“There is more chance of Elvis speaking next than the current plan working,” stated Saudi Aramco President and CEO Eng. Amin H. Nasser in his keynote speech at CERAWeek 2025 in Houston, Texas.
Amin H. Nasser, president and chief executive officer of Saudi Aramco, the world’s leading integrated energy and chemicals enterprise, and the largest provider of crude oil to global markets, spoke on Monday at CERAWeek 2025 in Houston, one of the world’s most influential energy conferences. This year’s CERAWeek theme is, “Moving Ahead: Energy Strategies for a Complex World,” and the event has attracted over 10,000 participants from over 2,050 companies and 80 countries, with more than 1,400 expert speakers.
He opened his remarks noting: “For over a decade, and along with others from our industry, I have felt a growing responsibility to highlight the inherent flaws in the current energy transition plan… the promised outputs were promoted with unwavering confidence. There would be a full inventory of essential and genuinely competitive transition technologies. A new world of cheaper, more secure, and more sustainable alternative energy would be imminent by swiftly consigning conventional energy to the history books… Many of us knew these promises were impossible to keep, but our industry no longer had a seat at the table. It has taken a decade in the transition debate wilderness to expose the fallacies, and the real-world impact of group-think.”
Eng. Nasser’s complete remarks can be read here.
Selected quotes include:
“I am an engineer to my core. I evaluate plans through the lens of inputs and outputs, or “bang for the buck” as you say in America. With almost 10 trillion dollars of transition-related spending worldwide, and two decades of effort, the inputs are clear… Besides the 10 trillion dollars already spent, it is estimated that global climate action will need a staggering 6 to 8 trillion dollars more, every year. Still, if alternatives were ready, those who pushed hardest and fastest to cut conventional energy should be the envy of the world… Instead, it has been a painful awakening for those who thought energy affordability and security could be taken for granted. Europe is paying roughly double for electricity compared with five years ago, and 3 to 4 times that of the U.S. and China.”
“Then there was the fiction that critical transition technologies are genuinely competitive and being rapidly deployed. Take green hydrogen. Many were aiming for 1 dollar per kilogram by 2030. Yet alone currently range wildly from almost 4 dollars per kilogram to 12 dollars. That is 200 to 600 dollars per barrel of oil equivalent! Or look at very long-term energy storage, where most technology is still early and costly, and the payback period ranges from 15 to 40 years. So, relying too much on intermittent renewables, without sufficient back-up and grid scale long-term storage, makes 24/7 reliability a tough challenge.”
“Indeed, the greatest transition fiction was that conventional energy could be almost entirely replaced, virtually overnight. The last time this actually happened was when whale oil demand collapsed around 150 years ago! Hydrocarbons still provide over 80 percent of primary energy here in the US, almost 90 percent in China, and even in the EU it is more than 70 percent. And, in absolute terms, the world consumes vastly more hydrocarbons than it did three decades ago – about 100 million barrels per day of oil equivalent.”
“New sources cannot even meet the growth in demand, while the proven sources needed to fill the gap are demonized and discarded. It is a fast-track to dystopia, not utopia. In short, the net result of 10 trillion dollars over 2 decades is to basically stand still and consume record quantities of coal. Not exactly mission accomplished! In fact, there is more chance of Elvis speaking next than the current plan working! And a wave of public dissatisfaction with transition reality is crashing over countries, companies, and consumers alike.”
“First, all sources must play a growing role in meeting rising energy demand in a balanced, integrated manner. Certainly, that includes new and alternative energy sources. But they will complement conventional energy, not replace it in any meaningful way. So we need investments in all sources.”
“Second, the model must genuinely serve the needs of developed and developing nations alike, as originally promised, especially when it comes to technology.”
“Third, and crucially, this has to be about delivering real results.”
“Let me be absolutely clear: this does not mean stepping back from our global climate ambitions. Reducing GHG emissions must still get the highest possible priority. That means prioritizing technologies that drive efficiency, lower energy use, and further reduce GHG emissions from conventional energy. And AI will clearly be a game-changing enabler.”
“But the future of energy is not only about sustainability. Security and affordability must share the stage. With all energy sources working in harmony as one team, delivering real results. Ladies and Gentlemen, the world was promised many things in the current transition plan. It was like promising an energy El Dorado. And this quest was equally doomed to fail. I take no pleasure in this. But it is time to stop reinforcing failure. Indeed, as the fictions of the promised transition finally wash away, there is an historic opportunity to change course.”
