The Energy Podcast

Title: Shell The Energy Podcast: Episode Six – The role of oil in the energy mix: today and in the future

Duration: 20:22

Description: Oil is the source of about 30% of the world's energy today. It’s also the basis of ingredients in many everyday products - from your phone to clothes to medicines. Featuring Shell's President of Upstream, Peter Costello, this episode of The Energy Podcast explores the evolving role of oil in the energy mix.

Peter discusses the future of oil in the energy transition, the impact of growing energy demand, and the need to continue investing in production that’s cost- and carbon-competitive to help provide the energy the world needs today. 

The Energy Podcast Episode Six – Accessibility Transcript

[Background music]

Up-tempo music

[Text displays]

Coming up

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Opens with Peter Costello, President, Upstream, Shell, sat in a yellow chair with a large microphone in front of him. There is a white microphone ‘logo’ in top right-hand corner of screen which remains throughout the video.

Peter:

Oil today plays a significant role in energy and in products that we have. So, really, a fundamental part of our daily lives. Just about everything in this room has an origination in oil. The smartphone that you have, if you have one, or the tablet that you have. That wouldn't exist today without oil. Shell, and the industry, as we develop those alternative energy systems, we need to responsibly deliver the energy that we have and need today.

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Cuts to ‘The Energy Podcast from Shell’ title sting

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Transitions to shot of Bryony and Eddie sat in yellow chairs in an interview/podcast setting. The camera switches often between them.

Bryony:

Hi and welcome to The Energy Podcast from Shell, the home of conversation about the energy that powers our world. I’m Bryony…

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Bryony (with a white arrow pointing to her)

Eddie:

And I'm Eddie. 

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Eddie (with a white arrow pointing at him)

Bryony:

And I have a question for you.

Eddie:

Okay. 

Bryony:

Right off the top.

[Text displays]

Subscribe now (with white arrow pointing to bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Bryony:

What connects how planes, ships and cars move, as well as clothes, medicines and your shoes.

Eddie:

Planes, ships, cars…

Bryony:

Yep.

Eddie:

… clothes, medicine and my shoes.

Bryony:

Medicines and your shoes.

Eddie:

They all have the letter S in them.

Bryony:

No, that's not the right answer. The right answer is actually oil. So, oil is the source of about 30% of the world's energy today. And, as I've just pointed out, the basis of ingredients for lots and lots of everyday products. And it's the topic of our conversation today. it's a fossil fuel that’s still at the heart of how the world works today, but it's also a part of the world that's transitioning towards net-zero emissions, of course.

[Text displays]

Share your questions and comments: @Shell

(LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram logos also appear underneath this)

Bryony:

So, today we're asking what the role of oil is right now and what oil's role could potentially be in the future, as well. And, of course, what that means for an energy company like Shell.

Eddie:

I'm glad that you're not asking me those questions, but we've got a guest that's well-positioned to answer them.

Bryony:

We do. And I'm delighted to say that we'll be joined by Shell's President of Upstream, Peter Costello.

Eddie:

Can't wait. And not only that, the bonus segment that we tried last time returns.

Bryony:

It does. But first, a quick reminder that when we say “Shell” or “we”, we're talking about Shell plc and its subsidiaries, in general. The companies in which Shell plc directly and indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities.

Eddie:

Let's get to it. 

Bryony:

Let's do it.

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Transitions to The Energy Podcast title sting before returning to Eddie and Bryony with Peter Costello. The video will cut between them multiple times.

Bryony:

Peter, thanks so much for joining us today. So, you’re Shell's President of Upstream. For people who may not know, tell us what Upstream is, what you do as President of Upstream and, also, I'm intrigued, really, to hear how you got there.

Peter:

Good to be with you.

[Name strap]

Peter Costello,

President, Upstream, Shell

Peter:

So, President of Upstream is a privileged role to have. And, from a business perspective, I look after our deep water and conventional oil and gas business, as well as providing technical support to our integrated gas business. In terms of what it covers, everything from exploration, drilling, subsurface development, to facilities offshore and onshore, to producing oil and gas that gets sold to markets. That's it, in a very simple term, what Upstream is.

Bryony:

And how did you get there?

Peter:

Oh, that's a long story and it started a long time ago. So, I actually started as an operations technician in engineering. I was fascinated by big stuff, complicated stuff. And, from there, it was hands-on. And then I decided maybe I can do better as a manager and just had the privilege of going from opportunity to opportunity ever since then.

Eddie:

You mentioned Upstream and the oil that we produce. Maybe we start there and you talk to us about oil's place in the current energy mix.

Peter:

Yeah, that's a great question. So, oil today plays a significant role in energy and in products that we have. If you go back to, let’s say, the 1970s, oil was around about 50% of the energy mix. Today, it’s 30%, approximately. But it's 30% of a bigger number. So, if you look at oil, it's pretty much still growing and will plateau at some point, but plays an important role in the lives that we live today. And looking forward into growth, energy demand growth, that comes from population and prosperity. So, it provides energy and products. And products are everything you can probably see in this room, actually. Oil's got a part to play in it. So, really, a fundamental part of our daily lives.

Bryony:

And what's driving… You mentioned, sort of, you touched upon the trends there. What’s driving those trends around oil?

Peter:

Population and prosperity are the two headings that I would use. If you look at prosperity, around about a third of the population today, over the next 25 years, are going to embrace a higher lifestyle. That comes from people taking their first flights, driving their first car and products that we all use on a daily basis that are a part of a higher income lifestyle that goes with it. Even if you consider in Asia there's approximately 350 million people that don't have access to reliable energy today. So, you know, it goes into providing lives and livelihoods to them, as well.

Eddie:

So, outside of that growth, can you maybe break down where oil is currently used right now in the economy?

Peter:

One, the backbone would be in transportation, particularly when it comes to aviation, shipping, but obviously of cars and industry, as well. And then the other is in petrochemicals and what that produces, which are the products that you see in this room, that are part of everything we use on a day-by-day basis. And that's where there's a large area of growth in products, which links to what I said earlier about the prosperity side of things.

Bryony: 

If you look at the geography of oil use today, the countries and regions. You mentioned Asia. What does that look like today?

Peter:

If you look at the two big usages, countries, that would be the US and China, but you also look at advanced economies like Europe and Japan, they pretty much have a flat plateauing of oil demand. But growth comes in places like Asia and, specifically, India.

Eddie:

So, Peter, we've talked about where we are, right now, with oil. Can you maybe speak to where we're going with oil and what the future of that demand looks like?

Peter:

Well, oil, today and into the decades ahead, plays a fundamental part in the energy mix. In terms of, you know, how long, how far, that's… different debates are out there, different forecasts are out there. But certainly, if you take our Energy Securities Scenario, you can see oil demand increasing to the end of the decade and then probably levelling off and then tailing off into the decades ahead.

Bryony:

And when we say “Scenarios”, they're not expressions of Shell’s strategy and they're not Shell's business plan, but they are one of the inputs used by Shell to stretch thinking, whilst making decisions.

Peter:

The IEA…

Bryony:

international Energy Agency.

Peter:

If you look at their view, they also have a similar growth path to 2030, and then plateauing and then declining. But, directionally, I think you can see how it fundamentally will play a part and a critical role. The IEA, their recent forecast, shows 105.5 million barrels of oil a day is a plateau. And then falling away. That's about a 2.5 million barrels a day increase. If you look and consider that there's approximately about a billion people today that are still in energy poverty. That's without looking at a third of people moving through an increase in enhanced lifestyles. So that's where demand is coming from. So, where you see plateauing today is not the same as where you will see growth. Some countries will have demand that's flat and others will have it that's growing. Like I mentioned earlier, India could approximately see a million barrels of oil a day increase by 2030.

Eddie: 

But I think something that's important there is, as it grows to the end of the decade and then starts to fall off, what we mean there is a gradual tapering, but still a material part of the energy balance, right? Not a ‘falls off the cliff, goes away’? 

Peter:

No, absolutely right. if you looked at alternative energies, such as renewables and so forth, they are not substituting oil today. They're in addition to, as we try and keep up with energy demand. And when you look through the energy transition, it's important that it's balanced, and a just transition for everyone.

Bryony:

So, I'm actually surprised that we haven't already mentioned the word electrification because usually, when we talk to our guests, electrification comes up a lot sooner. But tell us, what part is electrification playing in that decline in oil demand growth?

Peter:

The biggest would be electric vehicles. That plays the biggest part…

Bryony:

Because transportation is …

Peter:

Yeah. 

Bryony:

Yeah, as you said at the beginning.

Peter:

And predominately in cars today. Harder to do with trucks and shipping and aviation. But for, you know, ordinary cars, that's where you see, you know, most of the electrification demand coming.

Eddie:

Peter, let's look ahead just a little bit further till 2050, in the context of a world that's transitioning to a net-zero future. What's oil's role in the energy balance?

Peter:

Well, oil will still play a critical role in the energy mix, we see in all Scenarios, at 2050. What's important is, you know, the responsibility that comes with delivering that oil. And that comes from how we look at the carbon abatement and carbon efficiency to develop it in a responsible way. And when I talk about efficiency, that means, you know, how we design, how we operate, and even through to, then, abatement options such as carbon capture storage, in a way that reduces the intensity and emissions that come from oil. Whilst, in parallel, we need to develop the energy systems of tomorrow. So, in essence, industries, such as Shell's, we have a twin role: Responsibly delivering the energy of today, whilst delivering the energy of tomorrow, in coordination with public policy, technology, carbon markets.

[Text displays]

Share your questions and comments: @Shell

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Eddie:

Thanks, Peter. So, so far we've covered the role of oil today. And we've looked at what the future could look like. And, in a moment we're going to talk about some of the challenges that could arise.

Bryony:

But before we do that, we're going to have a change of pace, which we like to do with our guests to effectively use you as a human search engine for quite a lot of the questions, queries that we get asked.

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The Energy Podcast - wipe. Then transitions back to Bryony and Eddie in their chairs. The camera cuts between them multiple times, and cuts to Peter for his responses to their questions.

Bryony:

Why don't you kick us off?

Eddie:

Yeah, let's do it. So, I'll start with the first one, and then we'll just jump back and forth and just give us a fact or fiction for these, so… All oil barrels are the same.

Peter:

That’s fiction. Barrels differ in a couple of ways. One, their physical components, as to what makes up a barrel of oil. So, you have light, you have sweet. That goes to the how… what the fluid composition is of a barrel of oil. And secondly, the value of a barrel of oil. They're all valuable, but some are more valuable than others.

Bryony:

There's more than one oil price. Fact or fiction?

Peter:

True. We have Brent and then we have West Texas Intermediate. That's two examples of oil price.

Eddie:

There's nothing in this room made of oil.

Peter:

Absolute fiction. Just about everything in this room has an origination in oil. Everything. The smartphone that you have, if you have one, or the tablet that you have. That wouldn't exist today without oil.

Eddie:

The pen in my hand?

Peter:

Oil. The clothes you have: Oil. Your shoes, for sure. I'm not sure what trousers you have, but yeah, it's most… most… more than you think comes from oil.

Bryony:

So, maybe everything apart from socks, basically.

Peter:

No, socks could have oil, it depends on what type of socks you’ve got.

Bryony:

Literally everything. Okay.

Eddie:

Now we know. 

Bryony:

Now we know. Okay, when oil prices go down, I still pay the same at the pump. Fact or fiction?

Peter:

Maybe. Now there's a… there's a number of points that go into that because price is made up of taxation in different countries. So, it's not just about the raw commodity, though how that comes out at the pump will depend on which country that you're in.

Eddie:

All the world's major exploration sites have been found.

Peter:

No. No. I mean, this is… When you look at big basins, such as the Gulf of America and Brazil, they just keep giving and, as technology moves, it opens up new horizons for future development. So, we've got a long way to go.

Bryony:

Well, you've kind of already answered this, but: Oil production is old school. There's no cutting edge technology involved in it today.

Peter:

That is so fiction. We have more technology and cool stuff in oil production than a lot of industries I can think of. I was actually speaking to a geophysicist graduate, and I asked her, you know, why she did it? And she goes: “Why would I want to do anything else other than play with cool technology and be part of shaping the world energy today and tomorrow?”

Bryony:

Good questions. Thanks, Peter. That was really interesting. 

Eddie:

It was. 

Bryony:

Should we get back to the main conversation?

Eddie:

Let's do it.

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The Energy Podcast - wipe. We return to Bryony and Eddie in their chairs. The camera cuts between them multiple times, and cuts to Peter for his responses to their questions.

Bryony:

We've talked about increasing demand for oil for a while, and then we talked about the plateau, as well. But existing oil fields typically decline. If we're going to meet this future demand, what does that decline in an oil field mean?

Peter:

Super question….

[Name strap]

Peter Costello,

President, Upstream, Shell

Peter:

So, decline. You're right, it is around about 5 million barrels of oil a day, natural decline, if you don't invest. And just to make that come alive, 5 million barrels equates to something like 3,000 return flights from New York to London every day. Enough to fuel 55 million cars a day. So, that's if you don't invest. So, the challenge, in terms of just to stay still without any growth, significant investment is required to maintain plateau, yet alone address any growth to it.

Bryony:

When you say investment, what do you mean by that? Because I think a person watching might say, well, how does an oil field decline?

Peter:

So, in terms of natural decline, natural reservoir properties mean that, as you produce, it naturally starts to reduce and, therefore, not as much comes out the wellbore as what it did.

Eddie:

Well, what if the industry just stopped investing? What happens then?

Peter:

If you stopped investing, you’ll have the good old supply / demand equation. So, you'd be in a situation where there's demand and not enough supply. When that generally happens, prices go up.

Bryony:

So, give us an example of that knock-on effect of that price increase for the person at home.

Peter:

You could see that flowing through from everything from fuel to energy home bills, through to products that you buy. Everything that's touched by oil would be affected by an increase in pricing. 

Eddie:

So, we need to invest. And you've painted the picture, to be pretty clear, on why we would need to do that. But there's so much turbulence in the industry, whether it be market prices going up and down, conflicts, trade tensions. How do you, how do we, how does Shell make those investments confidently?

Peter:

Yeah. What you’ve described, Eddie, is a very complex picture which is [the] reality of what we have today. But companies, such as ourselves, we look at the long term lifecycle view of investment. We look, sort of, on a way that takes us through the short term turbulence into the fundamentals of what investment thesis will generate an investment opportunity for us. Because resilience plays a part when you talk about cycles. And this is a cyclic commodity. So, it's important for us to be able to have a sustainable business through the cycles, over the lifecycle of an investment.

Bryony:

So, you mentioned sustainability. And we know that oil offers security and reliability. But I think people would say: “Sustainability and oil, they don't go together, and oil does not deliver - cannot be delivered - sustainably”. What do you say to that?

Peter:

Well, I think it's important to focus on the criticality of net zero. And I think, as we develop oil through the decades that we have, we need to do that in a responsible way, so that we can bring growth and efficiency together. And, certainly in Shell, we have examples of how we do that. We look through the lens of cost competitiveness and carbon competitiveness. And examples of that would be in the Gulf of America, where we have our latest Whale facility, which was a replicant of a previous facility called Vito. 80, 85% replicant, but 30% less emissions intensity. The next facility coming is Sparta, which is a replicant of Whale, and that will have reduced carbon intensity again by having all electric, in terms of its facilities. So, it doesn't use fuel gas or anything to power itself. It's electric. As Shell, we set ourselves a target, from a baseline of 2016, to reduce our scope 1 and 2 emissions by 50%. And we're making good progress to that. We're already over 30% reduction from that. We also said that we will stop routine flaring in 2025. The World Bank’s target was 2030. We've achieved that, as well. And, in our products that we've produced since 2016, we've reduced the carbon intensity by 9%. So, this is what we mean about developing in a responsible way, in line with pursuit of net zero by 2050.

Bryony:

I think that the whole conversation has been a, kind of, lifting the lid, if you like, on Upstream. And I think it's been, I think it's been really valuable. But I think, to go back to you and your role, I didn't realise you've actually only been in the role for about six months. And I wonder from where you sit, obviously, in your new role as President, how you view the opportunities for a company like Shell, going forward?

Peter:

I see the role that we play in society today as critical, and how we impact lives and livelihoods is something we take seriously as a company. And I think the role of a company that’s Shell, and the industry, we need to work together in order to achieve net zero. But, at the same time as we develop those alternative energy systems, we need to responsibly deliver the energy that we have and need today.

Bryony:

Peter, thanks so much for joining us today.

Eddie:

Really appreciate it.

[Visuals]

The Energy Podcast - Epilogue wipe. Then transitions back to Bryony and Eddie in their chairs. The camera cuts between them multiple times.

Bryony:

Thanks to Peter, again, for joining us today. It was a really interesting chat, I thought.

Eddie:

Yeah, absolutely. I think that it was really interesting to hear what he had to say about as we bring on new barrels, making sure that they're not only cost competitive, but they're competitive from a carbon standpoint.

Bryony:

Yeah, it was really good to speak to him. Remember that you can also find Shell's cautionary note and references from today's episodes in the show notes below the episode.

Eddie:

Well, that's it for the podcast.

[Text displays]

Subscribe now (with white arrow pointing to bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Eddie:

Don't forget to like, subscribe and follow. And you can also watch us on YouTube. Thanks for watching.

Bryony:

See you next time.

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’The Energy Podcast from Shell‘ title sting

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A white background with black text appears, with the following wording:

Cautionary Note:

We mentioned 'Net Carbon Intensity' or NCI. It’s important to note that it includes our customers' carbon emissions associated with their use of the energy products we sell – something we don’t control.

We mentioned today that Shell has set a target to be a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050. Please note that Shell’s operating plan and outlook look ahead three years and ten years, respectively, and are updated annually. 

The outlook includes our Scope 1, Scope 2, and NCI targets over the next 10 years.

While Shell’s current operating plan and outlook don't reflect the 2050 target, as society progresses towards net zero, we expect our operating plan and outlook to follow suit. If society is not net zero in 2050, as of today, there would be significant risk that Shell may not meet this target.

We encourage you to read our full cautionary note on our website:

shell.com/disclaimer

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The Cautionary Note graphic animates into:

[Shell endboard with logo]

© SHELL INTERNATIONAL LIMITED 2025

Title: Shell The Energy Podcast: Episode Five - Keeping the world moving: shipping’s lead role in the energy system

Duration: 28:32

Description: How does the energy that powers lives move across the globe? In this episode, The Energy Podcast sets a course for the world of shipping with Karrie Trauth, Executive Vice President for Shipping and Maritime at Shell. She explains shipping’s vital, non-stop role as the backbone of today’s global energy system, connecting supply with demand across continents.

Discover how much of global trade and energy are moved by sea, the challenges of keeping energy supplies flowing, and how the shipping industry is tackling decarbonisation.

