Letter from Rotterdam: Oil and gas go AWOL

With just a small presence from the oil and gas industry, the World Energy Council’s biennial congress gave a stark reminder of Europe’s energy priorities

The World Energy Council held its 26th congress in April this year in Rotterdam, almost a hundred years after the organisation convened its first conference. However, some very prominent oil and gas companies were conspicuous in their absence this year. All the energy doublespeak was focused on emissions abatement and carbon neutrality goals. There was little or no acknowledgement of the energy shocks of the last few years, even though the last Congress—the 25th—had been scheduled for St Petersburg in 2022, before being cancelled in the fallout from the Ukraine invasion. Sustainability not security was top of the agenda. Indeed, the panel session speakers seemed to comprise more NGOs than CE