The world is now experiencing unprecedented extreme weather events resulting from global warming – heat waves, floods, wildfires and intense typhoons. It is a clear warning sign that we should act now to move into a low-carbon future. In response to this global warming effects, 136 countries have pledged to net-zero emissions target in alignment with the COP 26 commitment.

Each year, more than 35 KMTCO2e of greenhouse gas (GHG) generated from manufacturing activities; amongst those, 42% is from oil and gas, with 9% coming from oil and gas operations (under scope 1 and 2).  To address this issue, oil and gas companies have started to articulate ambitious targets to reduce GHG emissions from their operations and move towards carbon neutrality and net zero-emissions to improve resiliency and sustainability.  These targets are challenging and will require oil and gas companies to turn these ambitions into actions through the concept of "Avoid-Mitigate-Offset". However, this is not an easy task as many inherent complexities are associated with the industry's decarbonisation, such as technology availability, elevated abatement costs, geographical complication, lack of monetary funds, and limited regulatory support. This also includes the unclear carbon credit schemes, which are insufficient to support decarbonisation costs by producers, and a limited platform to support the offsetting pathways of consumers.

Despite those complexities, oil and gas companies must maximise the use of all available technologies and continue to invest in technological innovation. Collaboration and synergy with companies within the value chain or adjacent business segments can provide win-win solutions to address residue emissions. There is no single technology that can provide the ideal solution; a mixture of various technologies ranging from renewable energy, methane emission reduction, gas flaring and venting, CCUS, and future technologies such as hydrogen and hydrogen fusion, is necessary to effectively contribute to decarbonisation and our net-zero aspiration.

Given the economics and technical challenges for decarbonisation, we believe that starting now - without delay - will lead to a better outcome for the industry, in preparation for the energy transition.

This panel session aims to discuss the strategic directions and critical drivers towards carbon neutrality, including net-zero, complemented with practical implementations in emission reduction projects.