Oil still has a future despite the global push to switch to renewable energy, the head of the world’s largest oil company insisted.
“Oil and gas will continue to be a part of the energy mix for decades,” Saudi Aramco chief executive Amin H Nasser told Sky News in an interview.
“That doesn’t mean they will be the same, they will be cleaner, technologies will help to reduce emissions significantly.
“We need a holistic policy that takes into consideration energy, reliability, affordability, and energy security, so that we can avoid a global economic crisis due to lack of supplies.
“This is going to continue for decades. Hydrocarbon will be part of the energy mix for decades to come.”
State-owned Saudi Aramco is the world’s third most valuable company, behind the US tech firms Apple and Microsoft.
At the inaugural Saudi Green Initiative summit over the weekend, Nasser announced that Aramco aims to become carbon-neutral by 2050.
His statement followed an announcement by Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman that the country would achieve net-zero by 2060.
In its ‘Net Zero by 2050’ report earlier this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned investors against funding new oil, gas, and coal supply projects beyond 2021.
Ahead of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, the IEA said that in order to fight climate change, global investment in renewable energy needs to triple by the end of the decade.