The Energy Podcast Episode Five – Accessibility Transcript

[Background music]

Up-tempo music

[Text displays]

Coming up

[Visuals]

Opens with single shot of Karrie Trauth, EVP for Shipping and Maritime at Shell. Karrie is seated in a yellow chair with large microphone in front of her. Throughout the podcast, we cut to single shots of the guest during various points in the conversation, along with a wider shot featuring both guest Karrie Trauth and hosts Bryony and Eddie. There is a white microphone ‘logo’ in top right-hand corner of screen which remains throughout video.

Karrie:

Most of what Shell does touches the water at some point. If you think about where oil and gas or any energy sources are produced, largely those aren't in the same location as the energies needed. The only way to get that natural gas from where it's produced to where it's needed is by ship. The biggest opportunity is to transform shipping into a true zero carbon, technology-driven backbone of the energy industry.

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Cuts to ‘The Energy Podcast from Shell’ title sting

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Transitions to shot of Bryony and Eddie sat in yellow chairs in an interview/podcast

setting. The camera switches often between them.

Bryony:

Welcome to The Energy Podcast, the home of conversation about the energy that powers our world.

Bryony:

I'm Bryony

[Text displays]

Bryony (with a white arrow pointing to her)

Eddie:

and I'm Eddie,

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Eddie (with a white arrow pointing at him)

Bryony:

and in our last podcast we explored how transport is evolving on the road, what that means for the way we live and travel. But today…

Eddie:

We're setting sail and we're headed out to sea.

Bryony:

And we are. Because the chances are that, whatever you've been up to today, some of the energy that you've used has come via sea on a ship.

[Text displays]

Subscribe now (with white arrow pointing to bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Eddie:

That's right. Bryony, the global energy system today simply wouldn't work without ships ferrying around the fuel that we use to power our lives, whether that be for fuelling your cars to heating your homes, powering your phones, or our whole communities.

Bryony:

It’s a massive, it's a vital and it's a non-stop operation, and it's the backbone to the global energy system. Yet, I think, very few of us probably spend much time thinking about it.

Eddie:

Not a tonne. But, if you are curious, there are websites where you can track the movements of all the big ships. I mean, for me, recently I just tracked a LNG tanker off of the coast of Singapore just to see what it was doing?

Bryony:

And what is it doing?

Eddie:

Nothing. It was floating.

Bryony:

Okay. But, for the rest of us,

[Text displays]

Share your questions and comments: @Shell

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Bryony:

today we're going to be looking at this crucial cog in the energy system, looking at how the energy is moved from where it's produced to where you need to use it, and the challenges that it poses, of course, and really where it's all going, the future of the system as well.

Bryony:

And our guest today I'm really excited about because she knows absolutely everything there is to know about this. We're going to be speaking to EVP for Shipping and Maritime at Shell, Karrie Trauth.

Eddie:

Oh and by the way, we've got a new segment coming up later.

Bryony:

Good. A little bit of fun along the way, so make sure you stick with us for that. But first, a quick reminder. When we say ‘Shell’ or ‘we’, we're talking about Shell plc and its subsidiaries, in general. The companies in which Shell plc directly and indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities.

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Transitions to The Energy Podcast title sting before returning to Eddie and Bryony with Karrie. The video will cut between them multiple times.

Bryony:

Welcome to The Energy Podcast, Karrie. It’s so good to have you here again, because this is the second time that you've been on. Thank you.

Karrie:

It's great to be back, Bryony. It's amazing to me that it's been five years since we last spoke.

Bryony:

Five whole years. I know, so much has happened. For people that didn't listen to the episode that you were on before, give us a snapshot of your role at Shell. How you have got to where you are. And I remember, from speaking to you before, that it's one of my favourite journeys. Yeah, tell us about it.

[Name strap]

Karrie Trauth

Executive Vice President for Shipping and Maritime at Shell

Karrie:

Yeah. Fantastic. Well, thanks. I started my career in the US Navy. I was in the first group of women to serve on combat ships at sea and that was kind of convenient because I had trained as a naval architect. So really, really interesting times. Served here in the Mediterranean and in the Adriatic. After my commitment in the Navy, I started doing design and construction of warships for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard, ending in running a small shipyard, building destroyers, stealth destroyers. It was re ally cool to design, construct and do innovation and new technology deployment in Navy ships. And then I came to Shell and I've been doing technology, innovation, design and shipping mostly around new fuels and decarbonisation, but for the last 13 years.

Bryony:

So interesting. Varied, exciting. I mean, there's so much to get into in today's episode as well, right?

Eddie:

Yeah. And, you know, when we talk about energy, oftentimes we talk about making it, producing it and then using it. But talk to us about shipping it and how that fits into the broader picture.

Karrie:

Well, it's kind of everything. Most of what Shell does touches the water at some point to exactly your question. We produce energy, we produce oil and gas in certain parts of the world, customers use it in other parts of the world. So, from the production point to the end use point, kind of the only way to move it is by ship. So, shipping is truly that integral part of our trading and overall business.

Bryony:

And who are the main actors in that system today?

Karrie:

The main actors are those that you think of. It's shipping companies, it’s ship owners, it's cargo owners. It's like Shell. It's those of us who charter or rent out the vessels for our use. But actually it's classification societies. It's people who set the rules for design of vessels, it's international organisations like the UN body, the International Maritime Organisation, it's insurance companies, it’s shipyards, it's the entire chain from the production right through to the use.

Bryony:

So, in terms of types of fuels, what are we talking about today? Are we still talking oil, LNG? Or are we talking about a broader mix of fuels?

Karrie:

Yeah. Well, of course, there's still oil and LNG being transported globally today. That's the vast majority of the energy product. Well, of course, when we say ‘oil’ we also mean refined products. You think about gasoline, or jet fuel, or all of the intermediate products and chemicals. But, more and more, we're seeing new products. We're seeing methanol being shipped, we're seeing liquid CO2 being shipped. We're seeing pilot ships of hydrogen moving hydrogen from Australia to Japan to prove that it can be done, but we're seeing biofuels as well. So, seeing just further and further a spread of the world's energy mix all being moved by ship.

Bryony:

And why is the system so critical to keeping energy flowing? I suppose it… it is… that’s what it does.

Karrie:

Yeah. It is what it does. But, if you think about where oil and gas or any energy sources are produced, largely those aren't in the same location as the energies needed. So, let's think about natural gas being produced in the Middle East and really being needed in the Far East, so being needed in Japan or Korea. The only way to get that natural gas from where it's produced to where it's needed is by ship, and it just forms the backbone of the entire energy system of the globe. And maybe as another point, we're talking energy security. We're talking energy access for parts of the world that don't have energy where they're living. But we're also talking about energy security, so that each of us knows that, even if there are disruptions and the energy that we rely on today can't get to us, there's another way around the globe for it to shift and be brought to life.

Eddie:

So, let's bring that to life for a second for our listeners. Say I'm somebody that's putting gas in my car or turning on power at my house to try to heat it up. How would that energy travel from different parts in the globe, like you just mentioned, to be able to get to them doing whatever they're doing?

Karrie:

Let's use a little imagination here. Oil is produced in North America. [EDDIE INTERJECTS]:

Eddie:

Okay But there's a refinery on the other side of the Atlantic that is designed and tuned to use that exact oil. So, that oil gets shipped across the Atlantic into the refinery where it's made into the component parts. It's made into diesel, it's made into gasoline, it's probably made into jet fuel as well, and distributed both in that end location, but also then exported back and, quite possibly, to you in the US. You also might think of a case - we talked about the natural gas, but maybe I'll play that a little bit more - natural gas being produced, so it’s… let's use the example of Australia to Japan.

Karrie:

Shell’s Prelude floating liquefaction system, which is a floating thing, not quite a ship but close, produces the gas from below the seabed, liquefies it, transfers it to a ship, the ship leaves from Prelude, sails to Japan, discharges that natural gas into big tanks in Japan, and then it's sent into the power generation systems. And so then electricity flows right through to turning on the lights in your house. 

Bryony:

Shipping moves such a huge share of the world's goods and the world's energy, I think around 80% of global trade, energy products make up a third of that. Do you think that we're overdependent on this whole system running smoothly?

[Name strap]

Karrie Trauth

Executive Vice President for Shipping and Maritime at Shell

Karrie:

I think the system that we have works pretty well. Now, if you're thinking, when you talk about smoothly you might be thinking about disruptions, you might be thinking about weather disruptions or geopolitical tensions or anything else that might disrupt. But let me take you back to the container ship that got stuck in the Suez Canal. I think all of us remember that. And maybe that was the first time for many people that they understood how goods moved around the world, because yes, in the US, I was waiting for bicycle parts and they may or may not have been on that ship, but it took a couple extra weeks.

Karrie:

Now, in terms of the things that you buy, everyday goods, that's probably not an issue to delay a couple of weeks. But, when you think about energy, we rely on the energy and we rely on the energy deliveries in a timely manner to power our lights and make our gasoline for our cars. But actually, the system is dynamic, and there's enough energy underway and moving around the globe at any point that if we have a disruption in the Suez Canal, or if we have a disruption from low water in the Panama Canal that happened between 2023 and 2024, you can redirect ships.

Karrie:

You can remove, reallocate the cargoes. And that's part of what Shell's Trading & Supply organisation is able to do with the huge reach that we have. If there's a disruption in shipping, we can simply move a cargo a different way. And I think that's a lot of what our customers rely on for energy security.

[Text displays]

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Bryony:

How soon do governments, businesses and, ultimately, consumers feel the impact of any disruption in the supply chain? And has that improved or changed? And is that different for energy and for traded goods?

Karrie:

I think we, we started feeling the impact of that blockage of the Suez Canal pretty quickly during Covid. But that was also acute because everyone was home, everyone had their computers and their television and they were watching. Now, it did lead to a bit of a backup in containers and ships coming into, say, the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, California. But, in general, the shipping industry is dynamic enough and the trading industries are dynamic enough, particularly for things that are commoditised, like oil, like natural gas, like bio- biofuels. Like all of the products that we're shipping today, they can simply be redirected.

Karrie:

So, if you were expecting a ship to come through, say, the Panama Canal, going from east to west and the Panama Canal waters were low and you had to wait some period of time to go through, if that disruption was going to be severe enough, you would simply reallocate cargoes that were already in the Pacific basin.

Eddie:

So, we've talked about physical disruptions, but as the industry moves so much on to being reliant on software and digital tools, how do we guard against cyberattacks or anything in that realm?

Karrie:

Taking effect in January of 2024, the international classification societies, these are the bodies that make the rules that ships have to follow, put in a cyber resilience requirement for new ships and for new offshore installations.

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Karrie:

So, anything that's been contracted since January 2024 has additional requirements for cyber resilience. But actually, when a ship’s in the middle of the ocean, we’re largely able to navigate - they've got the GPS on, of course they do - but we're largely able to navigate with the tools that seamen and sailors have navigated with for centuries. And, when we get near ports and near coastal waters, we rely on traditional navigation aids. Even with GPS, we navigate by what we can see on the radar and the lights that we see.

Karrie:

Shipping is a, in many ways, a really traditional industry and has tools to fall back on should there be an issue.

Eddie:

Okay. So, we've explored the challenge of keeping the global energy supplies flowing. And in a moment we're going to talk about what's next in the industry.

Bryony:

But, before that, we're going to have a change of gear, or the nautical version of a change of gear, which is?

Karrie:

We're going to put some more bells on.

Bryony:

Bells on.

Eddie:

And, Karrie, [we] want to use you as our own search engine, if you will.

Karrie:

Fabulous.

[Visuals]

Transitions to The Energy Podcast title sting before returning to Eddie and Bryony with Karrie.

Bryony:

I'll kick off. So, questions that people have searched. How do ships refuel at sea?

Karrie:

So, this is an interesting question because the only ships that really refuel at sea are military ships.

[Text Displays]

How do ships refuel at sea?

Karrie:

Now, you probably want to know about commercial ships, because that's what we've been talking about most of our time here. Typically, commercial ships refuel, or bunker, when they're in port. So, either at anchor, waiting to go into a port, or when they're in port alongside doing their cargo operations. In our case, discharging or loading fuel, but moving containers as well.

Eddie:

Okay. So, we bunker in port, but what happens when you're out at sea and you break down? Who do you call?

[Text Displays]

What Happens if a ship breaks down in the middle of the ocean?

Karrie:

For the ships that operate on Shell's business, if a ship breaks down on sea, I probably do get a phone call about it, although I might not be the one that comes and solves it. Actually, the crews on board, the engineers on board, are well trained to deal with just about any situation they might have.

Bryony:

Okay, DIY job, yeah. How fast does a cargo ship travel?

[Text Displays]

How fast does a cargo ship travel?

Karrie:

It depends on what kind of cargo ship you're talking about. If you're talking about something that's moving coastwise, or near shore, you might be going 12 knots, 14 knots. If you're talking about an LNG carrier crossing the ocean, or a container ship, you might very well be talking 18 to 20 knots.

Karrie:

If I say 20 knots, we're really talking 22, 23 miles an hour.

Bryony:

Okay.

Eddie:

So, when we talk about these ships, and I get that there's different sizes, but what's the smallest number of people that you normally need to operate one of them?

[Text Displays]

What’s the smallest crew needed to operate a modern cargo ship?

Karrie:

Typically, for an ocean going ship, you wouldn't go below about 12 or 14 people. You might find yourself as many as 25 or 30 people, depending on what the cargo is, what the mission of the ship is, what its operations are. There is a minimum requirement set by a U.N. body, the International Maritime Organisation, by type of ship, by operation. But an aircraft carrier? 5,000 people.

Bryony:

5,000!

Karrie:

5,000.

Eddie:

What’s the most amount of people that we have on a ship that we operate, because it's certainly not 5,000.

Karrie:

No, no, of course not. I think, of the ships that Shell crews, the largest number of people we have is about 27.

Eddie:

Learning so much.

Bryony:

I know. And is that on the biggest ship that Shell operates? Or what is the biggest ship that Shell operates?

[Text Displays]

What’s the biggest ship Shell operates?

Karrie:

The biggest ships that Shell operates are LNG carriers, so liquefied natural gas carriers. We have some that have as many as 266,000 cubic metres on them. And you're going to ask what that is in swimming pools or bathtubs. (BRYONY INTERJETS: I am] It's a really large number, but think of an American National Football League stadium, the pitch and the field area filled to a depth of 20 metres or 20 yards.

Eddie:

And so, if you wanted to be a captain of one of these ships, what would you have to do?

[Text Displays]

How do you become a captain in the shipping Industry?

Karrie:

Well, you'd start by going to school to be a mariner, to be a seafarer. Most seafaring nations have nautical colleges. So you train as a cadet, you do classroom studies, you go to sea, you get practical experience, you work your way up through multiple ranks, probably over about 10 to 15 years. And yeah, after you've stood chief officer as a qualified captain, then you get the opportunity to stand captain.

Bryony:

And what happens to a ship that goes into retirement, an old ship that has come to the end of its life. What happens to those?

[Text Displays]

What happens to old ships when they are retired?

Karrie:

So, a couple things happen. You can see ships will go to become museums, some get converted to hotels. Some get sunk to make reefs, intentionally sunk. But the vast majority of ships, when they get to the end of their useful life, are recycled. So, they're taken… they're sold, essentially for scrap, but the steel is disassembled, the components are all disassembled, and recycled and brought back to life, sometimes as new ships.

Eddie:

So, how do you get to name one of these really big ships?

Karrie:

So, typically… Well, let's start with Shell ships’ names. So, ships that Shell owns have, historically, been named after the Latin names of sea shells. Convention is that ships are often named after a woman who is important in some way to the owner of the ship.

Karrie:

We have many cases where Shell has been involved in the design and construction of ships, and we've named the ships after the women who've been involved in the project. 

Eddie:

Have you gone to name any ships?

Karrie:

I am the sponsor or godmother of the Cardissa, one of Shell ships named for a mollusc. it was Shell's first LNG bunker vessel and the first LNG bunker vessel ever to be contracted. So, I got the opportunity, because I'd been involved in the design and construction, to smash the bottle of champagne and wish the ship fair winds and following seas.

Bryony:

Eddie was clearly going to a place where he wanted a ship named after him.

Eddie:

100%.

Bryony:

That was his ulterior motive for that question.

Karrie:

There's the opportunity, I think. Eddie. Keep working in trading and start working with shipping and we might be able to get there.

Eddie:

Myself and a lot of our viewers have seen this, so we will be coming back to this, for sure.

Karrie:

Fabulous

Eddie:

Thanks Karrie. Let's consider this section officially chartered.

Karrie:

Thank you.

[Visuals]

Transitions to The Energy Podcast title sting before returning to Eddie and Bryony.

Bryony:

I think that was good. I think we should maybe try to replicate that in another episode.

Bryony:

Let's pick up where we left off. So, we've talked about security and and keeping shipping moving. But, like other hard to abate sectors, shipping is under growing pressure, of course, to reduce emissions and quickly, as well. So, the International Maritime Organisation's 2023 Greenhouse Gas Strategy sets a target to reduce the carbon intensity of international shipping by at least 40% by 2030. That seems like a big shift and a big ask. And what do you think it's going to take to get there?

[Name strap]

Karrie Trauth

Executive Vice President for Shipping and Maritime at Shell

Karrie:

Yeah, so I think it is a huge ask. The industry has been working on it for quite a number of years already. Over the last 10 years, new ships being contracted, ordered to be constructed, have been… become more and more efficient. Simply, the design of the hull, the design of the engines, the propellers, the bulbous bow. And this isn't the nerdy section we just went through, but the the design of the ships have gotten so much more efficient in the last 10 or 15 years, but it's going to take more of that energy efficiency in the design, energy efficient technologies, actually energy efficient operations, and the way we operate the vessels.

Karrie:

And I'll talk about that in a second. But those are the things one ship can do, or one company can do. It's also going to take collaboration right across the value chain. It's the ship owners, it's the shipyards, it's the charters, it's the operators, it's the regulator. And, indeed, in many ways, it's the end customer creating the demand to decarbonise because, in the end, there is a cost to abate the emissions from shipping. And that has to be borne right across the value chain.

Eddie:

So, you alluded to some of the solutions. but maybe can you talk a little bit more about some of the solutions that are currently being used, but then also maybe some of the exciting ones that are coming down the pipeline?

Karrie:

Yeah, absolutely. So, let's start with some that are currently being used… better paint systems or, as we call them, better coating systems, which allow the ship to move through the water more efficiently. Some of the more exciting ones that are being used now are things like wind-assisted technologies, whether that's foils or Flettner rotors.

Eddie:

So are you telling me we're going back to sailboats?

