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In whichever direction you look around the venue - ADNEC Centre - you can't miss signage flagging it.
At the opening ceremony on Monday, ADNOC's CEO and the UAE's Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber said the state-operated energy company will deploy autonomous AI for the very first time and called on his peers to embrace it too for the benefit of the wider energy industry.
ADNOC's move - dubbed Energy^AI or 'energy to the power of AI' will be in partnership with government-backed G42, AiQ and Microsoft. Here's The Oilholic's full report for Forbes on Al Jaber's remarks and ADNOC's wider plans. ADIPEC itself has allocated 40,000 square feet of exhibition space showcasing AI, quantum computing and the latest in robotics.
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Technology driven energy transition efforts were variously revisited throughout the day as many big oil CEOs including BP's Murray Auchincloss and Shell's Wael Sawn highlighted market and geopolitical complexities they are operationally anxious about but also about a return to basics of traditional oil and gas exploration and production to firm up their bottomline.
Monday also saw several ministers speak at ADIPEC including the UAE's energy Suhail Al Mazroui and India's minister for petroleum and natural gas Hardeep Singh Puri, as was OPEC Secretary General Haitham Al Ghais, fresh from the crude producers' group's decision to postpone its planned production increase by a month. Most were united in their belief that oil and gas will continue to play a role as part of a wider energy mix for decades.
The 2024 round of ADIPEC features conference several streams new and old including - its Strategic Conference, Hydrogen Conference, Downstream Technical Conference, Decarbonisation Conference, Maritime & Logistics Conference, Digitalisation & Technology Conference, Technical Conference, Finance & Investment Conference and Voices of Tomorrow.
In a riveting session, we all discussed how the energy transition represents a trillion-dollar investment opportunity for investors and how can the energy and finance sectors work more closely together to accelerate the flow of investments in clean energy projects to match investor risk return expectations.
The Oilholic also took time out for a BBC Business Today interview with Sally Bundock to discuss the goings-on at ADIPEC, OPEC's decision to postpone its production cuts, and climate finance.
Tuesday, Day II, brought more innovative discussions, and a renewed emphasis on why the shift to low-carbon energy was imperative in a gradual march to a low carbon future, and critical role governments of the world can play in facilitating this.
Of course, the event saw divergent views on whether this should be achieved via taxation, subsidies or be left the free markets. Or perhaps a combination of all three. Technology came to the fore here too, with several industry participants outlining various way in which AI, advanced analytics, quantum computing and IIoT can make a difference in helping the energy sector as well as the wider global industrial complex discover a low - to - ultimately zero carbon future.
For his part, the Oilholic hosted his second panel of ADIPEC 2024 titled 'Standardised sustainability reporting: building energy transition trust to boost investment' first thing in the morning with panellists Karim Arslan, Executive Director, Green & Sustainable Finance Originator, Green & Sustainable Hub, Natixis Corporate and Investment Banking, Semih Ozkan, Executive Director, EMEA Energy, Power, Renewables, Metals & Mining, J.P. Morgan and Don Dimitrievich, Senior Managing Director and Portfolio Manager for Energy Infrastructure Credit, Nuveen.
We discussed the critical subject of how standardised sustainability reporting could provide the key to boosting investment into the energy transition through higher levels of investor insight and confidence. And here's to more insightful dialogues over the days to follow. That's all for now folks. There's plenty more to come from yours truly from ADIPEC 2024. So keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'!
