The energy transition has failed to live up to its promise, and now the pendulum is swinging back to traditional energy, according to a statement by the chief executive of Saudi Aramco, quoted by Zawya.
Speaking at the Energy Intelligence Forum in the UK, Amin Nasser said that “Much of the promised progress has not been delivered, with many unintended consequences. Thankfully, it is finally shifting the narrative in three key ways.”
The shift concerns, first, the fact that alternative energy sources have added to rather than replaced oil and gas, and second, that “every major forecaster is revising scenarios, with oil and gas locked in for decades”, Nasser said, saying he hoped the outlook for long-term oil and gas investment had changed for the better.
The third aspect of the shift in the energy narrative, per Nasser, is the growing number of political U-turns in energy as politicians acknowledge that the realities of the energy transition are very different from the theory.
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Global energy demand has grown by 40 million barrels of oil equivalent daily over the last ten years, Nasser also said at the gathering. Some 66% of this new demand has been covered by oil, gas, and coal, he noted, as quoted by Zawya. To date, total global primary energy consumption translates into 340 million barrels of oil equivalent, of which 80% comes from hydrocarbons – despite some $11 trillion being spent on alternative sources of energy such as wind and solar.
“This is not a phase-down of hydrocarbons, let alone a phase-out,” Nasser noted, with data consistently showing that even coal demand is on the rise despite efforts to curb it in many parts of the world. Aramco’s top executive also issued a warning about energy demand, which is currently experiencing a growth spurt driven by AI.
“By 2030, the entire data centre ecosystem could be consuming up to four times more electricity than the entire global battery EV fleet,” Nasser said.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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