opening remarks alongside the emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani. The event was underwritten by the Qatari government.
Among Musk’s backers in his bid for Twitter is Qatar Holding LLC, which committed to invest $375 million. The company is owned by the Qatar Investment Authority, the country’s sovereign wealth fund.
Also onstage was ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods, who said oil companies will need three to five years to “catch up” on the investments required to assure adequate world supply. He spoke on a panel with Qatari Energy Minister Saad Al-Kaabi, with whom he also signed an investment agreement to take a 6.25% stake in Qatar’s $29 million North Field liquefied natural gas project.
Other heads of state who participated in the forum were Rwandan President Paul Kagame, Namibian President Hage Geingob and Khazakistan President Kassym-Jomart K. Tokayev.
The conference ended Wednesday with appearances by Gianni Infantino, president of the World Cup’s governing body FIFA, and the Qatari government’s chief organizer for the tournament, Hassan Al-Thawadi. Qatar, which does not have nearly enough hotel beds for the expected crowds, plans to bring cruise ships, pitch Bedouin tents in the desert and run shuttle flights to nearby Gulf states to handle the onslaught of fans.
Asked whether Qatar is prepared, Al-Thawadi said, “We’re more or less there.”