Karrie:

I probably wouldn't use the word ‘boat’, but I would say, yeah, part of what we're going to do is go back to sail. Shell had a ship with one of these Flettner rotors installed on it. It was on charter to us. There was enough thrust from this rotor to move the ship. This is a big ship. So, you can see that wind technologies are possible. But a lot of what we'll see is also digital. So there's digital technologies, understanding how the vessels are operating, making sure that we're using the engines at their most efficient, not using a bunch of engines inefficiently, but using a couple engines more efficiently.

Karrie:

And, actually, there are some designs out there that engine manufacturers, shipbuilders and, well, at least one that Shell's been involved in, that perhaps have the ability to go all the way from where we are today to zero on the same ship, upgrading over time, almost building blocks that you swap in and out.

Bryony:

What about things like green corridors? How realistic are they? What… explain what they are, probably, first of all

Karrie:

Yeah, green corridors. So, an interesting concept came out of COP26, in Glasgow to stimulate green shipping. But, of course, I said you need customer demand. Not only do you need customer demand, you need green energy supply in the ports at either end to be able to refuel, or bunker, ships. So, green corridors: Shell's been involved in one from Rotterdam to Singapore or Singapore to Rotterdam, depending on which side you say that from, since its very beginning, since those two ports are really our backyards. And we had the opportunity to supply biomethane into a trial shipment across that, and green corridors have the promise to be able to make these shipping lanes between pairs of ports for where you have ships doing the same run.

Bryony:

Right.

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Karrie:

Now, a lot of ships don't do the same run, and they move all around the world, and that's where you need all ports to be able to upskill. You need clean energy marine hubs, you need port and system thinking to be able to have the infrastructure.

Bryony:

Much bigger jigsaw. Yeah.

Karrie: 

Yeah. Maybe that leads me to building infrastructure out. So, LNG is a… the lowest carbon fuel available today at scale for shipping. And, over the years, Shell has built out LNG bunkering locations, 28 ports, 13 countries, 13 vessels with two more contracted to be under construction soon. So, you see, it takes time, even when there's the greener fuel in the port, to be able to build out the infrastructure.

Eddie:

I'm so glad you mentioned that because, unlike cars where some people can trade them out at a regular occurrence, I’d imagine that you're not turning through ships in the same time window.

Karrie:

No, you're certainly not. Maybe that's what made the, what we call the hybrid modular ship design, so interesting. Yeah, ships have useful lives of 20-plus years. And so the ships that we are designing and starting to build today will still be on the water near 2050. So, how do you, other than simply changing fuels, which is one possibility, LNG to bioLNG, other biofuels and perhaps even synthetic fuels, as we get close to the middle of the century, that's one way to decarbonise existing shipping. But another way is to design them to be modular and improve them over time.

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Eddie:

So, in those modular ships, and those ships that are currently at sea, can you talk about the opportunities to switch to maybe dual fuel solutions?

Karrie:

Yeah. So, for existing ships, it's very difficult to change fuel systems. You need to change the engines, you need to change the tanks, you might need to add additional tankage. Dual fuel is really a solution for ships that are being contracted now. For ships that are already in service, the options are fewer. That's where the additional energy efficient technologies, operational efficiencies, can be added. But there you're talking about fuel switching. You're very much talking about biofuels. You're very much talking about synthetic fuels.

Karrie:

I think it's worth adding here that, in the very near future, the International Maritime Organisation, will meet in an extraordinary session to consider the Net-zero Framework that was put in place last spring. The Net-zero Framework, and Shell supports this, sets the drive for industry to start to provide and produce those lower carbon and zero carbon fuels.

Karrie:

I think everyone knows that decarbonising shipping isn't a one player game. It really takes every player in the industry to change the system, from the ship owners, to the charterers, to the fuel manufacturers. And, actually, the fuel providers will see the incentive from the Net-zero Framework, if it is adopted they'll see the demand signal.

Bryony:

And the fuels that are being transported themselves, as they change, you know, a rising interest in things like hydrogen and ammonia, which I know you mentioned before, what impact does that have on shipping?

Karrie:

That's a really insightful question, actually, because ships burn the fuel that's available in ports today. So, as the energy mix that ships move starts to change, as we see more newer products, as we see ammonia, perhaps, moving hydrogen, or hydrogen moving itself around the globe, you will see then those products becoming available in ports, and then, from those, that's where you can begin to use those as bunker fuels. It's not an overnight switch. As we've seen with LNG, it takes some time to build out the structure, infrastructure, to build out the regulations to ensure that new fuels are safe, that we understand how to keep the women and men who are working on these ships safe. While they do it in the communities around.

Eddie:

I want to take a second to talk about autonomous shipping, and it's something that seems to be pretty far off, but is that something that you're monitoring, and how is that going to affect the broader seafaring population?

Karrie:

For years, probably decades, people have talked about autonomous shipping, I think probably not unlike people talking about autonomous cars. But ships are a little more difficult. You talked about breakdowns earlier. What if a ship breaks down in the middle of the ocean? Well, the reason we can get the ship moving again is because we have people on board.

Karrie:

So, I think truly autonomous ships are really very far in the future. But there are parts of autonomy that are already on the ships. 20 years ago, we had people working in the engine room 24 hours a day, just to make sure nothing went wrong, and they were there to monitor the systems. Well, now we have monitoring and most ships have unmanned engine rooms, and we still have the people on board so that, if something goes wrong, we can respond.

Karrie:

But their job has changed a bit and we see autonomous - autonomous or autonomic systems coming in, in ways that help the people augment the work that the seafarers do today.

Bryony:

So, we've talked about time, we talked about cost, security and decarbonisation, of keeping energy moving today and in the future. But I'd be interested to hear what you think the biggest challenge remains, the challenge that's still standing in the way of transforming energy shipping as an industry. And, of course, the biggest opportunity, as well, if we get this right.

Karrie:

The biggest challenge is truly achieving full decarbonisation while providing customers with the energy that they need, reliably, safely and efficiently. The biggest opportunity is to transform shipping into a true zero carbon, technology-driven backbone of the energy industry.

Bryony:

Karrie, thank you for joining us.

Eddie:

It's been a pleasure.

Karrie:

Thank you for having me. This is awesome.

[Visuals]

Transitions to The Energy Podcast title sting before returning to Eddie and Bryony

Bryony:

Thanks again to Karrie for joining us today. I thought that was such a good episode. I learnt, actually, quite a few things in that quickfire round, as well.

Eddie:

Oh, she's so smart. It was such a good episode. I really, really enjoyed it.

Bryony:

Remember today that you can find Shell’s cautionary note and the references from today's episode in the show notes below.

[Text displays]

Subscribe now (with white arrow pointing to bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Eddie:

Yep, and that's it for this episode of The Energy Podcast. Make sure that you like, follow, and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts, and remember that you can also watch us on YouTube. Thank you.

Bryony:

See you next time.

[Visuals]

’The Energy Podcast from Shell‘ title sting

[Shell endboard with logo]

© SHELL INTERNATIONAL LIMITED 2025

Title: Shell - The Energy Podcast Bonus Episode Four – From lab to F1 track: the science behind Scuderia Ferrari’s sustainable race fuel

Duration: 19:22

Description: In this bonus episode of The Energy Podcast, host Eddie is joined by Valeria Loreti, Principal Scientist and Delivery Manager in Motorsports at Shell, to explore the future of sustainable racing fuels for Formula 1 team Scuderia Ferrari HP.

Starting in 2026, all Formula 1 cars will need to run on fuel made from advanced sustainable components – including advanced biofuels derived from non-food biomass or household waste, and renewable fuels of non-biological origin – as part of the sport’s plan to reach net-zero emissions by 2030. A key member of the Shell team developing Scuderia Ferrari HP’s bespoke fuel for 2026, Valeria shares exclusive insights into the science and cutting-edge tools behind fuel development, what happens trackside on an F1 race weekend, and the 75 years of partnership with Ferrari – one of the most iconic collaborations in motorsport.

Whether you're a motorsports fan, a tech enthusiast, or curious about the future of racing, this episode is for you.

The Energy Podcast Bonus Episode Four – Accessibility Transcript

[Background music]

Up-tempo music

[Text displays]

Coming up

[Visuals]

Opens with Valeria Loreti, Principal Scientist and Delivery Manager in Motorsports at Shell, seated in a yellow chair with a large microphone positioned in front of her. There is a white microphone ‘logo’ in top right-hand corner of screen which remains throughout the video. The video begins with a montage of soundbites from Valeria, taken from various points during today’s episode.

Valeria:

2026 is going to be a big milestone for regulations in the Formula 1 World Championship.

The molecules that are going to be fuelling all the cars will need to be derived from advanced, sustainable feedstocks.

The advanced sustainable fuel is something very special.

[Visuals]

Cuts to ‘The Energy Podcast from Shell’ title sting

[Visuals]

Transitions to single shot of Eddie sat in a yellow chair with a microphone positioned in front of him. The single shot of Eddie sometimes varies – including a more ‘in profile’ single shot, as well as a closer single shot of him facing the camera.

Eddie:

Welcome to this bonus episode of The Energy Podcast. I’m Eddie Veal.

[Text displays]

Eddie (with a white arrow pointing at him)

Eddie:

On our last episode…

[Text displays]

Subscribe now (with white arrow pointing to bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Eddie:

… we explored the global challenges of decarbonising road transportation, in particular passenger cars. On today’s episode, we’re leaving the road behind for the racetrack and heading into the exciting world of Formula 1.

For the 2026 season, all F1 teams will utilise advanced sustainable race fuels, part of F1's mission to reach net-zero emissions by 2030. To help meet that goal, Shell and Scuderia Ferrari HP are developing an advanced sustainable race fuel tailored specifically to Scuderia Ferrari HP’s engine. It is the latest chapter in an innovation partnership that celebrates its 75th anniversary, one of the most exciting collaborations in motorsport history.

Joining me today is Valeria Loreti, a Principal Scientist for Shell and one of the key people behind the race fuel that will power Scuderia Ferrari HP into the 2026 season. But first, a quick note. When we say “Shell” or “we” we're talking about Shell plc and its subsidiaries, in general. The companies in which Shell plc directly and indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities. Let's get to it.

[Visuals]

Transitions to The Energy Podcast title sting before returning to Eddie with Valeria. The video will cut between single shots of Eddie and Valeria multiple times throughout the episode, plus we also regularly cut to a wider shot of The Energy Podcast studio, where we see Valeria seated on the left and Eddie seated on the right, both facing each other as they engage in conversation.

Eddie:

Valeria, welcome to The Energy Podcast. And, before we get to the science behind what you do, can you tell us a little bit about your job and how you got there?

[Name strap]

Valeria Loreti, 

Principal Scientist and Delivery Manager in Motorsports, Shell

Valeria:

Absolutely. Thanks for having me. And this is my first podcast, so I'll try to do my best.

Eddie:

Welcome.

Valeria:

I worked for Shell since 2005, I'm a PhD in chemistry by background. So, I developed a lot of skills in the area of differentiated fuels over the years, and that gave me the necessary knowledge to do the work as I'm doing now. Now, I'm a Delivery Manager in Motorsports, in Shell. So, also Principal Scientist in Motorsports. And my team specifically delivers all the operational and practical work on track. They blend and check the fuels, the oils and all the products that go to our motorsports partners.

Eddie:

So, maybe we start with the basics, for those who aren't familiar. A race fuel. What's different between a race fuel that you use in Scuderia Ferrari HP’s engines versus, maybe, a fuel that a normal person can go buy from a Shell station?

Valeria:

In Formula 1 racing, everything tries to deliver maximum performance and efficiency, including fluids. Especially race fuel is capable of delivering a lot of performance. And you can extract this performance by understanding what is the power unit appetite….

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Valeria:

… and what chemical and thermodynamical properties you can maximise, in order to extract that extra performance. So, this is actually what we're doing. We're understanding how molecules interact, how they burn, how fast or slow, how the energy’s released, within the conditions of the internal combustion engines that we're working with.

That is where things get very, very specific. And it is like when you go and buy a dress at a tailor. So, that will be fitting your body perfectly, and it is done just for you and around your body, in versus when you go and buy it in a retail store. So, this kind of optimisation is what delivers to Scuderia Ferrari HP the extra performance that we can, but not only performance because the fuel needs to perform, it needs to be efficient, it needs to last until the end of the race. And, from next year on, it also needs to be sustainable.

Eddie:

Valeria, just to clarify, each Formula 1 team runs on a different fuel, correct?

Valeria:

That's correct. So the fuel, as well as the race oil, are differentiated in performance. That is why each Scuderia Ferrari HP all exclusively use Shell fluids.

Eddie:

So, now let's talk about the advanced sustainable racing fuel that you've been working on. What is it?

Valeria:

So, next year, 2026, is going to be a big milestone for regulations in the Formula 1 World Championship. There will be big changes for the engines, but also for the race fuels. In terms of chemical and physical properties, this is not going to be massively different from what we have today. Parameters like density or octane numbers, the energy content. They may or less… more or less will all stay the same. On the other hand, the molecules that are going to be fuelling all the cars in the Formula 1 championship will need to be derived from advanced, sustainable feedstocks.

[Text displays]

According to Formula 1 regulations for 2026, advanced sustainable feedstocks can include advanced biofuels derived from non-food biomass or household waste, and renewable fuels of non-biological origin.

Valeria:

That means that anything which is derived from crude oil is banned from regulation. And we use the time until the start of next season to identify, for example, what molecules were available, what molecules were missing, what do we need, and what kind of mixtures we have to balance out from a range of different feedstocks, in order to still deliver Scuderia Ferrari HP with the highest performance, highest efficiency and also the sustainability which is needed.

Eddie:

So, I really appreciate you talking us a little bit through the process, but I'll acknowledge that myself and most of our viewers have never seen a lab like the one that you work in. Could you maybe talk us a little bit more through the process, and what you go through in your lab every day to develop this advanced, sustainable racing fuel?

Valeria:

It’s not only what happens in the lab. That was possibly, until this new regulation change, where the chemists had, you know, to blend the right ingredients and make the right tests to understand the performance. To do that, we have also developed an algorithm - so, a digital simulation tool - that helps us understanding what are the performance outputs of fuels, based on their different composition.

This is delivering you, you know, the performance of the overall blend. And we can extract out of a cloud of more than 1 million simulations, really, the best candidates. Those candidates go to Maranello, Ferrari will test them, and then we will start again to try to improve it even further. But this is, kind of, the end of the process for the advanced sustainable fuel for next year, because we have to really go back to the feedstocks.

[Text displays]

According to Formula 1 regulations for 2026, advanced sustainable feedstocks can include advanced biofuels derived from non-food biomass or household waste, and renewable fuels of non-biological origin.

Valeria:

Where are the molecules processed and synthesised from? So, this is where Shell, as a corporate, really is a great partner, because we have that knowledge from our colleagues in manufacturing, in trading and supply. We do have the partnership with Raízen, so we do have access to very advanced technologies that are capable, you know, to extract the molecules and refine them and produce those chemicals that we really need to deliver performance from the advanced sustainable feedstocks. So, this knowledge that is within the Shell corporate is really supporting all the overall process of making performing fuels for 2026.

Eddie:

And for the audience that doesn't know, Raízen is a Shell joint venture in Brazil, one of the world's largest bioethanol producers. So, V, we were talking off camera a little bit, and I think you made some really interesting points that I want to bring back for our audience. So, what you were saying was around the regulations being frozen in ‘22 provided some interesting opportunities to develop new paths for fuels for 2026.

Valeria:

Yes, the regulation over the last four years has been frozen. So, there was a mindset change in how we develop fuel. If you go back before 2020, we used to have the opportunity to improve during the season. So, within one year, we could bring two or three different fuel formulations in the Formula 1 Championship. They were working like the development packages you always hear about, nowadays. Then, the regulation has changed. And, for the fuel that we are launching in 2026, we had the time to work on it from the beginning of 2022. So, we had a four years time, that gives you, obviously, a much larger opportunity not only to scout what is on the market, what needs to be made anew, what are we missing, what are our aspirations, but also to find new partners, joint ventures, use the internal resources in the best way possible and also to grab those opportunities that are high risk, but also high performance.

If you have a very short timeframe to develop something in Formula 1, you always go for something that is safe. You want to deliver your partners at least a couple of horsepowers. But, if you have more time, you can have, you know, multiple workstreams, have the safe plan that delivers little improvement. But also you have the high risk plan that, if it works, it delivers a lot of improvement. Never forget, motorsport in Shell is an R&D area. So, we are doing research and development. That means that we are trying to push the boundaries, explore new molecules, pick up the new things that were never tested before. The big advantage we have is that we have a very fast feedback test run at a super speed. The conditions are really harsh, so everything that works in that environment we know, for sure, it will work in any other condition. So, the knowledge that we extract from the partnership, from the work we do on track, is an incredible value for Shell and for fuel scientists developing new generations of Shell V-Powers.

Eddie:

So, V, essentially no crude oil in these new fuels, these advanced sustainable race fuels. They seem very different than the current F1 fuels, no?

Valeria:

Yeah, that's the point.

[Name strap]

Valeria Loreti, 

Principal Scientist and Delivery Manager in Motorsports, Shell

Valeria:

Formula 1 has always been the pinnacle of motorsports. They have always, you know, developed new technologies and new features that were going beyond the, kind of, technology that was present on the road. They've always been pushing the boundaries of innovation. And this applies not only to engines or cars, but also to fuels and lubricants done for racing. So, what we are looking [for] is something like a little bit in the future of what could be potential elements that come into mobility fuels.

Eddie:

So, these advanced sustainable race fuels, they're sustainable, but is the performance in any way compromised?

Valeria:

Oh no, absolutely not. If I want to keep my job, we still need to deliver the same performance, if probably even better, to Scuderia Ferrari HP. You cannot really compare the performance of the today fuel with the one of tomorrow, because the kind of conditions where the fuel is going to need to work are different. So, the power unit next year is going to be basically different from what we have today. Just as an example, the electric part of the hybrid engine will deliver 50% of the power output, where today it only delivers 25%.

So, how the blend is going to be optimised is going to be different. And then, obviously, where the components come from, the feedstocks, the processes, the supply chain, that is going to be all on a different level and it's going to be monitored and it's going to be part of the compliance and regulations that we achieve a mandatory greenhouse gas savings.

Eddie:

Shell and Ferrari have worked together for decades. Can you talk to us what that collaboration looks like when it comes to developing a race fuel like this?

Valeria:

For Shell, partnership in motorsport is something very valuable. We have the opportunity to work in close teams, with the engineers of great brands, of great companies, and learn from them how to design our fuel to fulfil a precise scope. Especially motorsport, where [what] we want to achieve is performance and efficiency. And we have the opportunity to create teams that work day in, day out, between our experts and our partners’ experts. In the case of Scuderia Ferrari HP, we work on a daily basis with the engineers in Maranello. They run the test, they let us know where the development of their power unit is going to head in, and that helps us, you know, understanding how to formulate fuels and oils for that power unit.

