Houston Energy Forum 2010
This week I attended an event called the Houston Energy Forum. This event is focused on the commercial issues of the energy industry. The speakers represented commercial banking, public utilities (electricity) and the E&P industry. I attended with the goal of gaining a greater understanding of those commercial issues and expand my vision of how technology can be applied to either solve the problems or capitalize on the opportunities. Oh yeah, I also just wanted to do some networking.
As you might expect at an event like this, the topic of the impact of the BP oil release in the Gulf of Mexico was a big topic. As you might also expect, one effect of that release is a shift in focus from the Gulf to elsewhere. The panel representative is from Petrohawk Energy Corporation, an independent energy company (not affiliated with a major oil company) which focuses on developing shale-based oil and gas resources (mainly gas). His focus was on the growth of shale-based exploration. His forecast data seem to back that up. A shift of focus from the Gulf of Mexico should benefit their on-shore business. It should also attract more attention from the majors (not necessarily good for independents). That is good for the energy independence here in North America.
None of the panelists expect the release in the Gulf to affect gasoline prices here in the U.S. in the short term, although the jury is still out on the long term. It is likely to accelerate the development of renewable energy here as well. One thing to remember on this topic is that using its most optimistic forecast, renewable energy will only be a minor player in fulfilling our energy needs for a long, long time. We should be developing it aggressively but we will still be an oil and gas based economy for our lifetimes.
One observation of interest on the technology front is that ABB was the only technology sponsor. While there can be many reasons for this, it is still useful information in that it makes a statement on which technology companies are emphasizing this industry the most. The provided link for ABB is to their Oil & Gas industry portal. What impressed me is the depth of their offerings in this area. Before any Emerson or Honeywell bigots send me hate mail I acknowledge that these companies have offerings in this field as well. However, as the provided links show, the marketing messages for both Honeywell and Emerson don’t seem to be as evolved as ABB’s story. Personally, I find that a little surprising.
The ABB site also references integrated operations. That is the name I first heard from the Statoil people. I still think that the phrase “digital energy” is sexier but “integrated operations” is probably more descriptive. If you dig down further on their site, their main reference on this topic is, you guessed it, Statoil. I know from experience in a former life that Statoil is a major player in the effort to further evolve the production management of surface operations. Their story is more evolved as well. I will focus on Statoil in a future post.
Our Reliant Energy presenter spoke on increased levels of innovation we should be seeing from their industry. His comments were in the context NRG Energy (their parent company), wind energy and smart metering. Those are all valid sources of innovation. For me the most interesting point was that Texas is a larger wind energy producer than California. Both states have desserts providing uplift and inducing consistent winds. I guess our dessert is bigger than their dessert.
In conclusion, I suppose my major take-aways from this meeting were that the release in the Gulf will have a long term impact not only environmentally but on the commercial decisions of the entire industry. This will result in a shift in focus to more on-shore development and renewable energy sources. In this sense, it seems to me that this incident in the Gulf of Mexico is similar in effect to a war. Both examples are horrible in their short term impact but spin off innovations that are beneficial in the long term, but both are to be avoided at all costs if possible. We can get motivated to innovate other ways.
As usual, thanks for stopping by.
