Symposium 2019
Financing challenges for a transforming energy industry
5 June 2019 - London
09.15 Registration
09.45 Welcome and opening remarks
Wim Thomas FEI, Chief Energy Advisor, Head Energy Team, Shell International, and Chair, UK Committee of the World Petroleum Council
10.00 Welcome from the morning session chair
Carina Radford, Partner, White & Case
10.10 Keynote – Setting the scene: IEA World Energy Investment 2019 - an industry transforming?
Alessandro Blasi, Special Advisor to the Executive Director, International Energy Agency
10.45 Refreshments and networking
11.15 Panel discussion: the financing challenges ahead for new energies and traditional oil and gas players
Alessandro Blasi, Special Advisor to the Executive Director, International Energy Agency
Thomas Stenvold, Portfolio Manager, Hartree Partners
Joost Bergsma, CEO, Glennmont Partners
Frank Pluta, Industry Banker – Energy Group Head, NATIXIS
12.30 Lunch and networking
13.40 Welcome back from the Chair of the afternoon session
John Martin FEI, Senior Advisor, World Petroleum Council
13.45 New governance and regulatory issues
The new IFRS rules: David Holtam, Director, Audit, Energy and Resources, Deloitte UK
Update on the Climate Change Task Force: Tara Schmidt, Principal Consultant, ERM
14.15 Panel discussion: Financing challenges for infrastructure, new technologies and decommissioning
Bassem Zaki, Group Head of Business Development, Premier Oil
Ian Conway, Executive Director, Upstream Research, IHS Markit
Afonso Reis e Sousa, Group Head of Treasury, Structure Finance and Tax, Petrofac
Yen-Sze Soon, Managing Director, Accenture Digital
15.15 Private equity and innovative financing in UKCS
John Martin FEI in conversation with Roy Kelly FEI, Partner, Kerogen Capital and Non-Executive Director, Hurricane
15.45 Summary from symposium Chairs
16.00 End of symposium
16.00 Networking drinks
The global energy industry faces numerous transformational changes which impact on the way it will be financed and managed. These changes offer significant growth opportunities for industry players, but also involve inherent business risks which make the sustainable financing of the industry a top priority for management.
A fundamental challenge is the increasing volatility of the whole sector in terms of demand and supply movements of traditional fuels posed by the rise of renewable energies, macro-geopolitical events, and the on-going high volatility of oil and gas commodity prices. Such volatility has elevated medium and long-term financial planning and complex capital investment decisions to the very top of managements’ agendas. Key challenges facing the sector include:
- The need to maintain sufficient investment in upstream exploration and resource development to avoid future supply shortages and to meet consumers’ needs.
- Management of the on-going transition towards a low carbon global economy.
- The need to evolve competitive markets designs for energy and CO2 in order to attract and retain capital and investors’ appetite to invest in the sector.
- The urgent requirement to embrace and finance new, and sometimes disruptive, technologies to ensure future cost, operational, environmental and market related benefits and efficiencies.
- The requirement to implement climate related policies and regulations in a timely manner.
In response to recent financial regulatory changes, activist shareholders and new policies, a number of energy banks, multi-lateral agencies and institutional investors have reduced their exposure to the traditional oil and gas sector. This trend in turn may encourage new groups of financiers such as activist investment funds, private investors and sovereign wealth funds to support the future financing of the sector.
Finance and energy industry experts will address these challenges and discuss financial solutions that will manage risks and facilitate the development of the future energy mix to meet consumers’ requirements.
