Oil & Gas Sector Needs Major Investments to Meet Rising Demand: OPEC Chief

The hydrocarbon sector requires cumulative investments of US$17.4 trillion by 2050 to meet rising demand and to generate the additional five million barrels per day needed on average every year to stay at the current overall supply levels, according to Haitham Al Ghais, Secretary General of OPEC.

Long-term investments in the hydrocarbon sector have come under increasing focus as the energy sector prepares for a diversified and decarbonised future energy mix, with companies such as bp recently committing to increasing their annual oil and gas investment to US$10 billion.

Al Ghais said, “The oil sector requires cumulative investments of US$17.4 trillion by 2050. This is necessary to meet rising demand and to counter declining rates, with the latter requiring an additional five mb/d on average every year just to stay at current overall supply levels.

“For this reason, OPEC has repeatedly called for greater investments in the oil industry. All our actions and activities, especially under the umbrella of the DoC [Declaration of Cooperation], have been to facilitate an investment-enabling environment. Such an environment requires sustainable stability in the oil market.”

His comments came at the 11th Joint IEA-IEF-OPEC Workshop on the Interactions between Physical and Financial Energy Markets, held recently at the OPEC Secretariat in Vienna.

The high-level meeting was chaired by HE Al Ghais, along with HE Jassim Alshirawi, Secretary General of the International Energy Forum (IEF), and Toril Bosoni, Head of the Oil Industry and Markets Division of the International Energy Agency (IEA).