All the learnings that we can take by, you know, experimenting with new components, trying to understand some new basics, how the combustion chemistry under this condition works, and extracting learnings out of that, is really fundamental for us to feed into our teams that develop products for our customers worldwide. That is where we really extract the value. Motorsports is, for us, an innovation laboratory, fast-moving under harsh conditions, where we can learn a lot of elements that we can then cascade into our Shell V-Powers.

Eddie:

I think that that's really fascinating, right? It's a laboratory where you've got fast moving things that we can develop and do our R&D around moving into our customer base. Motorsport has traditionally been a really good test case for that, right? You've got things like the rear-view mirror that have gone from race cars into the production cars. Are there any learnings that we've developed from these advanced sustainable race fuels that will make it into the consumer gasoline?

Valeria:

That is still too early, too early days. So, you have to understand that the fuel, the advanced sustainable fuel, that we are bringing into, in season 2026, is something very special…

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Valeria:

… that uses limited volume, is blended especially for Scuderia Ferrari HP and in use in Formula 1. What we can take out of this, especially in the process of making it in the, kind of, technologies we have explored, we have understood how these can be scaled up, what is the potential, the future potential, to make these technologies on a commercial basis. And these learnings will feed into the knowledge that we have on low carbon fuels. Of course, if you look at the future, there will not be a silver bullet, so there will be a mosaic of different energy carriers, different blending components, different elements that will feed into our mobility. But what I know is that what we have explored over the last four years will definitely feed into the knowledge and the learnings that we need to develop better fuels for our customers also during the energy transition, also for the future of mobility.

Eddie:
Speaking of collaboration, as someone who's a really big F1 fan and understands that you're headed to a Grand Prix after this, can you maybe talk to us about what happens from a collaboration standpoint on track?

Valeria:

Part of our partnership is really to bring the collaboration to life on track. We have at least two Shell scientists taking part in every single race, and we use a small, mobile laboratory, which is like a mini container, fully equipped as a chemistry lab. There we can run the analysis on all the fluids that go into Scuderia Ferrari HP cars. So, my team usually travels with a Scuderia Ferrari HP team, they build up the track lab and make sure everything is up and running, calibrated and working perfectly, on the Wednesday and the Thursday, and then we start taking samples. For example, we analyse race fuels for their compliance, in order to minimise any risk of contamination. And, if we find out something which is not exactly as it should be, we make sure that the mechanics and the engineers are informed and they can take action and we can help them, you know, to eliminate this source of contamination.

Another very important analysis is on engine oils. Race oils are giving us a lot of information. It’s like making a blood test for the engine. By regulations, the engineers cannot open the engine - they're sealed - and, therefore, by extracting information from what the engine oil tells them, they can add this amount of information to whatever other database they have and take critical decisions. The analyses that we do are on all the samples, before and after every time the engine is turned on, and every time the car hits the track. So, we end up in analysing more than 150 samples over every race weekend. From the race oils, we can understand, for example, how much heavy metals are inside and the amount of heavy metals is directly linked to the amount of wear.

So, we can get early signs for red flags, or just monitor how the engine lifetime is developing, how the health check is doing, and provide the engineers with critical information, for example, for them to decide if they want to change the power unit, if that is at the end of their life, or if they want to change anything around how they operate that.

Eddie:

V, this has just been a wonderfully fascinating conversation. As somebody who dreamed of having a job like yours when he was little, just thank you so much for that. And it's been really cool to cover all of the innovations that you talked about, right? Whether it's from the advanced sustainable race fuels that we’re developing for the 2026 season with Scuderia Ferrari HP, but then also the collaboration, how we work on track to be able to see what's going on with the engine and be able to give insights that maybe the engineers couldn't get without the partnership. Over the course of the 75 years, this is just one of the many exciting innovations that have come from this partnership. Do you have any highlights that come to mind from your side?

Valeria:

Well, 75 years is a long time and obviously we had a lot of milestones. The nicest one that comes to my mind is, for example, in 2005, we launched Shell V-Power with the Friction Modification Technology, which is a molecule capable of, you know, reducing friction in the critical parts of the engine where they are less lubricated. And this molecule has been first tested in… on the racetrack with Scuderia Ferrari HP. So, that was one of the few molecules that can [be] directly taken from the race fuel into the road fuel without any modification. But there are a lot of other examples, for example, also the fact that we use PurePlus Technology in our Shell Helix Ultra products, that is also something that we continuously use in race oils. So, there are a lot of elements and crossovers that overlap in both applications. And that is why it is so exciting to be a scientist in Formula 1.

Eddie:

So, just to be clear, when I'm putting Shell oils in my race car, I can say that there's a direct link between me and Formula 1. Is that what you're saying?

Valeria:

Yeah, somehow you can read it like this.

Eddie: 

Definitely using that on all my friends when I go back. (VALERIA LAUGHS) V, thank you so much for the time. It has been an absolute pleasure.

Valeria:

You're welcome. Thanks a lot.

[Visuals]

The Energy Podcast - Epilogue wipe. Then transitions back to Eddie in his yellow chair.

Eddie:

Thanks again to Valeria. It's been fascinating to see how Shell and Ferrari have been working together to innovate in motorsport. And thank you for joining this bonus episode of The Energy Podcast. If you haven't yet, check out our previous episode where we talk about decarbonising passenger cars. You'll find Shell's cautionary note in the show notes.

[Text displays]

Subscribe now (with white arrow pointing to bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Eddie:

The Energy Podcast is available wherever you get your podcasts. If you're enjoying it, follow, rate, share, and subscribe. Until next time.

[Visuals]

’The Energy Podcast from Shell‘ title sting

[Shell endboard with logo]

© SHELL INTERNATIONAL LIMITED 2025

Title: Shell The Energy Podcast: Episode Four – The future of road transport: Shell and BMW on emissions, EVs and innovation

Duration: 41:35

Description: The Energy Podcast explores the complex path to decarbonising road transport. From adoption of electric vehicles and biofuels to policy, infrastructure and consumer behaviour, this episode unpacks the challenges of reducing emissions of road travel and what it’ll take to progress further. We are joined by Patrick Carré, a Senior Vice President for Mobility and Convenience at Shell, and Dr. Thomas Becker, Vice President for Government Affairs and Sustainability at BMW Group.

Whether you're a car enthusiast, energy professional or just curious about the future of road transport, this episode offers timely insights into what it really takes to drive change.

The Energy Podcast Episode Four – Accessibility Transcript

[Background music]

Up-tempo music

[Text displays]

Coming up

[Visuals]

Opens with Patrick Carré, Senior Vice President Mobility & Convenience, Europe & South Africa, Shell, sat on the left of screen, and Dr Thomas Becker, Vice President Government Affairs and Sustainability, BMW Group, sat on the right of screen. Both are seated in yellow chairs with large microphones in front of them. Throughout the podcast, we cut to single shots of each guest during various points in the conversation, and also see them on screen in this ‘two shot’, along with a wider shot featuring guests Patrick and Thomas, and hosts Bryony and Eddie. There is a white microphone ‘logo’ in top right-hand corner of screen which remains throughout video.

Patrick:

If we're serious about decarbonising, we cannot ignore transport.

Thomas:

What I think needs to change is to, indeed, accept the complexity of the mobility system, to resist the temptation to say we can repair this with just one screwdriver. We will need a toolbox with more than one instrument, in order to do the job that, indeed, needs to be done.

[Visuals]

Cuts to ‘The Energy Podcast from Shell’ title sting

[Visuals]

Transitions to shot of Bryony and Eddie sat in yellow chairs in an interview/podcast setting. The camera switches often between them.

Bryony:

Hello and welcome back to The Energy Podcast from Shell….

[Text displays]

Subscribe now (with white arrow pointing to bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Bryony:

… the home of conversation about the energy that powers our world. I'm Bryony Mackenzie…

[Text displays]

Bryony (with a white arrow pointing to her)

Eddie:

… and I'm Eddie Veal.

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Eddie (with a white arrow pointing at him)

Eddie:

And Bryony, question for you:

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Eddie:

If you had to, would you rather drive your car or take the subway?

Bryony:

It's a good question. I think it depends on the trip, right. If I was coming to work, I’d get the train. If I was traveling around London, I'd get on the tube, not the subway. Get on the tube…

Eddie:

My bad.

Bryony:

… because that’s what we have here, yeah. And if I was at home, because I live in the countryside, I'd probably use my car, as well. But I know why you're asking me that because, today on the podcast, we're going to be talking about decarbonisation of road transport, really. But I know that you love cars, don't you? So, car for you, definitely.

Eddie:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I love to drive. I did a lot when I was in the US. I haven't done it as much here, but I do enjoy public transportation. It is quite nice. But, for me and so many other people, driving is a way of life, whether it's driving to the grocery store, to work, or commuting to someplace locally. There's a fun fact: There's more than 1.3 billion - with a ‘b’ - cars on the road today. That's more than the population of the US, the EU and Japan combined.

Bryony:

That is a fun fact. But the flip side of that is that transport as a whole, not just passenger cars but as a whole, is responsible for 20 to 25% of all global CO₂ emissions, with the majority of that coming from passenger cars. So, I guess the question really for today's conversation is: How does the world balance driving with reducing emissions at the same time, right?

Eddie:

It's a great question, and luckily we're joined by two phenomenal guests to help us unpack it.

Bryony:

We've got Patrick Carré, who's Shell's Senior Vice President for Mobility and Convenience in Europe and South Africa.

Eddie:

And we're also joined by Doctor Thomas Becker, Vice President for Government Affairs and Sustainability at BMW Group.

Bryony:

Before we begin though, a quick note to say that when we say ‘Shell’ or ‘we’, we're talking about Shell plc and its subsidiaries, in general. The companies in which Shell plc directly and indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities.

Eddie:

Let's get to it.

[Visuals]

Transitions to The Energy Podcast title sting before returning to Eddie and Bryony with Patrick and Thomas. The video will cut between them multiple times.

Bryony:

Patrick, Doctor Becker, thank you so much for joining us, and welcome to The Energy Podcast. Doctor Becker, we're going to call you Thomas, if that’s alright?

Thomas:

Sure.

Bryony:

Great. Okay. Let's have some quick intros first, and tell us what you do and how you became involved in energy and the world of mobility. Patrick, kick us off.

Patrick:

Yeah, I… so Patrick Carré, I'm German, despite the rather French-sounding name. I’ve been with Shell for 25 years….

[Name strap]

Patrick Carré

Senior Vice President Mobility & Convenience, Europe & South Africa, Shell

Patrick:

… and my current role is the Senior Vice President for what we call the mobility business in Europe and South Africa. And that means, basically, running more than 8,000 petrol stations which, of course, in turn, include shops, convenience retailing, as we call it, but also EV chargers and other offers in 17, 18 European countries.

Bryony:

Thomas, your role at BMW. Tell us about that.

Thomas:

I'm the VP for Public Affairs and Sustainability….

[Name strap]

Dr Thomas Becker

Vice President Government Affairs and Sustainability, BMW Group

Thomas:

… meaning that I'm in charge of our decarbonisation pathway, ranging from our supply chain to the downstream, to the usage phase of vehicles, but also positioning ourselves in the political arena on all of those issues.

Bryony:

And the perfect guest to talk about decarbonisation of transport, obviously, which is what we're going to be discussing today.

Eddie:

Yeah, absolutely. And maybe we should just start there and jump right in. So, for both of you guys, can you maybe tell us a little bit about decarbonisation of road transport, why’s it so important, and what's at stake?

Thomas:

I mean, automotive is a big contributor to carbon emissions, as we all know. And we have a long-living product. A BMW stays on the road for 21 years. So, technology we bring to the market has a long impact. And, on the other hand, what we think we have is a huge opportunity to bring our footprint on in a comprehensive manner, not just looking at drivetrain technologies, which are playing a crucial role, obviously, but also when we look into the entire lifecycle of a vehicle. We have, for example, as BMW put, circularity at the core of our sustainability approach, as we think that bringing carbon down is important, no matter where it takes place. If it takes place in the steel production for our vehicles, if it takes place on the road with alternative fuels, if it takes place by having green energy charged into electric cars, or wherever else. So, therefore, I think we have opportunities in all the phases of a vehicle's life cycle.

Bryony:

Patrick.

Patrick:

Yeah, I think we look at it in a similar way and just, sort of, connecting to Thomas’ point. So, the total emissions that we see in transport make up about 25, 20 to 25%, of global CO₂ emissions. So, transport overall is a phenomenally important sector for decarbonisation. If we're serious about decarbonising, we cannot ignore transport. Within transport, 75% is road. It happens on the road, as opposed to aviation, marine. And again, within road, we're looking at two thirds cars, one third trucks. So, both in their own right are significant. Both cars and trucks, obviously, are our customers.

Bryony:

People listening will say, well, neither of you have mentioned driving less or fewer trucks or fewer cars. You see the trend is a, kind of, future of transport, in passenger cars and trucks, as more vehicles on the road rather than fewer vehicles on the road?

Thomas:

Well, it depends on which vehicles are on the road. The impact is not defined by the sheer number, but by the state-of-the-art that they have on average. So, if you look at Europe, one of the, I think, most relevant challenges is the fact that the fleet keeps ageing. Today, we are talking about a fleet which, on average, was built in 2013, meaning that they have the emissions of 2013, they have the efficiency of 2013, they have the CO₂ emissions of 2013. So, a big question, therefore, is how can we bring the footprint of those vehicles down which are already on the road, and how can we reverse the trend of fleet ageing? How can we create a framework, politically, that incentivises the state-of-the-art of new cars migrating faster into the total fleet? And this is something that is often overlooked, because everybody is focusing just on new car technologies, but also what you are doing when we talk about lubricants, etc., has an impact on the kilometres that are driven. And the kilometres that are driven define the tonnes that are emitted. The tonnes that are emitted and not just the result of new cars and their efficiency, it's about, what, all that is out there.

Eddie:

You've done a good job of laying out what's at stake. Give us a sense of the progress.

Patrick:

Yeah. First of all, I think that journey is well and truly underway. I think that's really the first thing to say. If we compare where we are today with where we were, let's say, 10 years ago, I think we're truly in a different place. Why do I say that? Because I think if we just look around, including our own network, our own offer - so, Shell's own offer - is fundamentally different from what it was 10 years ago. We have significantly invested in chargers, we already mentioned it, and we are continuing to do so. We've also opened up in a number of other avenues, such as LNG, in particular bioLNG, to support the decarbonisation of heavy goods vehicles and heavy goods transport. We are a major player in the biofuels space, which is, again, an important - we believe - an important milestone, an important stepping stone, in the decarbonisation as EV electric vehicle charging ramps up. So, we are active on a number of these fronts. And, therefore, I think the momentum is there. However, it's also important to note, compared with what a lot of us, certainly including myself, were thinking four or five years ago, that the pace of the transition, in particular the pace of the transition to EV, seems slower than many of us anticipated. And for any commercial enterprise, it is extremely important to, of course, to be in step with the pace of that change, not behind, but also not ahead, for commercial reasons. And that's really something that we need to get right. That includes not just us, obviously, as infrastructure providers, as you will. It, first and foremost, includes the consumer, but the consumer is influenced, as we were already saying, by the regulator, by governments, etc. So, we need to get the whole ecosystem right, in order to continue, and perhaps even accelerate, this transition.

Eddie:

You know, Patrick, it's really interesting that you say pace there in your answer because Bryony and I were talking, off set, and I think that we're on pretty different spectrums of how much we drive every year. So, coming in, I drove about 50,000 miles a year. So, I guess that's, what, 80,000 kilometres? Excuse me for being American, there.

Bryony:

I’m about 15 [thousand] and all of those journeys are about three miles each.

Eddie:

Yeah, yeah. So, we’re…

Bryony:

So, prime EV, kind of, target person that should be driving an EV and want to. And you’re, kind of, long distance.

Patrick:

You're a road warrior.

Eddie:

It's something like that. Yeah. So, I mean, just vastly different parts of the spectrum.

Bryony:

We’ll just intro you as that from now on.

Eddie:

Absolutely. Eddie Veal, road warrior. I'll add it to the business cards.

Bryony:

That’s good, okay.

Bryony:

But Thomas, you're at BMW and you guys are much closer to the consumer, so what are, you know, we've given our points, but what are the consumers looking for as it comes to decarbonising of road transportation?

Thomas:

It absolutely depends on their conditions. If you have somebody who is buying a Mini, for example, this is, with a high likelihood, the second car in the household. It is used, predominantly, in an urban environment. It has, on average, a shorter trip length than, for example, to take the other bookend, a 5 Series, which frequently tends to be a car which is used professionally, which travels long distance, which may travel with the entire family into their holidays. And, depending on where you live, your choices are extremely different. If you have a country like the Netherlands, where charging infrastructure is just everywhere, you will behave completely different than in southern Italy, where we still have massive lacks, in terms of availability of charging. And this is why we think we are right in offering all the options to our customers. Not saying that this is a deterministic thing, where everybody has to choose exactly one technology. We believe, for a long time, in the need to have a broad portfolio of drivetrain options, including petrol, diesel, electric, hybrid, and fuel cell. So, we think it is not a black and white discussion. And many of the conversations, looking five years back, were pretending the world is black and white. It isn't. And this is why we think with our strategy, also commercially, we have a sound path forward where electrification is a dominant piece of our decarbonisation strategy, but certainly not the only one.

Bryony:

It's just so interesting, don't you think, Eddie, about the, kind of, the journey that you go on as a consumer and what's important to you and what, you know, how your life, kind of, can fit in around different forms of transport. But let's talk about, and I know you've touched on it individually as well…

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Bryony:

… but let's talk about your individual strategies, right, for the futures of the organisations that you work for. I mean, Patrick, what is Shell's strategy, in a nutshell?

Patrick:

So, I think the first thing to bear in mind, looking at our business, and we mentioned it at the beginning, it's more than 8,000 sites in 18 countries in my region, just as an example. But, of course, we are a global business, even. One of the first things to bear in mind is that we have to be, by definition, we're an infrastructure provider, if you will. We have to appeal to the mass market. That is the only way our business works. So, we have to make offers on our sites, both in fuel but as well as in the shops, that speak to the mass market. The BMW drivers, for sure. Thomas? But not only the BMW drivers and also everyone else. Also everyone else. So, why is that important? It is important because, as we were saying just a minute ago, for the foreseeable future there will be demand for fuels, for road fuels. There will be an increasing demand, we believe, for electric charging opportunities. And, I would argue, there will also be an increasing demand for products such as bioLNG or biofuels.

Bryony:

Just in case people don't really understand why you're talking about bioLNG, just tell us how that fits in.

