Insights From The World Petroleum Congress

Digital Innovations in Oil and Gas with Geoffrey Cann

In case you missed it, WPC24 took place recently in Calgary, Alberta, for the second time in its history. WPC itself was established way back in the 1930s as a forum for the global industry to discuss common themes on a triennial basis. As a global event, it attracts an audience from around the planet..

The voices discussing the global energy industry’s challenges included the Energy Minister from Saudi Arabia, and the CEOs of Saudi Aramco, ExxonMobil, Repsol, WestJet, Accenture, Pertamina, KNOC, Kuwait Petroleum Corp, ONGC, NNPC (Nigeria), NOCK (Kenya), Oil India, and managing directors, presidents, vice presidents, and board chairs from Cenovus, Petronas, Petrobras, Petronet, Suncor, Deloitte, Brookfield, Platts, S&P, Shell, and many others.

You never know who you’ll meet at such a gathering. As I ascended the escalator to the event floor for the opening ceremonies, I found myself standing beside a trade ambassador from Libya, who shared some personal details of the immense tragedy stemming from the floods from his country. My fellow panelists hailed from Calgary, Houston, and Saudi Arabia. I have a collection of business cards from Tema (Ghana), St. John’s, Midland (Texas), Bogotá (Colombia), Pittsburgh, Berlin, Washington, and Uruguay.

Under the broad theme ‘path to net zero’, the range of topics under discussion were in equal parts bracing and confronting, taking in supply and demand, energy transition, decarbonization, industry growth and/or decline, financing strategies, infrastructure challenges, energy security, hydrogen developments, carbon capture and storage, net zero pathways, indigenous engagement, and talent issues.

It is impossible for one person to summarize the conference because there are multiple parallel tracks, a full poster and paper show, and dozens of talks and panel discussions. You simply can’t take it all in.

Then again, you can always form a point of view based on the dialogue you did take in, so here’s mine.