Rebutting the Energy Transition Dilemma

Present earlier this week in Azerbaijan at Baku Energy Forum, Prof Damjan Krnjević Mišković – Chief of Staff to the Secretary General of the International Gas Union (IGU) – was a panellist in the Gas Markets – Infrastructure, Strategy & Geopolitics session.

Moderated by Vitaliy Baylarbayov PhD, Deputy Vice−President of SOCAR and Member of IGU’s Executive Committee, the session focused on Gas price volatility, demand outlook and regional resilience, as well as on regulation and geopolitics, and largely on how policy shapes market direction.

Answering a very pertinent question for the global Gas industry, namely that on energy addition versus energy transition, Prof Krnjević Mišković’s remarks were unequivocal:

“A transition means leaving something behind. It means something replacing something else. Globally, renewables are not replacing fossil fuels at scale. They are being added to a growing energy system which, as the latest evidence shows, cannot keep up with a faster growing demand.

“The world still runs on fossil fuels and will continue to do so for many decades to come. Fossil fuels continue to provide more than 80% of the global primary energy. And Gas provides about one quarter of that.

“This means that after more than two decades of financing restrictions, discriminatory regulations, climate diplomacy, renewable subsidies, technological progress, and political commitments, the fossil fuel share of the global energy mix has changed at the level of a rounding error. And the cost of this has been in the trillions of dollars per year.

“Energy transition is not a data-driven statement. Energy evolution, sure, energy addition, even better. We need to refocus the global conversation on securing financing to develop Gas. And we need to refocus it on securing more physical infrastructure—more pipelines, more resilient LNG systems—to allow us to take advantage of the energy security, affordability and availability that only Gas, in all its forms can provide”.

Joining Prof Krnjević Mišković on the panel were His Excellency Mr Kamal Abbasov, Deputy Minister of Energy of the Republic of Azerbaijan; Philip Mshelbila PhD, Secretary General of GECF; Mr Ulf Heitmüller, Chairman of the Board of VNG AG; Mr Elkhan Bashirov, General Manager of Umid Babek Operating Company (UBOC); Mr Luca Vignati,  Upstream Director at Eni; Mr Chingiz Hajiyev, Vice President Business Development Caspian at bp; and Mr Tolga Demir, Azerbaijan Country Manager at XRG.