Patrick:

So if you, for instance, have a truck on the heavy goods duty side that runs on a gas engine, you can power this truck through bioLNG. And that is what makes it very attractive. Why? Because gas engines are a technology that is widely, and relatively readily, available. So, there are a few implications of that, obviously, but it is a technology, one technology, that can contribute to the decarbonisation of road transport. So does biofuels, either as a component in traditional fuels, or even, in its pure form, sometimes we call it HVO, hydrotreated vegetable oil. So, it is basically a pure biofuel that powers an internal combustion engine, for example, for trucks. And it’s that entire spectrum that we offer, clearly with a focus on EV, because the focus, in terms of the adoption of alternative technology, has been, so far, on EV. But we already mentioned that the pace of that transition is slower. So, to Thomas' point, we've got to be thinking about a broader spectrum. We've got to be a little bit more technology-agnostic, in our view, if we are serious about meeting the CO₂ reduction targets in the road transport space,

Bryony:

Technology-agnostic is an interesting phrase, right? Because people do go straight from internal combustion engines to EVs. I mean, Thomas, you're involved in the wider aspect of decarbonisation, as well - supply chain, the recycling of batteries, which we’re going to come on to, sort of, shortly - but, sticking with how cars are powered for now, tell us about BMW’s strategy and where your focus is globally.

Thomas:

Well, we are, I think, since years making a strong case for what we call technology openness, meaning to say that it is about the tonne of emissions that matters and not just the technology that drives the car. So, very clearly, if you look at our job and if you look at the use phase of our cars, what comes out, in terms of CO₂, is the product of efficiency times the carbon content of the energy that goes into a car. So, efficiency certainly is just our job. But efficiency means different things. It means making combustion engines more efficient as long as we make them. It also means making electric vehicles as efficient as possible. They are not all the same. Today, many think [an] electric car is the same, no matter what kind of a vehicle it is, but you can make them more or less efficient. And also here, using less electricity per kilometre is as important as consuming less fuel per kilometre in the traditional sense. And, what we also see is, and this comes back from our customers, is that plug-in hybrids, for example, play a larger role and will do so longer than many people thought a few years ago. So, the combination of electric and combustion driving is something that will stay with us for a long time. So, that means that also, here, it's about making the best combination for customer needs, and it all depends on framework conditions. Just to give you an example, the likelihood that somebody in Portugal buys an electric car from BMW at the moment is over three times higher than a Spaniard taking this choice.

Bryony:

Why’s that?

Thomas:

It's not because of the car. It's the same. The people are also not that different. It's about policies. It's about taxation. It's about total cost of ownership. It's about infrastructure. And here what we see, and all over Europe, is a big divergence. We don't have one single market for EVs in Europe. We have markets like the Netherlands, like Belgium. Would you say Belgium is the greenest country in Europe? Half of the BMWs we sell there are fully electric, more than in almost any other market apart from Norway, Sweden and Denmark. It's about Texas, in that case. It's about very supportive policies for corporate cars to go electric. But, if you look to the south and east of Europe, we are in the one digit shares. So, people are not behaving uniformly. They have different choices, they have different needs, they have different framework conditions. And what our obligation is to make sure that whatever kind of a car they buy, they get an efficient, a good proposition, that contributes to reducing CO₂ emissions.

Bryony:

Yeah. The frameworks is interesting. We had that conversation outside. In the UK, obviously, we just recently introduced the electric vehicle grant. But, like you said, the policies go in and out and there'll be various carrot and stick policy frameworks.

Eddie:

Yeah. And I think that that does bring up one interesting point. As regulations change, how do you fit a strategy, or a decarbonisation path, towards countries where, in the US, some of the rebates for electric vehicles seem to be rolling off? You mentioned, just a second ago, something that I found to be really interesting was that Portugal versus Spain, three times more adoption in Portugal. And you're saying that that's largely attributed to a regulation. Can you make a strategy, or get to a decarbonised future, solely off of legislation like that?

Thomas:

Well, as long as we have this incoherence, and a situation where the slow markets that were slow already five years ago and the fast markets were the fast markets five years ago, and they do not converge, there will be no successful all-electric policy, and there will be no all-electric future under these conditions. One has to face that. And, by contrast to some conversations we had in 2019, 2021, there's a growing understanding that it was over-simplistic, that you can just switch from one technology to the other. Even in the UK, you have a big divide between, let's say, Islington and rural Scotland. Conditions are not the same. So, it all depends on choices that are made by national governments, by regional governments, by energy providers, even by municipalities. The decision to put a charger on the roadside is taken by a borough council, not by the European Commission. So, these choices need to be made so that our customers make their choices. And you have referred to the big controversy in the US where, indeed, climate change has become controversial and an issue of polarisation. We think this is wrong. We should, so to speak, disarm the conversation. We should focus on the outcome, on the tonne of CO₂ not emitted, not in the belief that there is just one pathway, also here in Europe and also here in the UK.

Eddie:

You also mentioned earlier that BMW strategy is to not just have electric vehicles, right? Have things that are petrol-powered, diesel-powered, electric vehicles to be able to fit the gambit of what people are looking for. We'll talk a little bit about electric vehicles in a second but, outside of those, to what extent is decarbonising road transport more than just about electrification?

Thomas:

Well, it's, for example, about the CO₂ footprint of the fuels that you burn. It's about the CO₂ footprint of the electricity that goes into electric cars.

[Name strap]

Dr Thomas Becker

Vice President Government Affairs and Sustainability, BMW Group

Thomas:

And it is about the contribution of infrastructure providers. That's one side. On the other hand, talking about electrification, that means that, while you reduce the downstream footprint, the footprint on the road significantly, because electric cars are inherently way more efficient than any other technology, they make more out of the energy that gets into them than any other car. But it comes at a price of the usage of lots of material that needs to be made with lots of energy. The battery adds a big deal to the carbon footprint of the vehicle if you do not do something against it. And, if I may say, our Neue Klasse, which will go into sales later this year, has seen big efforts to bring down not only the footprint in the use phase, through efficiency of its drivetrain and its entire concept, but we also invested massively in CO₂-reduced steel battery cell material, recycled material going into the vehicle, so that the overall equation is clearly better than what you would get from a combustion engine car or, also, from other electric vehicles. There will be competition also for the way electric vehicles are made, how efficient they are, what footprints you get before you have even driven the first kilometre. This will matter in the future and we prepare for that strategically.

Bryony:

Patrick, you'll look like you're… you're agreeing… quite fervently…

Patrick:

I am. I am. No, I am. I am. I'm agreeing specifically with two points that Thomas made. One is, I think, a couple of years, in all honesty, and I say that in self-reflection, as I mentioned earlier…

[Name strap]

Patrick Carré

Senior Vice President Mobility & Convenience, Europe & South Africa, Shell

Patrick:

…the way we were looking at this transition. I think a very oft-quoted example at the time was the iPhone, right? Oh, the iPhone was introduced and within 2 or 3 years everybody had an iPhone and, you know, this was the end of Nokia as we knew it, and the Blackberries, and everything. I think that's the wrong example for all the reasons, the wrong analogy, for all the reasons that we were just discussing. I think what this is ignoring is the fact that behind this transition is a massive infrastructure, a massive cost, a massive transition cost that, ultimately, I think we've got to be honest about this, ultimately has to be borne by someone, and that someone tends to be - will be, eventually - the consumer-slash-taxpayer. It's the only way this can work. And that honesty, I think, is important in the debate. I think that honesty has increased. And that's why the second point I strongly agree with, once again, is the point about being technology-agnostic. We should not forget we all believe, I certainly do, climate change is real. CO₂ is, as a minimum, a major cause in this. Reduction of CO₂ is critical. But let's underline the last point. It's the reduction of CO₂. It is not the top-down introduction of a technology. We have to look at a range of options because these options, as we were just saying, might come at different stages in time. There are readily available options to decarbonise now, building on the technology and on the infrastructure that we have today, and there are other options, perhaps more complete, more perfect options, that, however, require time to be built up. And I think we have to play on both sides of that piano. That's the only way of really making progress against those targets. That's what I was reacting to.

Bryony:

For people that don't know, Shell does an EV drivers survey annually…

Patrick:

Yeah.

Bryony:

… which is about 15,000 people, I think, across a broad range of countries, majority of which are EV drivers, some who aren’t, which obviously provides a huge amount of feedback. So, the tipping point to adoption. What do you think that is?

Patrick:

What we see, very clearly, it's very simple at the end of the day. It's decisions that people like you, me, many others take when we have to think about mobility. Which car to buy, where to fuel, how to fuel? So, what do we think about? It’s cost, obviously, something that we call the total cost of ownership. So, not just the cost of the car. The second market value of the car when, at some point, I will need to sell it, the cost of charging it, the cost of parking it, the taxes, everything included. So that's, if I buy a car, if we buy a car, that's what we've got to be thinking about. And so that matters. That's where government incentives come in. And then, of course, we see in that same survey that you cite that, yes, comfort plays a role. Consumers are used to a certain level of comfort with the internal combustion engine. How often do they need to fuel? What options do they have? Can they run the heating at full speed in winter, and still have a range of 800 kilometres? Those are the very, very practical things that need to be right, in order for EV to be a success. And many, many players, the OEMs, ourselves and the regulator, need to play a role in getting us there. And, personally, I don't think we have seen the endgame yet. I do believe that as EV technology progresses in the way it has, thinking about batteries, over the next couple of years, we will see more advances there and we will see more progress towards affordability and reliability.

Bryony:

So, it's not just about: Let's produce a cheap car, everyone's going to buy it, job done.

Thomas:

I mean, we are not in the cheap car business anyway.

Bryony:

Well, yeah.

Thomas:

But if you look at our price policy, I mean, if you take an electric BMW, it is about at the price level of one of the larger engine variants of the combustion engine alternative, which is, I think, justified if you look at factors like torque, etc., so that we are here in a similar level. Are they at the same cost level? No, not yet, but what we see is that it is, indeed, a combination of factors that define not only the objective cost comparison, but the perceived one. And these are different things. If you look at the fastest electrifying of the big markets, which is China, I think a big piece of the explanation of the fast ramp up of EVs, besides things like access restrictions, number plate lotteries, etc., is the fact that electricity is much, much cheaper than fossil fuels. So, it's about cost. In China, you can be sure that the electric kilometre is always the cheaper kilometre. This perception is not there in quite many of our European markets, where people, at least have no clear view: Am I saving money or not? We have, on the other hand, a big factor when it comes to taxation. All the very fast markets, all of them, have huge tax advantages. I name Belgium. You can look to many of the others in, namely, northern Europe, where this is a big piece of the explanation. And here, for example, corporate fleets play a huge role. We sell, in Europe, half of our cars to corporate customers. So, these people, fleet managers, they have a clear view of total cost of ownership. They also take into account the income taxation of the users. And, if these conditions are right, you see markets pick up fast. If they are not, it doesn't happen. So it's, again, in many cases indeed about policy choices.

Bryony:

Yeah. I think that's really interesting. I want to come to something that we briefly touched on before. In terms of BMW and recycling of the car, the full-life sustainability of the car is incredibly important.

Patrick:

Right.

Bryony:

Why is that?

Thomas:

Because, very clearly, in the age of only combustion engine cars, if you took the total footprint of the vehicle over a life of, let's say, 200,000 kilometres, 80% of the CO₂ was emitted during its use phase by burning petrol and diesel, 20% were the steel, the aluminium, the plastic that went into making the car. If you look at an electric car, if you take European average electricity, two thirds of its total footprint are in the supply chain. So, if you say: What is the difference between electric car A and electric car B? A big piece is how it is made. So, this is a big change. And it means that, while you save a large amount of CO₂ in the usage phase, you have an effect that runs against that. It doesn't compensate it, let me be very clear. On a net basis, you still save a lot of CO₂ with electric driving, but you lose a lot of the potential if you do not do something about the carbon footprint of the way nickel is processed, of the way the batteries and material is produced, all of which is extremely energy-intensive. So, this is why we have to do something about it. And, if you take aluminum for example, you can cut the CO₂ footprint by about half, if you use green electricity exclusively, compared to the average of the grid. You can save up to 80% if you use recycled aluminium. So, circularity is a big contributor. And this is why, in the future, we need to make sure that we don't lose anything of this material which is in the battery. Recycle it properly, the technology is there. We need to organise the market for that. We need to enable a recycling business, which is different from today's scrapyard operations. We need to think more comprehensively, in closing loops where we can, so that we get the CO₂ footprint down, not in the downstream, not on the road, but in the upstream, in the production phase.

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Bryony:

Huge challenge. Huge challenges.

Eddie:

It is. I mean, those numbers to me seem pretty provocative, right? Two thirds of emissions come upstream of being used, versus 20% on an EV versus a combustion engine. Are you confident in the sustainability of EVs then, with all of these minings? And you said that you can maybe change the way that you get aluminium, or things of that nature?

Thomas:

So, if you look at a European average vehicle, or one that we make, with the average electricity and the average footprint, you are still roughly 36% better with an EV over a total life cycle than with a combustion engine car.

Eddie:

And how many years is that life cycle?

Thomas:

200,000 kilometres, depending on how much you drive. For you, it would take less but, for her, it would take more. So, if you have pure renewable going into the vehicle’s use phase, the only impact it has is in its making.

[Name strap]

Dr Thomas Becker

Vice President Government Affairs and Sustainability, BMW Group

Thomas:

So, this is why the supply chain becomes so important. In the absence of any measures, an electric vehicle may have about twice the emissions in its production phase compared to a combustion engine car. With our cars, due to the measures that I've been describing, we are going to be very close with an EV to what has been the footprint of a comparable combustion car. But you need to do something about it. It's about maximising the climate impact and not leaving potential unutilised. So, very clearly, you are more climate-friendly if you drive electric, but it is not 0 to 100. It is a third or 40% better. You can get further down if you do more about your supply chain. This improves the benefit and you can be sure - and this is what we can tell our customers - that with the vehicles they will get from us, they certainly, not after 100,000 kilometres, will reach the break-even to an ICE car, but they will reach it way earlier in the first year of its usage. So, this is something that we are responsible for because there is a lot of negative communication, of people saying: “Ah, EVs they are not really cleaner, they are not really more climate friendly.” Yes, they are, and we take responsibility for that.

Eddie:

And is that an economy of scale? So, as we continue to see more EVs go into the market, we can drive down those emissions even more?

Thomas:

Absolutely. And this is about properly managing your supply chain. It's about working with your suppliers. It's about ramping up renewable energy generation, for example, that goes into the production of the material. It is about closing loops, and it is about having a mid and long-term vision. For example, when you work with the steel industry, who will migrate out of the traditional coal-based, blast oven furnace technology into electric arc furnaces, using higher rates of scrap, for example.

Eddie:

Looking ahead to how the consumer might use the car in the future, particularly when we talk about things like autonomous cars or potentially using cars as battery-to-grid storage. How does decarbonisation play in those sorts of topics?

Thomas:

Well, again, if you go back five years or seven years, there was also, I think, an overexpectation on, for example, robotaxis replacing private mobility on the sharing economy, just disrupting everything. This hasn't happened. What we see is that the usage of cars benefits a lot from what people get as part of their totally normal commuting or traveling or holiday experience, which is levels two and, in the next phase, level three of assisted driving, where you can relax, where you do not have to be all the time fully concentrated, for example in a traffic jam, which is, I think, a big relief and something that makes people want to have those features. We are going to gradually move to more, to higher levels, of autonomous driving. But again, this is not like turning a switch. So, it is an evolution. On the other hand, what we think, and what also our customer feedback very clearly demonstrates, is that electric vehicles offer a unique opportunity if they are properly integrated into the electricity system. For example, charging when there is an abundance of renewable energy. But, very clearly, it's fair for our customers to expect to be rewarded for that. So, it's again about the total cost of ownership. If I get, like it is the case in some of our markets, a push notification in the evening saying: “And, by the way, tonight you are charging for free because there is enough wind on the North Sea”, for example. This motivates people. This gives the impression this is a smart choice. Or, if you go one step further and would say: “My vehicle stores energy and feeds it back into the grid”, there is, and rightly so, two expectations from customers, which they tell us they have. The one is we need to make sure that the battery doesn't suffer. This is the job of warranty that we have to solve. But the other thing is they say: “Hey, if I'm doing a grid operator a big favour by stabilising his business, I want to get paid for that.” So, these are things where I think we have the huge opportunity, not just as carmakers, but as regulators, as energy utilities, as charge point operators like Shell, to make a better proposition even, and maybe a cheaper one, for electric cars that actively contribute to stabilising the grid, to facilitating the ramp up of renewables and, thereby, have a synergy between many ends of this equation. 

Bryony:

To close us off today, I'm just going to ask both of you for one prediction and one change that you'd like to see in this space. Patrick: One prediction, one change.

Patrick:

Right. So, my prediction - it’s very simple - is the energy transition will continue. There is no going back on the energy transition. And, therefore, all of us have to be ready and all of us will have to prepare. The change I would like to see is for the regulator, or the regulators, to enable this transition on all fronts, technology-agnostic, to happen as quickly and as significantly as possible.

Bryony:

Okay, Thomas. Prediction? Change?

Thomas:

One practical prediction: BMW has a very clear decarbonisation target. We have been, at pre-COVID levels in 2019, at 148 million tonnes of CO₂ we were responsible for from our supply chain to the usage phase of our vehicles in a comprehensive manner. We will get that down by 40 million tonnes until 2030 to 108 [million tonnes], and we will continue on that pathway. And I am confident we will achieve that, but not by just turning one stone, but by many. Not by just one technology change, but by a comprehensive approach along the entire mobility chain, starting from iron ore extraction, ending at fuels that go into our cars, be they electric, be they conventional. And what I hope, and what I think needs to change, is to, indeed, accept the complexity of the mobility system, to resist the temptation to say we can repair this with just one screwdriver. We will need a toolbox with more than one instrument, in order to do the job that, indeed, needs to be done. And this is bringing the carbon footprint of mobility down, big deal and fast. 

Eddie:

What a wonderful message to end on. Thomas, Patrick, thank you so much.

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The Energy Podcast - Epilogue wipe. Then transitions back to Bryony and Eddie in their chairs. The camera cuts between them multiple times.

Bryony:

Thanks to Patrick and Thomas for being with us today. Such an interesting conversation. I think what stood out for me was the idea of being technology-agnostic, right? So, we're not just going from one thing to another. It's overall what helps bring down emissions. And that's like a mixed picture of lots of things, not just a singular technology. What about you?

Eddie:

Yeah. I mean, for me, it's two things. It's one that's our second fluid dynamics reference of the year, so my professors will be very proud of me as a mechanical engineer. But I think something that Thomas said that was really interesting was talking about how it's the whole supply chain that you have to decarbonise and not just the vehicles itself. And so there's immense amounts of change that you can make, whether it be through the batteries or aluminium, or just the entire process as a whole.

