There were some murmurs spotlighted this week that the oil industry may be on borrowed time, at CERAWeek by IHS Markit, the energy megaconference in Houston. There was more talk of renewables, more calls to curb methane emissions and some CEOs, including BP’s Bob Dudley and Equinor’s Eldar Saetre, pushed for focused efforts to combat climate change.
Perhaps it was the absence of most of OPEC, or the fact that global oil prices were roughly the same as they were at last year’s conference, but talk of oil at CERAWeek felt a bit more lackluster this time around, several attendees said. But the oil narrative out of CERAWeek may just have been broader, and, without a keynote address from Saudi Arabia’s oil minister, may have been a bit more difficult to pin down. There were substantive discussions about record-breaking oil production, looming maritime fuel rules and, of course, the path forward on US sanctions on Iran and Venezuelan crude flows, which are expected to take a combined 1.76 million b/d off the global market, the International Energy Agency said this week.
Here’s a look at the biggest oil news out of CERAWeek: