Saudi Aramco CEO: "We Should Abandon The Fantasy Of Phasing Out Oil & Gas" [View all]

Ed. - Two words, Mr. Nasser - "wet-bulb temperatures".

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“We should abandon the fantasy of phasing out oil and gas,” Amin Nasser, president and CEO of Saudi Aramco, said to applause at CERAWeek by S&P Global. Shell CEO Wael Sawan declared that “there is going to be a multidimensional energy system in the future, [and] oil and gas will continue to have an important role in stabilizing that system for a long, long, long time to come.” And Patrick Pouyanné, CEO of the French energy giant TotalEnergies, said he was “quite pleased” that the Dubai deal recognized “that we need some transition fuels, and gas is one of them.”

It’s hardly surprising that oil industry executives would see a continued role for their products, even as the world shifts to cleaner fuels to fight climate change. But their remarks underscored an uncomfortable reality for climate advocates and policymakers globally: Demand for oil keeps rising, delaying the end of the fossil fuel era. The industry executives’ pronouncements are backed up by record oil-and-gas production and consumer misgivings over purchasing electric vehicles. At the s ame time, utilities are rushing to line up more natural gas to meet explosive power demand fueled by electricity-hungry data centers.

President Biden’s top climate officials face another uncomfortable fact: The United States is now pumping more oil than any other country in history. U.S. crude oil production averaged 12.9 million barrels per day in 2023, breaking the previous record of 12.3 million barrels per day set in 2019.

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In addition to rejecting a quick fossil fuel phaseout, the oil industry has aggressively fought the Biden administration’s efforts to boost sales of electric vehicles, which could eat into demand for their petroleum products.
The American Petroleum Institute, the oil industry’s top lobbying arm, teased plans to sue over an Environmental Protection Agency rule released Wednesday that will require automakers to ramp up sales of electric cars and plug-in hybrids. “We’ll do everything we can to stop the rule,” Mike Sommers, chief executive of the institute, said in an interview.

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https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/03/20/oil-industry-climate-fossil-fuels/