The language may more colourful than last year but the pattern of the dialogue remained the same.
For the Oilholic, the main differentiation point for Day I was Trump's top energy czar making his mark with Trumpian aplomb.
Enter Chris Wright, the relatively new US Energy Secretary who emphatically declared: "There is simply no physical way that wind, solar and batteries could replace the myriad uses of natural gas. In particular, wind power had a singularly poor record of driving up prices."
In true Trumpian fashion, he also signed another export permit - for Delfin LNG - in front of the world's press at the media briefing room (see above).
Here's more on in his colourful appearance at CERAWeek via your truly's report for Forbes, and here's even more on what the bosses of Saudi Aramco, Chevron, Shell, and Cheniere Energy said on the first day via a detailed roundup on Energy Connects.
That's after listening to Larry Fink, CEO of BlackRock who noted: "If you are a startup in the US and have a great idea, you can get capital / access to capital in the US real quick. That cannot be said of many other markets."
Emerging cleantech and breakthrough applications of artificial intelligence appeared to be all the rage here with loads of chatter in open forum events being held in "pods."
Of course, along with the pods, came the hubs with some interesting perspectives on the energy transition, climate change mitigation and a showcase of emerging startups attempting to shake things up for another year running.
And there were plenty of profound discussions on the global energy transition like Agora's Nexus enclosure, where noted Indian environmentalist Sunita Narain observed: "India's renewables March is an incredible story...Part of the trajectory is about not replacing but displacing coal which services much of the country's power demand."
But that's all for now folks, more to follow over the course of the week. Keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'!
