Dubai, June 19, 2023 – Rosneft Oil Company presented a roadmap for improving the efficiency of the Russian energy sector in the face of unprecedented external challenges at the 26th St. Petersburg International Economic Forum.
In his keynote speech, Rosneft CEO Igor Sechin said that the West’s attempted utopia of a green transition has already had disastrous global consequences. He pointed out that the adherents of the green energy transition without clearly defined goals, sound technologies, and an understanding of the long-term consequences of their actions launched a process that created a crisis in the global energy industry and spun inflation in world markets.
Sechin said that there are no resources or technologies available to support the announced energy transition. “Unfortunately, the declared energy transition is not backed by the necessary technologies. We are faced with the fact that ‘renewable energy’ is in fact not renewable,” he said.
At the same time, Sechin said that petroleum technologies are currently at the peak of their development. They have no equals in technical and economic efficiency, and in terms of physical indicators – energy density and heat of combustion – they can be surpassed only by hydrogen and thermonuclear fusion technologies, which are still undeveloped.
Sechin also pointed out that the fallacy of abandoning oil and gas is recognized even by oil and gas companies, which had previously staked on an accelerated energy transition, now postponing previously announced goals.
“To date, improving technology in conventional production has a greater effect in terms of real emission reductions than investing in immature ‘alternative’ technologies,” Sechin said. “Thus, at the current stage of the green transition, the oil and gas sector itself should become a priority.”
Sechin also said that the critical issue is the price of the energy transition. According to the assessment made by the IEA, by 2030 investment in “clean energy” should grow almost threefold from the current US$ 1.7 trillion to US$ 4.6 trillion per year, that is, from 2% to 5% of world GDP.
McKinsey estimates that achieving Net Zero will require at least US$ 9.2 trillion in annual spending until 2050 (which is US$ 250 trillion) on major industries alone: energy, transportation, industry, utilities, agriculture, and forest-climate projects, of which US$ 3.5 trillion is for new low-emission assets and associated infrastructure.
“The green energy transition is not a free lunch,” Sechin said. “It will require enormous investments and will have a significant impact on the global economy. We need to be realistic about the costs and benefits of this transition and make sure that it is done in a way that is fair and sustainable for all.”
