Jim McFarland is an energy executive with over 40 years of international oil and gas experience.
He co-founded and led two international oil and gas start-ups, Valeura Energy and Verenex Energy, as President and CEO and held prior senior executive roles at Husky Oil, ExxonMobil and Imperial Oil. He currently serves as Chair of the Board of oil sand producer MEG Energy and is a director of Valeura Energy.
Also currently serving as vice president, programme at WPC Energy, he has been instrumental in guiding the organisation’s global congress strategy through his current leadership of its Congress Programme Committee and longstanding service to the organisation. Here he talks to Petroleum Economist about how the WPC Energy Congress has adapted its programme to reflect a changing outlook for the energy sector.
How has the landscape changed for the energy sector since the last WPC Energy Congress in 2023?
Jim McFarland (JM): I've been involved with WPC Energy for many years. One of the challenges with having a conference every two or three years is ensuring the content is relevant at the time it happens—you have to think ahead and reflect on the expected landscape of the Congress. At the time of the Calgary Congress in 2023, we had just come out of the COVID-19 pandemic. There was a rebound in oil demand and crude oil prices had risen from around $64/bl in 2020 to over $100/bl in 2022. At the same time the energy sector had aggressive growth plans for renewables and bold decarbonisation strategies. The US had enacted the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which included enhanced tax credits for clean energy initiatives. The backdrop for the Congress in April 2026 is expected to be quite different. There’s likely to be a longer-term role for fossil fuels than we thought even two years ago, because growing energy demand is matching the pace of renewable additions, with hydrocarbons continuing to hold a dominant share in the energy supply mix. Population growth in the global south, and the fact that 30% of the world’s population still depends on traditional biomass for cooking, add to the sense that the transition is going to happen at a slower pace than we originally expected. At the same time crude oil and natural gas prices are relatively weak compared to where they were in 2023. The 25th WPC Energy Congress, through the plenaries and other strategic sessions together with a comprehensive technical programme, will address the full range of challenges and opportunities facing the energy sector in this changing landscape.
Given this growing focus on energy security, these emerging new areas of demand and the current environment of low prices, is there a risk of an energy supply gap?
JM: The IEA tracks world energy investment and in their 2025 report they foresee a 4% reduction in overall upstream oil and gas investment in 2025 to about $570 billion. That reduction does not represent a lack of opportunity but rather caution in the face of the downward pressures on oil prices as shareholders of public companies simultaneously push for returns. Being on a couple of oil and gas company boards, I know how difficult it is for these companies to get that balance right. Aggressive growth is difficult given the desire for shareholders returns. When you consider the level of energy poverty in the world and the costs of decarbonising hydrocarbon supply, it’s very unlikely that current investment in the upstream sector is adequate to address the trilemma challenge of providing secure, affordable and sustainable energy to the world.
Will unconventional resources continue to play a key role in the energy landscape going forward, and how is their role affected by this changing energy landscape?
JM: When you talk about the unconventional space at the moment, you're really talking about North America—tight oil or shale oil in this region has been a key driver in world oil supply growth. Over the past 10 years, US oil production (including NGLs) has grown from about 12m b/d to over 20m b/d, driven by the growth in tight oil. Over the same period, Canadian oil production (including NGLs) has grown from about 4.3m b/d to 5.9m b/d driven by growing oil sands production which now stands at about 3.5m b/d. So, this is a big part of the supply picture and it's still on a growth path, albeit one somewhat tempered by the forces we just talked about—low prices and shareholders' desire for returns. Extraction costs have also seen a significant reduction over the past 10 years. Rystad Energy publishes estimates of breakeven prices for shale oil and oil sands, and these costs have been re-duced by more than 40% and remain below current crude prices. Furthermore, there are new regions with good shale oil potential—Argentina is probably the one that stands out. The bottom line is, if we're not leaving anybody behind in the world, then there's going to be a need for more investment in these unconventional resources, as well as in conventional ones.
What new challenges are on the horizon for energy sector leaders and how can they best equip themselves to address them?
JM: I start from the belief that the transition from fossil fuels to a low carbon mix dominated by renewables will be a longer time coming than we may have thought even a few years ago. For the oil and gas sector, that means we have to address key challenges to enable a sustainable growth path. Chief amongst these is decarbonising production. According to the IEA, oil and gas operations accounted for about 5.1 gigaton per year (gt/yr) of Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions in 2022, out of a total of about 37gt/yr from the energy sector as a whole. Industry is already making solid progress on tackling methane emissions, a potent greenhouse gas, through reductions in flaring and fugitive emissions. The next steps, to name a few, are to eliminate non-emergency flaring, deploy CCUS on a wide scale and electrify upstream facilities. In Canada, a major CCS project is being advanced by the Pathways Alliance of the six biggest oil sands operators, aiming to capture CO₂ from multiple oil sands facilities in Northern Alberta and transport it for permanent sequestration in deep saline aquifers. Given the cost of this, energy leaders need to convince policymakers that some financial support is needed—in the same way as we have seen 45Q tax credits deployed to support CCS in the US.
The oil and gas sector also needs to grow supply to match demand, as referenced earlier. Regions like the Middle East and Russia still hold huge remaining reserves of conventional oil and gas that can be developed by efficiently applying known technologies while simultaneously reducing GHG emissions intensity. A recent report by Wood Mackenzie made a strong pitch for ramped up high-impact oil and gas exploration in offshore deep and ultradeep waters. A number of big fields have been found in the past 10-15 years offshore South America, Africa, South Mexico and in the Mediterranean and Black Sea. The technology is now being developed to help us tap resources in these tougher locations.
What can policymakers do to make life easier for energy sector leaders grappling with all the above issues?
JM: Taking a realistic global view of the transition is important. Exporting LNG from somewhere like Canada to China and southeast Asia has a greater beneficial effect than us keeping those lower carbon intensity resources in the ground, and them being supplanted with coal-fired power. It seems clear now that hydrocarbons will continue to dominate the energy supply mix for decades to come. In this scenario, providing access to resources, fair revenue sharing and helping with infrastructure deployment—whilst also enacting policy and support to enable large-scale hydrocarbon decarbonisation applications through public-private partnerships—is a sensible way forward.
The Call for Papers for the 25th WPC Energy Congress taking place in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia in April 2026 is still open and accepting submissions (deadline 19 September 2025).
Full details including submissions portal can be found here: https://wpcenergy2026.org/programme/
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