Separate Ways (Worlds Apart) - Journey to Decarbonization a Tricky Path for Crude Oil, Natural Gas, NGLs

Energy marketeers are faced with a conundrum. Should the focus be on producing, processing, and marketing the hydrocarbon-based energy that the world needs today? Or is it time to go an entirely different direction toward net-zero emissions, renewables, and battery-powered everything? The answer, of course, is both. That means living, working, and producing hydrocarbon-based products in today's world while at the same time preparing for and investing in the world to which we’re headed. You might think of it as kind of a mild case of schizophrenia; we live in one reality, but we must think in terms of an entirely different future reality. That was a core theme for RBN’s Fall 2021 School of Energy: Hydrocarbon Markets in a Decarbonizing World. In today’s RBN advertorial blog, we provide our key findings and highlights from the conference curriculum.

If you want to get the energy world’s full attention, give it a global pandemic, a rush to decarbonize, and a brutal land war in Europe — all in quick succession. Bam! Bam! Bam! The past two-plus years have shaken the global oil, natural gas and NGL markets to the core, and forced just about everyone involved to rethink the expectations and plans they had before everything seemed to unravel. So what happens next? How do we provide energy security, put a lid on inflation, and save the planet? To answer those questions, a good place to start is to gain a better understanding of the fundamentals — how energy markets develop, work and interact. In today’s RBN blog, we discuss highlights from RBN’s recent School of Energy, a like-you-were-there replay of which is now available.

No one could’ve seen the energy market disruptions of 2020 coming, and most of us are ready to write off what has been one of the most challenging years the industry has seen in a long time. Yet the events of the past year will most certainly define what unfolds in the New Year and beyond. To make sense of what 2020 will mean for the post-COVID era, we retooled and refreshed our models and forecasts to tackle the hard questions facing U.S. crude oil, natural gas, and NGL markets. As it turns out, beyond the immediate chaos of the pandemic, there is a new order taking shape, and that’s what we laid out in the RBN Fall Virtual School of Energy, sharing our results and the Excel spreadsheets behind the models to get you ready for what’s coming. Some of what we expected has come to fruition, and we still think that there is a pretty good chance that the rest will unfold in the months and years ahead. If you weren’t able to join us for the live broadcast, we invite you to sit by the fire, put your feet up and dig in over the holidays. The entire 14+ hours of streaming content, plus slide decks and spreadsheets, are available online. Today’s advertorial blog provides highlights from our key findings and the overall conference curriculum.