Bryony:

And we're going to be talking about transport for the bonus episode. I say we - you. And I say transport. It's not really, sort of, A to B transport, is it? It’s a bit more than that. And I know you’ve been.. Well, you’ve really excited about this episode, right?

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Eddie:

I mean, excited’s probably not enough of a word. You know, we talked to Valeria Loreti, a fuel scientist for Shell, and somebody who, when I was growing up, I definitely wanted to be. So, we talked about fuel and the advanced sustainable racing fuels that we’re developing for Scuderia Ferrari HP, and how it's helping them in their Formula One effort for next year.

Bryony:

How exciting. It’s going to be such a good episode, You’re going to make sure that you’ll want to watch that, as well. Remember that the views you've heard today from individuals not affiliated with Shell are their own, and not those of Shell plc or its affiliates. You can also find Shell's cautionary note and references from today's show in the episode notes below.

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Eddie:

That's it for this episode of The Energy Podcast. Don't forget to like, follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, you can watch us on YouTube. Thanks for joining!

Bryony:

Bye!

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’The Energy Podcast from Shell‘ title sting

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© SHELL INTERNATIONAL LIMITED 2025

Title: Shell - The Energy Podcast Bonus Episode – What it takes to store CO₂ under the seabed 

Duration: 10:33

Description:

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) offers a way to help reduce industrial emissions at scale, particularly in sectors that are hard to decarbonise. In this episode, The Energy Podcast zooms in on Northern Lights, the world’s first commercial CO₂ transport and storage service. Lise Winther from global crop nutrition company Yara – a customer of the Northern Lights project in Norway – joins to discuss how the technology works, why government support has been critical, and what it takes to build confidence in long-term carbon storage infrastructure.

The Energy Podcast Bonus Episode – Accessibility Transcript

[Background music]

Up-tempo music

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Opens with a montage of soundbites from Lise Winther, taken from later in this bonus episode. To illustrate and accompany what Lise is speaking about in this opening sequence, video footage related to CCS and Yara appears either in sections of the screen, or as full screen footage.

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Coming up

Lise:

It's never easy to be one of the pioneers. We will not reach the climate targets, actually, without CCS as an alternative. We don't have the luxury of saying no to technologies that will effectively reduce large-scale CO₂ emissions. 

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Transitions to ‘The Energy Podcast from Shell’ title sting before returning to find Bryony Mackenzie sat in a yellow chair with a large microphone in front of her. There is a white microphone ‘logo’ in top right-hand corner of screen which remains throughout the video.

As Bryony introduces Lise, our guest for this episode, she appears full screen, to establish that she is ready to begin the conversation.

Bryony:

Hi, I'm Bryony Mackenzie…

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Bryony (with a white arrow pointing to her)

Bryony:

… and welcome back to The Energy Podcast from Shell.

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Bryony:

And this bonus episode is where we're going to dive even deeper into carbon capture and storage, often referred to as CCS, after our last episode with Shell's VP for CCS, Bernhard Koudelka. And I'm really pleased to be joined by Lise Winther from Yara.

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We briefly see Lise full screen, by way of introducing her. We see Lise smiling and looking ready to begin her conversation with Bryony. We then cut back to Bryony who continues the introduction.

Bryony:

And Yara are a customer of Shell at the Northern Lights project, which is a pioneering CCS project in Norway, where Shell, Equinor, TotalEnergies are developing the world's first commercial CO₂ transport and storage as a service. 

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Bryony:

For anyone who isn't familiar with CCS, it involves capturing CO₂ before it's released into the atmosphere and storing it underground. And we're talking about that now because the first shipment is due this year, which we’ll come on to later. But, before we get started, to ensure that we're all on the same page, when I say ‘Shell’ or ‘we’, I'm talking about Shell plc and its subsidiaries, in general. The companies in which Shell plc directly and indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities.

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Transitions to ‘The Energy Podcast from Shell’ wipe - featuring The Energy Podcast’s microphone logo - before returning to Bryony again to begin the conversation with Lise.

Through the conversation, the shots alternate between full screen shots of Bryony, full screen shots of Lise, and also some split-screen shots where Bryony appears left of frame, and Lise right of frame.

Bryony:

So, Lise, give us a quick sketch of what Yara does and tell us a bit about your role.

[Name strap]

Lise Winther

SVP North Americas Projects, Yara

Lise:

Yes, thank you so much for the opportunity for us to be here today. Yara was established in 1905 with a mission to solve the European food scarcity by producing fertiliser. And today, Yara is a world-leading crop nutrition company and the world's largest trader of ammonia, with a 25% market share. And we have a mission of responsibly feeding the world and to protect the planet. And, with this mission, we have reduced our emissions globally with more than 25% since 1990. And now we are working on the remaining challenge, the so-called ‘hard to abate’ area: Our ammonia production. And, actually, that is very important because when you are producing fertiliser, you need to first produce ammonia. In that reduction programme, we also are investing in both ammonia production from renewables and also ammonia production with carbon capture and storage. Going a bit into my role, I've been in Yara for nine years and before Yara I have worked more than 25 years in the energy industry and the last place I worked before Yara was in Shell Norway, where I also worked within the CCS area.

Bryony:

So, you've got a lot of experience in the, kind of, decarbonisation element of the process. And you've, sort of, explained how CCS is going to fit in with what Yara is trying to do and that decarbonisation journey. So, talk to me about the Northern Lights process. How is that going to work for Yara? How are you involved in that?

Lise:

I have been responsible for the development of the project we have done in the Netherlands, where we already have captured 800,000 tonnes of CO₂. We are using CO₂, both for urea production and also for food production and also to greenhouses, but we have some surplus captured CO₂ and that we are today venting. And then Northern Lights, they had some spare capacity and that spare capacity fitted perfectly with our need for storage of the 800,000 tonnes. So, it was a perfect match between the volumes that Northern Lights could offer to store for us, and also the volumes that we could deliver to Northern Lights.

Bryony:

You've obviously got a wealth of experience with this technology, you understand it and it forms part of your, kind of, overall plan. How easy is the process of not only becoming part of the Northern Lights project, but just sequestering those emissions? Has it been an easy journey? I can't imagine it has been.

Lise:

No, it's never easy to be one of the pioneers, I can say. But I think, technology-wise for us, we have a, probably, a more easy journey than other emitters because we already have captured the CO₂. So, what we need to do is we need to liquefy that. And we already have processes for liquefaction since we are delivering CO₂ to the food industry. So if, for instance, if you have a beer or if you have a Coke or anything, typically that CO₂ comes from Yara - at least if you are in the Netherlands. So, the technology for us is nothing new. Then, Northern Lights will then come and pick up that liquefied CO₂, pick up by boat, and then ship that CO₂ to the west coast of Norway and then pipe it to the storage sites where it's then stored around 2,000 to 3,000 metres below the seabed.

Bryony:

In terms of challenges, I guess you've… as you've covered, sort of, from a technical point of view, it was something that you were already able to do. But I'm just thinking, do you think costs could be too high for some companies?

Lise:

So, I think that there are three main elements that’s part of the cost picture. First of all, they need to capture the CO₂. And that, of course, has a capital cost and also an operational cost. And then, of course, it's still then the transport and the storage cost.

[Name strap]

Lise Winther

SVP North Americas Projects, Yara

Lise:

In Europe, typically, then the benefit is that you will not then have to pay an EU ETS cost for those CO₂ volumes. So, they need to look into capital cost for the capturing, and then the transport and storage, and see whether, if they go in above zero in profit. And I think that is maybe the main challenge because the capital cost for capturing CO₂ from other industries is very high, and there I think it's important that the governments are supporting the investments that the emitters need to take to be able to go, because the industry will not take an investment if it's a loss.

Bryony:

Well, you raise an important point there.

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Bryony:

And actually in the longer episode of CCS, when we spoke to Bernhard Koudelka, he raised that issue of the value gap, which I think is what you're referring to because, for people who don't know much about Northern Lights, there's been a big investment, and a big, kind of, collaboration with the Norwegian government, really, to get it off the ground, that’s right?

Lise:

I would say that if it hadn't been for that support from the Norwegian government, this project would never exist. Northern Lights had taken an FID when we started talking. So, then we knew that Northern Lights could deliver, so the scheduling issue and the chicken and egg issue was then solved, and the risk was then taken by the Norwegian government.

Bryony:

How important is that confidence that companies need? That longer term commitment, that the transportation is going to be available, that the storage is going to be available. I mean, it sounds like it's crucial.

Lise:

That is extremely crucial because it’s not an investment for five years. It's an investment for maybe 15, 20, 30 years. You need to know that the transport and storage provider will be there in the future, and also that they have a system in place that is robust and flexible, that can cater for planned and unplanned maintenance, so that the emitters know that they will have some spare capacity, in case of operational issues. And then, governmental support to increase the infrastructure investment for CCS, to get that infrastructure started and developed. It's extremely important because then you can have more flexibility and the emitters know that they can have, potentially, more than one supplier that can take, off-take their CO₂. As an emitter, it is difficult to only have one off-taker. If we want to reduce our CO₂ emissions in Europe, it's important that the governments start to support CCS. And also, when supporting, it's important that they are a bit more technology-neutral, not only focusing on the renewable, but focusing more on the reduction in emissions, because what's important is to reduce the emissions, not what kind of technology you're using.

Bryony:

What potential do you see for a wider market for CCS as a service to grow in Europe?

Lise:

CCS has the best potential, if you're talking about reduction of CO₂.

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Lise:

From my side, the main reason for that is that the CCS has the potential for large reductions in a very fast way, compared to the alternatives. If you say it another way, that we will not reach the climate targets, actually, without CCS as an alternative. Today, we don't have the luxury of saying no to technologies that will effectively reduce large-scale CO₂ emissions.

Bryony:

And just a final thought, Lise. I mean, you've worked in this industry for a long period of time. Are you pleased by the change that you've seen in this area? Because it must have been quite a journey, I would imagine, from the beginning of days when no one really spoke about CCS, or it was deemed to be not proven. We're in a very different space now.

Lise:

Yeah, definitely. I see also that the technology has developed. More and more companies also have introduced projects where they also have a firm off-taker. The change now, it comes more like a common sense that we need to use CCS as one of the main tools for meeting the targets in, especially in, Europe. I see this as a big change over the last, let's say, 20 years. And also the technology now is much more mature. It started with coal power plants and gas power plants, and now it's a more broader picture of the industry, including the cement industry, and so on. So, we see CCS as a concept on a much broader landscape.

Bryony:

Thank you, Lise, for your time today. It's been really interesting and really good to talk to you.

Lise:

Thanks, the same. It's been a pleasure to be here.

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The views you’ve heard today from individuals not affiliated with Shell are their own and not those of Shell plc or its affiliates.

Bryony:

And if you want to know more about CCS, and that longer interview that I've referred to is available on our channels.

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Bryony:

And you can also subscribe to The Energy Podcast on your favourite podcast platform. And, of course, you can also watch us on YouTube. And remember that you can find Shell’s cautionary note and references from today's episodes in the show notes. Thanks again. See you next time.

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’The Energy Podcast from Shell‘ closing title sting

[Shell endboard with logo]

© SHELL INTERNATIONAL LIMITED 2025

Title: Shell - The Energy Podcast

Episode Three: What’s next for carbon capture and storage technology?

Duration: 31:57

Description:

Climate scientists, governments and organisations, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and International Energy Agency, recognise that the world needs carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology if society is to achieve net-zero emissions. In this episode, hosts Bryony and Eddie are joined by Shell’s Vice-president for CCS, Bernhard Koudelka, to discuss the role of this combination of technologies in decarbonising heavy industry, and – as the world’s first project to offer commercial CCS as a service prepares to start up – the challenges of scaling the industry to the level the world needs.

Whether you’re new to CCS or looking for a deeper understanding of its role in the energy transition, this episode offers expert insight and real-world examples.

What are negative emissions?

Practices or technologies that remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere are often described as achieving negative emissions.

The Energy Podcast Episode Three – Accessibility Transcript

[Background music]

Up-tempo music

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Opens on Bernhard Koudelka, sat in a yellow chair with a large microphone in front of him. There is a white microphone ‘logo’ in top right-hand corner of screen which remains throughout video.

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Coming up

Bernhard Koudelka:

No-one claims CCS to be a silver bullet, but it’s one of the measures that we need to deploy in order to get to a net-zero energy system. I think we have to recognise that moving from our current energy system to a new energy system will take time. I think the public debate is now aligning that CCS has a role to play.

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Cuts to ‘The Energy Podcast from Shell’ title sting

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Transitions to shot of Bryony and Eddie sat in yellow chairs in an interview/podcast setting. The camera switches often between them.

Bryony:

Hi I'm Bryony Mackenzie.

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Bryony (with a white arrow pointing to her)

Eddie:

And I'm Eddie Veal.

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Eddie (with a white arrow pointing at him)

Bryony:

And welcome to The Energy Podcast from Shell, the home of conversation…

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Subscribe now (with white arrow pointing to bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Bryony:

… about the energy that powers our world. 

And on today's episode, we're going to be talking about CCS: Carbon capture and storage.

Eddie (INTERJECTS):

That’s it.

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Share your questions and comments: @Shell

(LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram logos also appear underneath this)

Bryony:

So, for the uninitiated, Eddie, give us a little summary of what CCS is.

Eddie:

Okay. So, at a high level, it's about making sure that CO₂ doesn't make it into the atmosphere. And so the way that I like to think about it is you capture the CO2 and then you transport it, and then you store it underground.

Bryony:

The reason that we're talking about CCS today is it's so important to the energy transition.

Eddie:

Absolutely.

Bryony:

And we've spoken about it before, actually, on other episodes of The Energy Podcast, and it's come a long way. So, what we're going to be covering today with an expert guest is where we've been, but also where we are now. Right?

Eddie:

Yeah. And also where we're going because I think that's important, too.

Bryony:

Eddie, I'm really looking forward to today's conversation. But just a quick note before we start to ensure that we're all on the same page. When we say ‘Shell’ or ‘we’, we're talking about Shell plc and its subsidiaries, in general. The companies in which Shell plc directly and indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities. Okay. That's done. Should we get to it?

Eddie:

Let's do it.

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Transitions to The Energy Podcast title sting before returning to Eddie and Bryony with Bernhard. The video will cut between them multiple times.

Bryony:

I'm really pleased to welcome our guest, Bernhard Koudelka, who's VP for CCS at Shell. Good to have you here, Bernhard. Kick us off with how you came to be in charge of CCS at Shell.

[Name Strap]

Bernhard Koudelka, Vice President Carbon Capture and Storage, Shell

Bernhard:

Yeah, thanks Bryony, and thanks for having me. Real pleasure to be here. I've been with the company 25 years. I started as an engineer. I was a drilling engineer for the first part of my Shell career, working at the coalface of our business, getting some early operational responsibilities, but realised that, at one point, that my strengths probably lie elsewhere. So, I then moved into the commercial field, went back to school, did an MBA, worked a number of years in M&A before I then moved into more commercial leadership roles across the business. And, since about two years, I'm now the head of carbon capture and storage.

Eddie:

The UN, IPCC and the IEA both recognise the importance of CCS as it relates to the global energy transition. What are your views on that topic?

Bernhard:

All of those institutions, when they have described the net-zero emissions energy scenarios, see a vital role for carbon capture and storage. I think there's probably two fundamental reasons why that is. So, the first one is we have industries that have CO₂ emissions that are independent of the use of fossil fuels, and they will need to have a solution, and CCS at the moment is seen as one of the most competitive ways to decarbonise those industries. And also, even in a net-zero energy world, you still have residual use of hydrocarbons and you may have to have some carbon dioxide removals. And CCS provides a tool in combination, for example, with direct air capture or with biomass to actually have negative emissions. So, I think the public debate is now aligning that CCS has a role to play.

Bryony:

Just going back to the energy transition question. You mentioned the hard to abate sectors. So, those sectors that are, perhaps, you know, cement, steel, those kind of industries that CCS is going to be really useful for. I think there's also an argument that’s often made, and you would have heard it as well, that CCS is just a lifeline for fossil fuel companies to keep producing. And, with that in mind, do you think that CCS delays the overall energy transition from where you're sitting?

Bernhard:

No-one claims CCS to be a silver bullet, but it's just one of the measures that we need to deploy in order to get to a net-zero energy system. I think in the narrative, the narrative basically says CCS is only there to basically capture CO₂ from burning fossil fuels. And, therefore, if you would stop using CCS, you would also force industry to shift away from the use of fossil fuels. I think there are two big assumptions in that argument that I personally think are flawed. First one is that CCS is only needed for the burning of fossil fuel, which is not true because you have industries, like you referenced, cement, for example, or lime, that actually have process emissions that don't stem from the burning of hydrocarbons, but they are process emissions. And the second assumption is that industry has a choice. I think we have to recognise that moving from our current energy system to a new energy system will take time.

Bernhard:

We have a lot of installed industrial capacity. And to make a switch from our current fuel environment to the new one will take time. And, therefore, I think CCS can be a solution that's here and now to actually avoid CO₂ emissions being emitted into the atmosphere. So, in that regard, I do think CCS has a vital role to play in the short term, but also in the longer term, for some of this industry would find it otherwise hard to decarbonise.

Eddie:

Can you maybe expand a little bit more on those sectors that you think CCS is most relevant?

Bernhard:

As we said, CCS is not a silver bullet. It's not a panacea for the energy transition. A net-zero energy system will mean that we will fundamentally change the way we live, the way we work, the way we move, the way we play. And we essentially need all the tools that are available to us. So, first of all, I think we as a society need to become a lot more energy efficient. We need to electrify as much as we can. We need to switch fuels from traditional fossil fuels today to hydrogen, ammonia, biofuels. But also we need to have a tool like CCS. So, let me unpack, sort of, the three key areas for CCS that I see, going forward. The first one is indeed the industry that you mentioned, that are hard to abate. So, we talked about cement, we talked about limestone. But there are others. There are waste incinerators, there are agricultural processes like ethanol production, for example, or metallurgic processes that have actually CO₂ stemming from a process, rather than the burning of fossil fuels. And, therefore, CCS is often the only or the most competitive way to decarbonise those industries. So, CCS will have a role to play if we want to get to a true net-zero industrial system in the future. The other one is we have to recognise that we have a very large installed industrial base. So, building CCS hubs in locations where we have a lot of industrial activity today can help to decarbonise those industries as we go through the energy transition that will save jobs, that will bring economic prosperity to those industrial heartlands that may otherwise perhaps be disadvantaged in a shift of the industrial base to the newer energy systems. And the third component for CCS, for me, is carbon dioxide removals. Even in a net-zero energy system, you still have some use of hydrocarbons, for example in aviation. And, therefore, you will need to also remove CO₂ from the system. And there are a couple of technologies that are currently out there, particularly the engineered ones.

