When an individual as astute as Lord Browne of Madingley is prepared to stand up at one of the world’s leading oil & gas conferences and basically tell Big Oil that the time has come to evolve from petroleum to energy by taking on the low carbon challenge, it really is time that Aberdeen woke up.
Speaking at the latest Offshore Northern Seas, the one-time CEO of “beyond petroleum” fame has a 20-year relationship with renewables.
I suppose he is famous for his attempt to do exactly what he preached in Stavanger last month by greening BP . . . evolving it from pure-play petroleum to an energy corporation, adopting the famous Lutyens helios “flower” as its frontline global corporate image.
Browne presided over BP for 12 years, but did his greenwash work? Not really, IMO.
He insisted in his ONS presentation that oilers really could evolve into energy companies, albeit it would require “great care”; and pointed to telecoms as a sector that morphed dramatically embarking on “adjacent” strategic opportunities.
If you look around Europe, there are several companies that have done/are doing precisely as advocated by Browne, not least Statoil of Norway and DONG, both of which are prominent on the UK Continental Shelf.
Indeed, as many Energy readers know, Statoil has an offshore wind test centre taking shape off Peterhead and is a big investor in UK Round Three offshore wind mega-projects.
It is 17 years since I punted the idea of an all-energy conference in Aberdeen, an action that sparked the All-Energy conference in Aberdeen just as the late 1990s oil slump was easing but which was shifted to Glasgow from 2015, partly because of the greed of ABZ hoteliers.
And, incredibly, it is knocking on 15 years since, at the invitation of Aberdeen City Council, I led the creation of a focus group that later became Aberdeen Renewable Energy Group.
This was a catalyst that was pump-primed with private (BP + Shell) and public sector monies and which, up to now, has leveraged over £300million of investment and public money into the Scottish north-east, most notably the European Offshore Wind Deployment Centre now fully owned by Swedish energy utility Vattenfall.
That may be a record in Scotland for this type of mini economic development catalyst.
We live in a period of deep energy transition. In the power generation context, hydrocarbons are being displaced faster than one might think.
Indeed, this change was rather forcibly laid out at ONS on the same day as Browne by Lisa Davis. She has a long and distinguished track record in the oil & gas industry, knows her onions, and is now a member of the managing board at Siemens, which is a huge all-energy engineering solutions player, including in oil & gas.
The fact that onshore wind generated all of Scotland’s electricity requirements briefly during heavy weather last month is a local indicator of how the power generation mix has changed over the past 20 years. Europe is leading this revolution . . . or at least for the time being. Gas is nonetheless hugely important and will remain so.
I need hardly remind that the UK derives the bulk of its gas from North Sea domestic production and from Norway. And as a major energy service hub and global energy capital, I need hardly remind that Aberdeen has a huge role to play in this.
In the same way that the North Sea became one of the world’s most high profile oil & gas production centres in the world, so too is it becoming one of the world’s most important regions for wind-based offshore power generation.
We are, I repeat, in a period of great transition in energy and the North Sea is at the centre of it in the offshore context. And yet, while Stavanger is now engaging big-time, the vibes coming out of Aberdeen are worryingly negative, aside from hydrogen buses and cars..
I commented recently about the lack of low carbon vision in the Aberdeen City Deal and at the self-styled economic development successor to dismal ACSEF . . . Opportunity North East.
Go check out ONE’s website:
http://www.opportunitynortheast.com/
. The organisation was launched late last year and yet the singe holding page on the website has not changed. It still says: in bold capitals: ONE’S WEBSITE IS COMING SOON . . . ONE IS THE PRIVATE SECTOR’S RESPONSE TO THE CHALLENGE OF TRANSFORMING OUR ECONOMY.
That hardly sends out the dynamic message that ABZ needs to transmit. Shameful, IMO.
But it gets worse. Now one hears that the future of the catalyst that leveraged the EOWDC is in doubt when surely the opposite should happen. AREG should be rewarded . . . revitalised; not starved and cast off.
Aberdeen City Council should treat it as an asset and not, as it seems, a liability by an economic development function that seems to lack nous.
This year’s ONS was stuffed with renewable energy. It infused both the incredibly high calibre conference and the exhibition. By comparison, Offshore Europe has only ever paid lip service and was why All Energy was set up in the first place.
Stavanger absolutely gets it. So why can’t we?
The fact that Aberdeen and, just up the road, Peterhead, are now the twin homes for two of the world’s largest and most sophisticated offshore wind trialling centres and are also home to highly relevant oil & gas-bred expertise should confer huge advantage. And yet it seems not.
Politicians and government agencies have hardly helped the situation given the manner in which what they regarded as key renewables-related initiatives were planted in the Central Belt while Aberdeen was in reality largely ignored. The city was very much left to paddle its own green canoe with AREG.
Well it’s time to wake up.
Yes, Aberdeen is an oil & gas capital . . . though one that has been seriously eviscerated by the current oil slump. But it is also an energy capital and, whether it was realised or not, the two test centres amount to a sizeable vote of confidence by the maritime renewable community in the Granite City. That must be capitalised on.
Stavanger has been hit by the downturn too; but it’s clearly not letting the low carbon revolution slip from its grasp.
Indeed, the city’s mayor has vowed to make Stavanger Energy Capital of Europe. Aberdeen, get your act together!
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