OREANDA-NEWS. November 19, 2012. “One of the great challenges of our time is to meet the world’s increasing demand for energy, while at the same time tackling the global climate challenges in a responsible manner,” says Statoil CEO Helge Lund at the 2012 Autumn Conference.
Statoil believes that more forceful international measures are necessary in order to reduce global climate gas emissions.

“It is not irrelevant which resources are developed in order to respond to the climate challenges. To not develop more oil and gas in Norway would increase global climate challenges. Coal represents two thirds of known fossil resources, and emissions from coal are substantially higher than those from oil and gas. A high global charge on climate gas emissions would help stimulate the development of the right resources, would enable gas to prevail over coal, and result in increased energy efficiency in both production and consumption,” adds Lund.

In the 2012 World Energy Outlook the IEA forecasts that global energy demand will increase by more than a third by 2035. Some 60% of this growth will occur in China, India and the Middle East, while the OECD countries are expected to experience only limited growth.

“The global middle class is expected to expand by 3 billion to roughly 5 billion people over the next 20 years. One of the reasons for this positive development is that more and more people are gaining access to energy and consequently a better standard of living,” says Lund.

Oil and gas will account for a considerable part of the world’s energy supplies in the foreseeable future. Given the natural decline in production from existing fields, new resources will have to be discovered and developed to meet the growing demand. By 2035 new capacity of 50 million barrels of oil per day and 1.5 trillion cubic metres of gas per year needs to be developed to meet the demand in IEA’s 2-degree scenario (450 Scenario). This equals 5 times the oil production of Saudi Arabia and 15 times the gas production of Norway.

“The most important measure the industry can take is to invest in expertise and technology. In Statoil we will continue to invest and maintain our leading position in energy efficient production,” concludes Lund.

One of the topics being addressed at the conference is how developments within shale gas and oil in North America have transformed global energy markets over a short period of time.

“What we are now seeing in North America is an energy revolution that has helped increase energy security, reduce imports, create new jobs, stimulate economic growth and reduce carbon emissions. This development is most promising and Statoil positioned itself early in some of the most attractive areas,” says Lund.

Together with the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy (OED) and the International Energy Agency (IEA), Statoil is today arranging its annual Autumn Conference and presentation of the new World Energy Outlook (WEO) for 2012.

Keynote speakers at the conference are Dr Fatih Birol, IEA chief economist, Petroleum and Energy Minister Ola Borten Moe, Professor Richard G. Newell of Duke University and Statoil CEO Helge Lund.