[Name Strap]

Bernhard Koudelka, Vice President Carbon Capture and Storage, Shell

Bernhard:

Those are direct air capture or bioenergy plus CCS. So, essentially burning biomass and then capturing the CO2 and storing it underground. And for both of these technologies, CCS is, of course, a fundamental building block. And we think the role of CCS in those applications will actually significantly increase even beyond the short to medium term in the longer term.

Eddie:

Can you maybe paint us a picture of where Shell’s CCS business and portfolio is right now?

Bernhard:

CCS is not a single technology, but a basket of technologies. And, when we look at the different elements of CCS technology, you have the capture, the transport and storage. Shell is active along the full CCS value chain. So, of course, Shell is an emitter. We are a technology provider, so we have developed in-house technology, both what is called pre-combustion and post-combustion technology. So, capturing carbon before and after combustion processes. And we are, of course, active in the transportation of CO₂ and the storage of CO₂. So, in the transportation, Shell is one of the early developers of CO₂ ships. And we have a number of storage positions around the globe. We have three assets that are in operation. So, we have a project in Canada called Quest where we’re actually the operator. We have another project in Australia, Gorgon, where we are in a partnership with Chevron, with Exxon, and we're just about to start up a project in Norway called Northern Lights, in a partnership with Equinor and Total Energy. Besides those three, we also have three projects that are currently in execution. So, an expansion of the Northern Lights joint venture. We also have another project in Canada called Atlas Polaris, where we want to store 650,000 tonnes from the Scotford refinery. And we have a project in the Netherlands, where we want to decarbonise the Pernis refinery.

Bryony:

So, give us a sense of how much CCS is operating globally today and what share of global emissions have been captured.

Bernhard:

So, today, the world stores around 50 million tonnes of carbon per year, which is about 0.1% of global CO₂ emissions.

Bryony:

It's actually a really small… it's a small amount of global emissions. 

Bernhard:

So, 0.1% is not insignificant, but it's nowhere near what we need for a net-zero energy system. So, you referenced the IPCC or the IEA scenarios, earlier. And, under those, we probably require anywhere between 3 to 7 gigatons of CCS by 2050, which means, roughly, the world would have to scale what we do today a hundredfold in order to meet the requirements of a net zero emissions energy system.

Bryony:

By 2050?

Bernhard:

By 2050. In a way, we have a pipeline of projects of around 300 million tonnes of injection capacity. So, that's the project pipeline that we see in the world today. And some reports would indicate that we perhaps reach a gigaton of injection capacity by the mid-2030s. But we do have to recognise that the pace at which the industry develops right now is not on a trajectory to reach, sort of, the 1.5 degree target under the Paris Accord. It would require a much more significant scaling in the years to come.

Bryony:

I mean, there's so many lessons, right, that have been learned. Like you said, CCS has been around for years. 

Eddie:

Yeah, and I mean if you think about that learning process, right. It takes a lot. It takes money, it takes time. It takes cooperation across industries, across companies. It's hard to do. So maybe talk us through what we've learned over the past couple of years. 

Bernhard:

Yeah. No, it's very hard to do. Indeed, there's no single company or entity that can build a CO₂ capture and sequestration value chain. So, first of all, you need different parts of that value chain to come together. So you need an emitter and you need somebody who provides transport services, you need someone who provides storage services, essentially all sanctioned projects at the same time, to develop a CCS value chain. At the same time, you need regulations that are in place, so you have clarity of what it means to get a CO₂ sequestration licence. What are the monitoring requirements for storing CO₂ underground? What are the liability regimes around storing CO₂ underground? And, of course, you need regulations that incentivise emitters to decarbonise. And you need to have the public and the public acceptance to actually use CCS as a tool to decarbonise. All of these areas of the value chain need to work together seamlessly to get this early project off the ground. And then, if you want to scale the industry, you also need to have financial institutions and insurance institutions to come to the table to effectively scale this, because the capital required to go from 50 million tonnes that we have today to a multi-gigaton CO₂ injection system by 2050 will be significant. And, therefore, it requires a system that allows capital to, basically, effectively flow into the industry and make returns that are commensurate with the risks that they're taking.

Eddie:

Is there anything that you're worried about holding that progress back?

Bernhard:

If you talk about the conditions that we need. So, first of all, we need carbon pricing. You need to have incentive mechanisms for industry to decarbonise. And that carbon pricing needs to be stable, and it needs to be transparent and clear. At the same time, you need to have regulations that make it possible for us to invest in CO₂ value chains like, as I mentioned, you need to have clarity on what is your access to geological storage. What are your monitoring requirements? What are your liabilities when you inject? What are the CO₂ specifications, so you can interact with other elements of the value chain? All of that clarity needs to be there in the regulatory environment. You’ll also ultimately need to probably see the emerging of more voluntary carbon markets to really underpin investments into decarbonisation. So, for example, when you talk about CCS, ultimately, as an emitter, if you store your carbon and you lower the carbon intensity of your product, if you're able to price differentiate based on the carbon intensity of your product - so, for example, you can charge more for products with a lower carbon intensity - it will open up a voluntary demand for decarbonisation, which hopefully then helps to close the value gap between what CCS costs today and what customers can afford to pay.

Eddie:

So does that then imply, though, that it is cheaper to maybe just emit carbon right now than to store it?

Bernhard:

I think it's true to say that the customers’ willingness to pay and the price point of CCS are still creating a value gap. And that value gap can often only be closed through the support of governments. Over time, though, we believe that that value gap will close and customers and transport and storage operators will be able to interact more freely. There's a couple of things that I think will happen that enable that. So, one is at the moment the industry is very nascent, very new. So, we are lacking some of the fundamental infrastructure, like aggregation infrastructure, for example, like pipelines, terminals. Once that is built, of course the costs of providing CCS services will come down. I talked about the emerging, hopefully, of a voluntary demand to decarbonise products, which should stimulate the demand for decarbonisation services. And, ultimately, with technological developments and carbon pricing, we’ll come to a point where the business model will emerge where we require less and less direct government support into the industry.

Bryony:

I mean, the value gap, obviously people would say that CCS is potentially over reliant on government money, and that creates a problem. Do you think that's the case or, like you said, that value gap is going to shrink, you know, in an adequate amount of time?

[Name Strap]

Bernhard Koudelka, Vice President Carbon Capture and Storage, Shell

Bernhard:

I think it's fair to say that the projects, the early projects that we currently see, are all very much dependent on direct government support. Right? So, we look at the UK, for example, you have the Track System where the UK government pledged over 20 billion pounds into the industry. You see projects like Northern Lights that have been substantially funded by the Norwegian government. You look at Quest, the earlier project that I mentioned in Canada, which was also supported by the Alberta government and the federal government in Canada. So, a lot of examples where government support and subsidies were absolutely paramount to get the industry off the ground. I do think that will reduce over time. Bryony. I think, in a way, if it doesn't, the industry will never scale. The industry can only scale if it can stand on its own two feet, if the rewards in the business are commensurate with the risks that we’re taking. Only then private capital can flow in. And I think the levers, as I described, are reducing the costs of what CCS costs today, having effective carbon pricing, and ensuring that we, ultimately, be able to price in the carbon intensity in the products that we all buy today in the market.

Bryony:

And let's come back to Shell’s CCS strategy, because I think we've touched on it, and we’ve obviously been involved in many parts of this kind of basket of technologies, at various points.

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Bryony:

But what does it mean for Shell's outlook, or our strategy, in CCS today?

Bernhard:

Shell's vision is to be the leading integrated energy company and our strategy is to deliver more value with less emissions. And, of course, CCS’ role in that is to deliver less emissions. And, for Shell, not only is CCS an industry that’s adjacent to what we do in our traditional businesses, like oil and gas, but also it is critically important for what we're trying to achieve now and in the future. So, there's probably three main strategic areas where CCS plays a role for Shell. The first one is: It's a solution for our own emissions, for our own assets. So, when you look at the early projects that we have sanctioned and are currently building or operating, a lot of them are actually linked to our own operations. So Quest, for example, is linked to the Scotford Upgrader. An upgrader is basically a piece of a refinery in Canada. Gorgon Australia is linked to our Gorgon LNG facility. You see that, for example, Porthos in the Netherlands is linked to the Pernis refinery. Atlas Polaris is, again, linked to the Scotford refinery. So, a lot of what we do in the early phases is linked to our own emissions, to reduce our own scope one and two. The second area for Shell where this is interesting is that we can offer lower carbon products to our customers. So, think about abated LNG, for example, where we reduce the carbon intensity of our LNG sales, or we reduce the carbon intensity of our products, like low carbon fuels for example, or we enable blue hydrogen or blue ammonia. And the third reason, and we just discussed this a number of times during our conversation, is that, even in a net-zero energy system, you will have residual CO₂ emissions. And, in order to capture those, we need to have the ability to provide carbon dioxide removals. And engineered carbon dioxide removals have, very likely, a role to play. And, in that, you have technologies like direct air capture or bioenergy plus CCS. And CCS is a key enabler for both of these technologies to then, basically, take CO₂ from the atmosphere and safely store it underground permanently. There are a couple of areas where companies like Shell are advantaged in the CCS space, particularly in the transport and storage element of it. The first one is: We're dealing with the geosphere, right? So, you're dealing with the subsurface, and the subsurface inherently carries uncertainties and the ability to characterise the subsurface is something that is very close to our own DNA. We’re also talking about building pipelines, platforms, drilling wells, something that Shell has done for over 100 years. But, also, the nature of the industry. The industry has a very long capital cycle. So, when you look at a CCS project, it takes about 10 years to build it. You then operate it for 20 to 30 years and then you probably, post-closing it, you still have to monitor the subsurface. So, the capital cycle is like 50, 60, 70 years long, and the ability to manage risks over such a long capital cycle is very similar, again, to what we do in the oil and gas industry.

Bryony:

I think it's a world first, or at least one of the firsts: CCS as a service. You mentioned Northern Lights before, but give us a significance of what's happening in the Northern Lights project and tell us what it is, in a nutshell.

Bernhard:

Northern Lights is a fantastic project. It's a joint venture between ourselves, Total and Equinor, and it's part of a broader government initiative in Norway to decarbonise industry. It's called the Longship project. And Northern Lights is, essentially, the transport and storage element of that value chain. And it's the world's first cryogenic value chain. So, cryogenic value chain means that an emitter captures the CO₂, they then liquefy it, they put it on a ship, the ship then sails to Norway, where the CO₂ gets offloaded and then, basically, transported via pipeline offshore and stored more than 2.5km underneath the Norwegian continental shelf. And that project has been finished in the first phase, so it is mechanically complete last year, and we’re expecting the first delivery shortly.

Bryony:

And totally different to any other projects. It does sound, sort of, logistically very challenging but, like you said, very exciting as well for CCS.

Bernhard:

So, traditionally, a lot of the projects that are in operations are where you have an emitter that is connected via pipeline to a storage location. So, you essentially take the CO₂ and you pump it through a pipeline, and then you inject it underground. So, the novelty factor here is, indeed, the shipping component, the cryogenic component, of those value chains. And it is really important to connect emitters with storage locations where there is no immediate storage location in the proximity. And I think, therefore, it is a really good proof point for what these value chains could look like in the future, where you have CO₂ sources that are a little bit further away from where we can actually store CO₂. So, I hope it will be a real enabler for that industry to scale.

Bryony:

Yeah, absolutely. 

Eddie:

Yeah, I think that's fascinating. When you take projects like Northern Lights into consideration, are we at the precipice or are we close to being commercially viable just for these CCS projects without support from governments or public funds?

Bernhard:

Let's use Northern Lights as an example, because I think it’s a good case study of how the industry is developing, right now. So, Northern Lights has two phases. So, phase one is 1.5 million tonnes of CO₂ being injected annually. And, as I said, that was part of a broader government initiative called the Longship project. And, in that, the Norwegian government basically funded about 80% of that project. The Northern Lights joint venture is just a transport and storage element of the Longship project, but the government also incentivised certain customers to, basically, build CO₂ capture facilities and then transport that CO₂ into Northern Lights. In this case, the biggest one is Heidelberg Cement, which is a cement producer in Brevik, in Norway. But, beyond the initial customers, we've also now signed two commercial customers for the initial phase of Northern Lights. One is Ørsted in Denmark and the other one is Yara in the Netherlands. Ørsted is basically a bioenergy plus CCS company and Yara is a fertiliser production.

Bryony:

I think we're going to be speaking to Yara, actually, in a bit more detail about how they got involved with Northern Lights. Should be really interesting.

Bernhard:

And so that was the initial phase of Northern Lights, the first phase. And we've just, very recently, sanctioned an expansion to that, from 1.5 million tonnes of injection capacity to over 5 million tonnes. And paramount for that investment decision was, again, to have a customer linked up to that expansion project, which is Stockholm Exergi in Stockholm, a bioenergy company that basically uses biomass to produce power and heat for the community of Stockholm. And they will take that CO₂ and store it in the second phase of Northern Lights. And those are, for me, the first proof points of actually having commercial contracts between customers and transport and storage providers. And I hope they will set a precedent for the industry and help us to learn and grow based on those experiences.

Eddie:

Can you maybe just summarise and wrap up the business case to why would we spend the money on CCS?

Bernhard:

Capital stewardship and capital discipline is absolutely critical as we invest into any of the low carbon businesses. And you will have seen that we have been quite selective about our investments in the CCS space historically and expect the same going forward. In the past, we really invested in projects where we had the ability to basically integrate the value chains effectively, where we had customers who were willing and able to pay for CO₂ transport and storage services. And I expect that to be the same, going forward. As an industry, we need to make sure, and we talked about this earlier, that the industry ultimately can stand on its own two feet, right. That the industry delivers returns that are commensurate with the risks that the industry is taking. And this is still an industry that has subsurface uncertainty, has a number of technical and non-technical risks. So, getting customers that are able to afford CCS and to, basically, provide business models that carry the risks effectively between the different parts of the value chain will be absolutely critical. So, we're looking for those areas where you see stable and supporting regulations, where we see the emergence of business models that actually work. But I hope that, over time, we will see that in more parts of the world and, therefore, enable us to scale the business. The other bit that our early positions will enable us to do is to learn effectively. We've invested in Canada, in Europe, in Australia, so we have invested in many different jurisdictions in different technical archetypes. So, we have onshore, like in Canada, or offshore, like in Northern Lights. And, as a company, we will learn where we are advantaged, where we can really bring our best capabilities to those value chains. And, based on those learnings, we will then understand how and where to scale this business effectively, going forward.

Bryony:

I just want to come to CCUS - carbon capture, utilisation and storage. And that's because we've had a comment on LinkedIn from Jan Erik Salomonsen. Thank you for dropping us your comment. And we do really want everyone to put their questions to us so we can ask them of our experts. So, let me ask you this: Why hasn't CO₂ been treated like a resource and converted into something we need?

Bernhard:

There is, of course, the ambition to ultimately use CO₂ as a resource, but the timing and the economic viability of using CO₂ as a resource is very uncertain at this stage. And that's why you see companies like Shell spending a limited amount of time on this. So, maybe, what is CO₂ utilisation? Maybe we’ll start there. So, CO₂ utilisation is essentially converting CO₂ into new products like, for example, synthetic fuels. But, of course, these processes are very immature and, at the moment, as I said, not really economically viable. There's also a very divergent view out in the different institutions on what the role of utilisation of CO₂ is in the future, from virtually nothing to maybe a gigaton or so by 2030. I personally think time will tell whether utilisation is important. But the fact is it will never replace the need for permanent sequestration of CO₂. It's almost like a combination of CCS for permanent sequestration and CO2 utilisation. Both of them will, maybe hand in hand, help to drive forward a net-zero energy system.

Eddie:

That's a good way to sum up the amount of information that we've covered over the podcast. But if you think about it, four years ago we had a similar conversation around CCS. 

Bryony:

We had the conversation four years ago

Eddie:

It was you. 

Bryony:

It was me. 

Eddie:

Yeah. 

Bryony:

And I do remember that conversation, but it was slightly different. I felt like we were talking more about the technology and does it work and is it proven? it would be a vastly different listen, although you can listen to it again if you want to.

Eddie:

But you can't watch, so…

Bryony:

But you can't watch.

Eddie:

I guess, on that same trajectory that we've been over the past four years, if we were to do this again in four years, what do you think we would be talking about? And where do you hope that we are as an industry?

Bernhard:

I do think we've come a long way over the last four years. And, yes, perhaps the pace of scaling of the industry is not what some people will have hoped, but we have achieved a number of proof points, right. We talked about Quest, we talked about Northern Lights, all of these projects where we're still, sort of, gaining experience as four years ago and then Northern Lights is now just about to start up. So, I think, technically, we are a lot more mature and have a lot better understanding than we had four years ago and now you see the project pipeline that is out there is significantly larger than it was four years ago. Now, in four years what do you expect? I, first of all, I expect the first cryogenic value chains to actually be up and running and we will have experience that we will have shared with the broad audience. We will hopefully have seen a lot more investments in different parts of the world. And I also hope that we will be talking about the emergence of new business models that really enable us to scale the industry much faster than we have been able to do over the last few years.

Bryony:

What I really enjoyed about this conversation as well, is that you've been at Shell for 25 years?

Bernhard:

25 years.

Bryony:

When you started, obviously you started in upstream, had you even heard of CCS? Did you ever talk about CSS when you first started? Now you’re the VP for CCS.

Bernhard:

It's interesting. So, the first time I touched CCS was actually in my studies when I did my MBA. We had a project, where we basically had to do almost like a little mini thesis, and I did mine on CCS and the role…

Eddie:

But not in your engineering studies?

Bernhard:

No, it was part of my… part of my MBA. And the question was what kind of economic incentives would we prefer? Would we prefer, basically, a carbon pricing system like the cap and trade system, as opposed to tax regime? So, that was, sort of, the detail of my thesis at the time, which was my first touchpoint with CCS.

Eddie:

Do you ever look back on it from what you wrote there to where we are now and kind of see were you right?

Bernhard:

Shall we put that in the show notes?

Eddie:

Absolutely.

Bernhard:

We will not put it in the show notes, I don't think. Otherwise they'll take my degree away.

Eddie:

I don't know, if you're looking for a light read tonight, that might not be a bad one.

Bryony:

Exactly. I think you've got one of the most interesting, interesting jobs in Shell, certainly at the moment.

Bernhard:

I think so, too.

Bryony:

Thank you so much for your time today. It’s really lovely to have you here with us.

Bernhard:

Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed the conversation.

Eddie:

It was a pleasure.

Bernhard:

Thank you.

The Energy Podcast - Epilogue wipe. Then transitions back to Bryony and Eddie in their chairs. The camera cuts between them multiple times

Eddie:

Thanks again, Bernard, for a wonderful conversation.

