A team sport without a level playing field?
A week under the Oslo sun can have a big impression on one’s level of optimism versus reality. Leaving aside Norway’s advantages when it comes to the resources needed to tackle decarbonisation, the desire of its asset owners and operators to lead the industry rather than sit back is admirable.
There are however, significant challenges – not least the risk that the talk obscures action – or that the industry declares its perpetual readiness to decarbonise if only others would give them the means to do it.
Aside from the energy efficiencies that the industry has proven capable of achieving, deeper problems remain. Not least the suggestion that the ‘global south’ will somehow ride to the west’s rescue by obligingly producing cheap clean fuels. More pressing is that the arguments for transformational change start to ring hollow the further one gets from Oslo.
As Bahri’s Khalid Yousef Alhammad told the Capital Link conference: “What we’re hearing is a very European view. If you are in the Middle East spot market, it’s going to be extremely difficult because everything comes down to cost and complying with regulatory requirements. It’s going to be tough for us.”