Aramco president: Oil demand will grow 40% by 2030

(MENAFN – Qatar News Agency) – Saudi Aramco president and CEO Khalid A. Al-Falih said during a recent visit to company markets in Asia “The developing economics of the world are at the heart of the International Energy Agency’s forecast that world primary-energy demand will increase” “The forecast estimates demand will grow by 40 percent by 2030 – roughly 1.5 percent per year. And (the IEA forecast estimates that) oil will remain the single largest fuel in the energy mix,” Saudi news agency quoted him Sunday.

The company’s maximum sustainable production capacity is now at 12 million barrels per day – a figure that will ensure reliability of supply to meet this forecast increase in demand, he added. Even though oil and gas will be around for some time, the energy environment has changed and companies need to be prepared, Al-Falih said. As the world’s energy demands increase and suppliers work to meet them, unconventional sources of oil, such as natural gas liquids, heavy oils and oils located in difficult environments, will need to be tapped, he said. “There is no shortage of oil potential but the complexity of bringing oil online increases significantly as we tap into more difficult conventional and nonconventional oil resources,” he said. This – along with the fluctuating oil price – means that developing energy projects will take more time and more money.

Now, he said, is the time to step away from speculation and toward investment. “Capital prefers certainty. A vague global energy future would discourage essential investments across the energy value chain,” he said. There is also a need to invest responsibly by taking the environmental impact into consideration. “Societal expectations on climate change are real,” he said, “and the industry is expected to take a leadership role,” he added One way of doing that is to make fuel more energy efficient by enhancing oil recovery through carbon capture and sequestration and improving the efficiency of engines, he said.

MENAFN