Adipec 2022 to highlight oil and gas investment needs amid energy crisis

More than 40 global ministers are expected to participate this year

The Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference will run from October 31 to November 3. Chris Whiteoak / The National

Global “Big Oil” executives and chiefs of national oil companies will convene in Abu Dhabi to discuss their response to the energy crisis that has been exacerbated by years of underinvestment in the industry's infrastructure worldwide and exacerbated this year by geopolitics.

The Abu Dhabi International Petroleum Exhibition and Conference (Adipec), which will run from October 31 to November 3, comes as global oil and gas spending is expected to shrink this year, despite crude hovering around $95 a barrel.

Despite windfall profits, some global oil companies have been reluctant to plough money into new drilling activity as they face pressure from investors and regulators.

Oil and gas upstream investment needs to increase and be sustained at near pre-Covid levels of $525 billion through 2030 to ensure market balance, according to the International Energy Forum (IEF).

Upstream investment last year was depressed for a second consecutive year at $341bn — nearly 25 per cent below 2019 levels.

“With rising geopolitical tensions and energy market volatility, the trilemma of secure, affordable and sustainable and energy is a key focus for the world’s economies,” Tayba Al Hashemi, chairwoman of Adipec 2022 and chief executive of Adnoc Sour Gas, said in a statement on Friday.

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Adipec 2022: day one — in pictures

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Adipec, which comes a week ahead of the Cop27 conference in Egypt, is expected to draw 2,200 exhibitors and will feature high-profile speakers including energy ministers from the UAE, Saudi Arabia, India and Bahrain. More than 40 ministers and 38 company heads, along with 12,000 delegates from around the world, will deliver more than 350 sessions, the organisers said.

Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, Special Envoy for Climate, managing director and group chief executive of Adnoc; Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman, Saudi Arabia's Minister of Energy; and Shri Hardeep Singh Puri, India's Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas, are among the confirmed speakers.

Other speakers include Bader Hamed Al Mulla, Kuwait's Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Oil, Bernard Looney, chief executive of BP, Tengku Muhammad Taufik, president and chief executive of Malaysia's Petronas, Vicki Hollub, president and chief executive of Oxy, and Claudio Descalzi, chief executive of Italy's Eni.

The panel discussions will address challenges faced in the energy markets, clean energy transition plans, and supply and demand trends.

This year, Adipec will feature a Decarbonisation Zone and Conference, which will provide an in-depth focus on cleaner forms of energy and innovative technologies bridging to net-zero, with an emphasis on methane, hydrogen and carbon capture technologies.

The annual event comes as Europe is experiencing its worst energy crisis in history after Russia, the world's second-largest energy exporter before the Ukraine war and the continent's biggest natural gas supplier, reduced its exports in response to the EU’s wide-ranging economic sanctions.

Some countries have boosted their liquefied natural gas (LNG) imports while restarting coal-fired power plants, sparking concerns about their ability to meet long-term climate commitments.

Oil markets will enter a new phase of uncertainty once an EU ban on Russian crude comes into effect on December 5. This will be followed by a ban on oil product imports from February 5.

At the Future Investment Initiative (FII) conference, officials blamed the current energy crisis on the chronic underinvestment in the oil and gas sector and said new sanctions on Russian crude would add to the market uncertainty.

The energy crisis existed before “black swan events that affected every country”, however, among the root causes of the crisis was the inability of financiers, investment institutions and many of the energy companies to invest, Khaldoon Al Mubarak, managing director and chief executive of Mubadala Investment Company, said last week at the FII conference in Riyadh.

The global oil and gas industry requires more than $600bn of investment annually to keep up with the growing demand for energy, even as the world transitions to cleaner forms of energy, Dr Sultan Al Jaber, Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology and group chief executive of Adnoc, said last year.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) has said the current crisis could speed up the transition to clean energy.

Even then, investment in renewable energy needs to double to more than $4 trillion by the end of the decade to meet net-zero emissions targets by 2050, the agency said in its World Energy Outlook last week.