The seventh plenary session of the World Petroleum Congress dealt with the societal expectations in the oil and gas industry. This last plenary raised with positivism the future of the sector and the society. The speakers were: Andrew Gould acting as the conference chair, Chairman and CEO of Schlumberger; Huguette Labelle, chair of the Transparency International and Greg Goff, President, Specialty Businesses and Business Development of ConocoPhillips.
The conference raised the expectations of society in the hydrocarbon sector. From that perspective, Andrew Gould, briefly exposed in some introductory words his point of view of these expectations, stating that “the society expects us to develop new technologies for the future and at the same time to keep supply at current levels”.
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On the same lines, Huguette Labelle began her speech stating the obvious imbalance in many oil production countries that do not profit from this activity, she added: “More than half of the countries which own energy resources do not receive benefit for it; therefore we can affirm that the construction of infrastructures has not helped their domestic economies. From this situation we can draw the conclusion that the lack of transparency and bad management by governments and private companies; these activities should become the main engines of local development”.
Greg Goff refereed to the important role of governments for the adequate development of the energy sector. Thus, he stated that the expectations the society has in reference to the energy sector, have to be demanded by governments at the same level. “The measures to guarantee this should be designed to invest in technological innovations, transparency, household energy policies, and improve the social progress through equality.”
About this point, Greg added: “We have the peace of mind that we are capable of supplying our society throughout the whole oil era, and until the effective arrival of the renewable energies. But in order to achieve this we are going to need government help, because it is not going to be easy”.
Corruption
The speakers defined corruption as one of the main obstacles to achieve social expectations. The existence of corruption in the energy sector creates difficulty for transparency in investment flows. In this sense, Huguette Labelle demanded the importance of total transparency in the processes, affirming that “the best solution for a fair sector regulation is to eliminate this corruption through transparency. According to some research studies, every year a thousand million dollars are lost due to corruption, and one in five people of the sector have been witnesses of business loss because of bribes.”
Measures for the future
During the plenary session the speakers suggested possible solutions with the aim of achieving a less corrupted sector, keeping its development and growth levels and being able to interact with governments to obtain a uniform, fair and transparent regulation.
Among the main measures that were mentioned, special emphasises was put on transparency for new projects; a clear distribution of the information; corporate social responsibility policies that are adopted by every company, ethic and business principles harmonisation and, of course, a commitment with the local citizens. In this respect, Huguette Labelle stated: What we really need it is not that some companies assume Social Responsibility policies, but that all of them assume them with pride, for the good of the sector and society.
Image of the sector
The plenary concluded by focusing on the bad image that the energy sector has, in spite of its efforts, in the last decade, working towards sustainable growth, CO2 emission reduction and other environmental policies.
Andrew Gould added to this “to improve this negative image it is vital to work on two aspects: Firstly, the sector has to be proud of its activity of supplying energy to society and secondly, and more importantly, the sector should not be so reluctant of talking about its own problems. Something that has happened continuously in the past.”
Huguette Labelle went a step further: “it would be extremely positive to count on a third party to carry out an audit, so that it is not only the actual companies or governments that declare their good practices. International observers with a recognized impartiality would contribute towards the required objectivity”. In this respect, Greg Goff concluded that it is very important to inform the society about the work of companies and to educate people on these issues in order to avoid unfounded prejudices.
