Natural Resources Forum

This Forum examined how quickly the transition from ‘fill-up to plug-in’ could occur and what impact it will have on the entire value chain.

Deep disruption is being felt across the global automotive sector with implications for the entire value chain. Volvo announced that all its new cars would be electric or hybrid from 2019.

Britain and France pledged to ban sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2040. Energy companies and their investors are facing huge strategic dilemmas with hundreds of billions of dollars of capital hanging in the balance. For all the looming risks, oil and gas together still account for 72 percent of energy used for transportation worldwide.

Companies and investors across the sector must ask themselves: How quickly will the transition from ‘fill-up to plug-in’ occur and how will this affect the entire value chain?

Topics covered:

• The electricity grid: Enabler or bottleneck?
• Can miners meet the challenge for demand in Lithium? Cobalt? Phosphate? Rare Earths?
• Will a global shortage of batteries keep the price of electric cars high for the time being?
• Could electric cars ever cut the world’s thirst for oil enough to depress crude prices significantly?
• What is needed to ensure a breakthrough at scale for EVs?
• Will the growth of EV’s undo the political efforts to tackle climate change?
• How will storage technologies change the rules of the game?
• Who will win the battle between electric vehicles and hydrogen fuelled cars?
• How can the oil & gas industry commit substantial capital with a multiyear view deal with this uncertainty?
• Will predictions of a decline in oil demand leave producers with stranded assets?
• How will the business model of the “super majors” be disrupted? Is their structure viable in the longer term?
• Which elements of the value chain will go the way of the horse and cart? And how quickly?