HOUSTON — It’s a wrap. After five days of high-level talks and discussions among the world’s oil intelligentsia, a few certain inalienable truths — and sacred cows — are headed the way of the Edsel as the global energy market stands on the cusp of systemic, generational change.
Forget ‘drill, baby drill’. It’s passe. And it doesn’t address the scope of the challenge facing policymakers, producers, and even consumers over the next half-century.
The world has so many energy resources it doesn’t know what to do with them all. Scouring the four corners of Earth to punch holes in tundra or deep under the sea doesn’t matter anymore.
The bigger problem is how to get it where it’s needed most, in the most efficient and environmentally sustainable way possible. Affordably.
And that’s going to be a tough nut to crack given the policies and entrenched assumptions among rigid governments who think they can keep doing the same thing over and over and get the same results. They can’t anymore.
The new mantra is: ‘Build, Baby Build’.
Build pipelines. Build power plants. Build data centres. Build nuclear reactors. Build LNG. Even build refineries. Because the world is going to need ALL of them.
Barely 15 years ago, the theme of a conference like this would have been scarcity, or ‘peak oil’. Five years ago it would have been ‘peak demand’, that somehow oil and gas was going to roll over into permanent systemic decline.
Now the theme is the hard reality... and the consequences of past policy decisions that are coming home to roost in a big way.
That’s because the demand numbers are truly staggering. To be sure, they’re all over the map. But a 40% increase in primary electricity demand in the US alone is enough to raise eyebrows among the learned elite.
Global LNG demand is projected to double, all the while reducing emissions and displacing coal. The world needs all the gas it can get. Now! Maintenant!
The factories of the future — and they're already here — will produce information, not cars. A new Industrial Revolution is happening before our eyes.
So much for the lie peddled by our own federal government that there is no business case for fossil fuels. That fantasy was laid bare.
Emissions? That’s where gas and nuclear come in. Nobody — especially the Greenies — can afford to be picky when it comes to having their iPhones and clean air too... And keeping food on the table.
That’s called hard reality.
But it’s not just restricted to Canada, which definitely has its own issues despite an absolute embarrassment of riches. The opportunity cost from 10 years of Liberal climate policy is astounding. And they’re still pushing it.
And yes, the US is going to need Canada — and Mexico — if it has any hope of achieving true energy ‘dominance’ as the MAGA-nuts want to call it.
Thankfully, they were in short supply among the people who actually know what they’re talking about.
Most Americans this scribe talked to know what they’re talking about. And they were surprisingly blase on the issue of tariffs.
They’re quite clear about what The Donald can and can’t do, even if he wanted to. One of them is smack punitive tariffs on things like energy, aluminum, or even steel. For long.
That’s just crazy talk of the kind the world has come to expect, including the Yanks. Americans elected a “disruptor” and that’s just the way it is. He’ll either come around — they’re fairly sure he will — or others in his circle will make him think it was his idea all along.
Tariff talk too, shall pass. Because Trump has no choice. And frankly, he’s overplayed his hand before. This is starting to look like a rerun.
As conference chairman Daniel Yergin himself said: “Most Americans didn’t know where they got their electricity from until before this week.” A good chunk of them couldn’t even find Canada on a map.
Now they do. Americans know more about Canada now than they ever have. They’re starting to realize, we’re among them. We look and act like them. We've completely infiltrated their psyche. It's too late, that ship has sailed the Houston shipping channel.
Make no mistake, Americans love liberty. This really is the land of the free. They wouldn’t deny the same for good old Canuckistan. Truth is, they respect us for it.
And that’s a good thing. Because at the end of the day, we’re all in this together. There is only one continent, and one world when it comes to oil.
Energy knows no borders and the Yanks are global players. They always have been and always will.
It's going to be OK (fingers crossed).