Bryony:

I think a lot of what he said was just really thought-provoking. I don’t know what your, kind of, key takeaways were from it?

Eddie:

Yeah, I think, for me, it was around the basket of technology that he referred to when he talked about CCS. And it’s not just one solution, but it’s a bunch of them that address this not just scientific problem, but a system one that we’re going after.

Bryony:

And it was the speed of which CCS is developing now, as well, that we’re in a period of acceleration. I thought that was really interesting. And also he mentioned Northern Lights, and if you’re wanting to know more about CCS, I’ve been speaking to Lise Winther, she’s from Yara, and they’re a customer of Northern Lights, as well, so that will be a bonus episode that you can catch up on, as well, which should be good.

Eddie:

Fascinating. And, before you go, drop us a rating, share the video with a friend…

[Text displays]

Subscribe now (with white arrow pointing to bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Eddie:

… and subscribe to The Energy Podcast wherever you get your podcasts.

Bryony:

You can also watch us on YouTube and you can follow us on Shell social media, as well.

[Text displays]

Share your questions and comments: @Shell

(LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram logos also appear underneath this)

Bryony:

And, if you’ve got any themes, comments, questions for our guests, of course you can get in touch.

Eddie:

Yeah, as you saw today, we actually read them and we’ll be happy to get more. 

Bryony:

And remember you can find Shell’s cautionary note and references from today’s episode down below in the show notes.

Eddie: 

It was a good one!

Bryony:

It was! Look forward to seeing you again on The Energy Podcast very soon.

[Visuals]

’The Energy Podcast from Shell‘ title sting

[Shell endboard with logo]

© SHELL INTERNATIONAL LIMITED 2025

Title: Shell - The Energy Podcast Bonus Episode – Engineering one of the world’s most advanced LNG projects.

Duration: 13:20

Description: In this bonus episode of The Energy Podcast, host Bryony speaks with Hadi Quazi, Shell’s Joint Venture Asset Manager for LNG Canada. Together, they explore how Shell and its partners brought to life the largest private-sector investment in Canadian history – and put a remote corner of Canada on the global energy map. From a 670-kilometre pipeline crossing mountain ranges to a liquefaction facility on the country’s west coast, this episode takes you inside the engineering and partnerships helping to meet the world's growing demand for liquefied natural gas (LNG).

The Energy Podcast Bonus Episode – Accessibility Transcript

[Background music]

Up-tempo music

[Visuals]

Opens with a montage of soundbites from Hadi Quazi, positioned on the left of screen. To illustrate and accompany what Hadi is speaking about in this opening sequence, video footage related to the LNG Canada project appears either in sections of the screen, or as full screen footage.

In addition, certain words spoken by Hadi are highlighted on screen using large text graphics.

[Text displays]

Coming up

Hadi:

It really does rank in terms of some of the largest sizes of single unit LNG facilities in the world.

[Text displays]

Largest LNG facilities in the world

Hadi:

It's an incredible feat.

[Text displays]

Incredible feat

Hadi:

Canadians, world over, are known as a friendly and polite people. I think we have that title globally. I'll let you be the judge of that.

[Text displays]

I'll let you be the judge of that

Hadi:

But we're also incredible collaborators…

[Text displays]

Collaborators

Hadi:

… and incredible partners…

[Text displays]

Partners

Hadi:

… and you don't build a project like LNG Canada without deep partnerships. For me personally, as a Canadian, there's a deep sense of pride.

[Visuals]

Transitions to ‘The Energy Podcast from Shell’ title sting before returning to find Bryony Mackenzie sat in a yellow chair with a large microphone in front of her. There is a white microphone ‘logo’ in top right-hand corner of screen which remains throughout the video. As Bryony introduces Hadi, our guest for this episode, he makes two separate and brief appearances, full screen, to establish that he is ready to begin the conversation.

Bryony:

Hi, I'm Bryony Mackenzie….

[Text displays]

Bryony (with a white arrow pointing to her)

Bryony:

… and welcome back to The Energy Podcast from Shell. So, today…

[Text displays]

Subscribe now (with white arrow pointing to bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Bryony:

… we're going to drop in on the west coast of Canada, going behind the scenes of LNG Canada. Demand for liquefied natural gas - or LNG - is rising, and what will it take to meet that demand? And how do you go about delivering a massive project like LNG Canada? Well, joining me today is Hadi Quazi.

[Visuals]

A wipe transition appears across screen - featuring The Energy Podcast’s microphone logo – and we see Hadi briefly on screen. Another identical wipe transition then returns us to Bryony in the studio.

Bryony:

He's Shell’s Joint Venture Asset Manager of LNG Canada. And that's a joint venture between Shell, Petronas, PetroChina, Mitsubishi Corporation and Cogas, and it's just marked a big milestone: Shell's maiden export cargo set sail…

[Text displays]

Share your questions and comments: @Shell

(LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram logos also appear underneath this)

Bryony:

… delivering Canadian natural gas to global customers. So, a quick note before we start, to ensure we're all on the same page. When we say ‘Shell’ or ‘we’, we're talking about Shell plc and its subsidiaries, in general. The companies in which Shell plc directly and indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities.

[Visuals]

Transitions to ‘The Energy Podcast from Shell’ wipe - featuring The Energy Podcast’s microphone logo - before returning to find Bryony occupying the left-hand side of the screen, with Hadi Quazi occupying the right-hand side of the screen. Bryony’s shot and Hadi’s shot are separated by a white vertical line. This ‘split-screen’ format continues for the entirety of the conversation, with occasional cuts to full screen shots of both Bryony and Hadi throughout.

Bryony:

Hadi, thank you so much for joining us. This is the biggest private sector investment in Canada's history. Give us a sense of where you are right now, and what you do as the Joint Venture Asset Manager.

Hadi:

Well, right now, I'm here in downtown Calgary, in our Shell office.

[Name strap]

Hadi Quazi

Joint Venture Asset Manager, LNG Canada, Shell

Hadi:

This is where our Canada Integrated Gas team is based. It's also where our LNG Canada joint venture team is based. And then, of course, a little ways away, on the west coast of British Columbia, we have our main site in Kitimat. And so, along with a number of my colleagues, we collectively manage Shell's 40 percent interest in this venture. That's how I fit into this, this puzzle.

Bryony:

For those of you who caught the last episode and heard Cederic Cremers, the President of Integrated Gas at Shell, talk about big global trends in gas, LNG Canada is an example of that story playing out on the ground, isn't it?

Hadi:

Oh, it absolutely is. I mean, if you take a step back for a second and just think of our global energy system, I mean, it’s certainly coloured by the last number of years, it's a system in flux, it's dominated by some macro trends. We've heard much, in terms of renewable growth, renewable competitiveness, the drive on carbon intensity. At the same time, we've heard a lot about energy addition globally, which is still very much a theme. Another theme that we've heard in the global energy system, and that is always there and ebbs and flows, is energy security in different markets. And so when you look at it within that context, LNG has an incredible role to play in facilitating some of those key trends across the global energy system, and I'm sure nobody does it better than Cederic. I'm sure he articulated exactly where we see LNG demand globally. The key point for me is that LNG will continue to play an even greater role in the global energy system in the years to come. And so, when you take that back and you look at it from a Canadian context, in Canada, natural gas has been a story that's gone on for many, many generations. Canadian natural gas is something that we have produced into the domestic market here in Canada, in the United States, for a long time. And LNG providing a pathway for our vast and expansive natural gas resources to access international non-North American markets, so markets over water, is a significant step change. And that's what LNG Canada provides. And then, if you look at it from a global context, think of where Canada is and think of where a significant portion of the demand sector is in North Asia. I mean, on a global context, quite close to each other. And so there is this natural kind of connectedness between the west coast of British Columbia and North Asian markets, where a number of our partners in LNG Canada are from. So, that's the tie between LNG Canada and some of the global energy trends and demand centres.

Bryony:

What's gone into getting this huge venture off of the ground?

Hadi:

It's a project. And maybe I'll give you a bit of a timeline view. I mean, this is something that's been well over 15 years in the making. If you think of it from the very first idea of shipping LNG off the west coast of Canada, through to all the work that went into assessing that opportunity…

[Text displays]

Share your questions and comments: @Shell

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Hadi:

… getting to a final investment decision and then post final investment decision, all of the hard yards to actually build this entire infrastructure project out, that included an incredible amount of work on the pipeline. Just to give you a sense: To connect our gas resources in the northeast of British Columbia to the port of Kitimat, where we've built this liquefaction facility, a company that built this pipeline on behalf of our partners in the venture, had to cross 670km and two mountain ranges to build this pipeline out. And so, you know, that is one major feat in all of this. And then, at the Kitimat plant site itself, it took an incredible, incredible effort. First in modular yards around the world, in China, vendor shops, in places as far away as Italy, to build the component parts, to build the equipment, to modularise them - this was a modularised build facility - and shipped them all to Kitimat and then assemble this liquefaction facility out of the Kitimat site. And so thousands of people spread over, really all parts of the world, over an incredible timeline of, you know, well over 15 years, if you look at it from that context.

[Text displays]

Subscribe now (with white arrow pointing to bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Bryony:

And give us a sense of those engineering challenges, because you've just mentioned 670-odd kilometres of pipeline, some mountain ranges, and I'm wondering how that worked out?

Hadi:

If you look outside our office, we actually have a few murals which depict the pipeline construction, in progress. And it was quite literally in some segments going up, you know, the side of a mountain face, building what you and I would look at is as that is a ski lift, to pull pipe up a mountain and get it…

Bryony (interjects):

Minus the skiers!)

Hadi:

… into position. Minus the skiers!

And just an incredible feat to build the pipeline in and of itself. And that's just one component part of this overall system in Kitimat. You know, we are talking about 14 million tonnes per annum, two trains. It really does rank in terms of some of the largest sizes of, kind of, single unit LNG facilities in the world. And so the work that goes into building that in a remote environment, on the west coast of Canada, with component parts from modular yards all around the world, and then shipping it and assembling it, it's an incredible feat.

Bryony:

So, Hadi, give us a step by step of how LNG Canada works?

[Name strap]

Hadi Quazi

Joint Venture Asset Manager, LNG Canada, Shell

Hadi:

It really starts in the northeast of British Columbia, where we produce our natural gas. So, Shell and our partners all source their own individual gas supplies. For Shell, that comes from our operated Groundbirch asset. From there, that gas is routed into the Coastal GasLink pipeline, this purpose-built pipeline system of 670km which then takes that gas and transports it to the west coast of British Columbia, where we land in the port of Kitimat. At the port of Kitimat, we've built our LNG Canada liquefaction facility. And so the gas is liquefied in LNG Canada. And then, at the port of Kitimat, it is lifted individually by each of the partners. And so Shell, our trading and shipping colleagues, will bring Shell cargoes in to lift Shell volumes and then take them over to global customers. And so that's a bit of a synopsis of the entire value chain.

Bryony:

And you said you bring your own gas?

Hadi:

Given this venture, LNG Canada is made up of five partners. Each partner is responsible for supplying their own gas, so bringing their own gas to LNG Canada. And then each partner is responsible for lifting their LNG cargoes from LNG Canada. And so, at the heart of it, is LNG Canada that is responsible for taking that gas and getting it very, very cold and turning it into liquid. And then it's shipped off by the partners again.

Bryony:

And you've also been working with local communities, as well, as part of the project. So, as you said, it's expansive, so would have touched upon different communities in that state.

Hadi:

I like to say, you know, Canadians, world over, are known as, you know, a friendly and polite people. I think we have that title globally (BRYONY INTERJECTS: You do, you do!). I'll let you be the judge of that. But we're also incredible collaborators and incredible partners, and you don't build a project like LNG Canada without deep partnerships. We've had to partner with all levels of government here in Canada. We've partnered with industry, both inside and outside Canada. And then lastly, and most importantly, indeed, you don't build something like this without a deep partnership with the local communities and, in particular, the First Nations and Indigenous communities across the Canadian segment of this integrated gas value chain that call the land, air and water their home.

Hadi:

And so we have gotten to today, the delivery of this project, on the backs of those partnerships. And the only way we will continue to operate for decades to come is by continued strengthening of those partnerships.

Bryony:

This is an engineer's dream, sounds to me. I'm thinking this ticks so many boxes of, you know, things on a huge scale, really complex challenges, really interesting environments to work in. It obviously came across your desk and someone said “oh, could you be in charge of this?” And you thought, “well, it's a challenge, but I'm up for it.”

Hadi:

When you take on a role in a venture like this, it's a pretty, pretty significant shift. I mean, I'm used to being in a technical operating domain in most of my career. And so LNG Canada was an incredible opportunity for me, personally. I have this, you know, this long arc that kind of came full circle. I remember being an intern in Shell in Canada in our wells - yeah, in our Wells Team - in the months after we acquired our upstream gas assets that are the origination point of this entire value chain.

Bryony:

Now that the first cargo’s shipped - big congratulations to you, by the way - how does that feel for you and the team on the ground?

Hadi:

For me, personally as a Canadian, there's a deep sense of pride. Really, there's a deep sense of pride that I mentioned when we kicked this conversation off, that the resource sector in Canada has been a source of prosperity to Canadians for generations. LNG Canada is the next chapter of that. You know, if I think about it, in terms of the role that I play, it's a role that is on the sideline cheerleading and supporting. Many, many thousands of people were on the ground in Kitimat who have helped build this pipeline across the province of British Columbia, who are in the northeast of British Columbia on our operated Shell assets producing natural gas and expanding our natural gas production base to feed LNG Canada. The many people who are helping support the shipping and lifting of LNG cargoes, and looking at how to best optimise that. Those are the people who are actually doing the work. I'm on the sidelines cheerleading. That's, kind of, how I look at myself. And so, for them, I mean, just a real recognition of all the time, effort and energy. Right now, today, there are thousands of people at Kitimat. There are many Shell secondees who have been seconded into LNG Canada, right from our CEO of LNG Canada. They're the ones who are really, really delivering this for us.

Bryony:

Thanks, Hadi. It’s really good to talk to you today.

[Visuals]

Hadi appears full screen as he says thank you.

Hadi:

Absolutely a pleasure. Thank you.

[Visuals]

We return to Bryony full screen.

[Text displays]

Share your questions and comments: @Shell

(LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram logos also appear underneath this)

Bryony:

And if you want to hear more about LNG, that longer interview is now available on our channels.

[Text displays]

Subscribe now (with white arrow pointing to bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Bryony:

And, of course, you can subscribe to The Energy Podcast on your favourite podcast platform or watch us on YouTube. Remember that you can find Shell's cautionary note and references from today's episode in the show notes below.

[Visuals]

’The Energy Podcast from Shell‘ closing title sting

[Shell endboard with logo]

© SHELL INTERNATIONAL LIMITED 2025

Title: Shell The Energy Podcast: Episode Five - Keeping the world moving: shipping’s lead role in the energy system

Duration: 28:32

Description: How does the energy that powers lives move across the globe? In this episode, The Energy Podcast sets a course for the world of shipping with Karrie Trauth, Executive Vice President for Shipping and Maritime at Shell. She explains shipping’s vital, non-stop role as the backbone of today’s global energy system, connecting supply with demand across continents.

Discover how much of global trade and energy are moved by sea, the challenges of keeping energy supplies flowing, and how the shipping industry is tackling decarbonisation.

The Energy Podcast Episode Five – Accessibility Transcript

[Background music]

Up-tempo music

[Visuals]

Opens on Cederic Cremers sat in a yellow chair with a large microphone in front of him. There is a white microphone ‘logo’ in top right-hand corner of screen which remains throughout video.

[Text displays]

Coming up

[Text displays]

This episode was recorded on June 11, 2025

Cederic Cremers:

LNG and gas have a critical role to play in the energy transition, not only in meeting that increased energy demand… but also in helping to decarbonise and, over time, defossilise. We start with actually taking the gas from the ground, liquefying it, shipping it, re-gasifying it, and then selling it.

Tariffs. Trading routes. Shipping routes that can't be used. It's a big thing that's on our customers’ minds…having that global diversified portfolio.

So, LNG - it’s pretty cool, right?

[Visuals]

Cuts to ‘The Energy Podcast from Shell’ title sting

[Visuals]

Transitions to shot of Bryony and Eddie sat in yellow chairs in an interview/podcast setting. The camera switches often between them.

Bryony:

Hello and welcome back to the Energy Podcast from Shell, the home of conversation about the energy that powers our world. I'm Bryony Mackenzie.

[Text displays]

Bryony (with a white arrow pointing to her)

Eddie:

And I'm Eddie Veal.

[Text displays]

Eddie (with a white arrow pointing at him)

Bryony:

And this is our second episode together?

Eddie:

Yeah, seasoned pros at this point now.

Bryony:

Seasoned pros at this point.

[Text displays]

Subscribe now (with white arrow pointing to bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Bryony:

I mean, how did you find the first episode or how have you found it? What about your colleagues in Trading? What do they think of you doing the podcast?

Eddie:

You know, it's very different from my day job. I think it's been fun to see the reaction. I got an email that somebody had captioned the video and they sent it back and said: “I guess it's Mr. Veal now.”

Bryony:

Absolutely.

Eddie:

So that was….

Yeah, getting my own office now, I think.

Bryony:

Wardrobe, wardrobe.

Eddie:

That would be great. A dream. But I think what was also really cool is within an hour or two of the video going out of our first episode, some of our interns from last summer, Caitlin and Stephanie, sent me an email…

[Text displays]

Share your questions and comments: @Shell

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Eddie:

….and they were like, hey, it's really cool to talk about the energy transition and see Texas being involved. So, that was awesome.

Bryony:

And that was right because our last guest, Peter Wood - we had a great conversation about the energy transition, and where things stand and how that's going to change as global demand goes up, as well. But today we're kind of going narrower and deep into something different.

Eddie:

That's right. Liquefied natural gas - or LNG, as we sometimes refer to it as - is playing a really crucial role in that energy transition. It provides energy security, but it's also something that can help displace coal in industry and also in power generation.

Bryony:

LNG also provides flexibility as renewable generation grows, as well.

Eddie:

Yeah, it's certainly got a lot of upsides, but it's not without its critics, especially as it relates to emissions from producing, moving and using LNG.

[Visuals]

Transitions to The Energy Podcast title sting before returning to Eddie and Bryony with Peter. The video will cut between them multiple times

Bryony:

And I think today we're going to get into all of this, right? We're going to get into the outlook for LNG and of course, the challenges that come with its use, as well. But, before we do that, a quick note to say: When we say ‘Shell’ or ‘we’, we're talking about Shell PLC and its subsidiaries, in general. The companies in which Shell PLC directly and indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities. So, let's get to it. So, today we've brought in a heavyweight voice to help talk us through LNG.

Eddie:

As only we can, right?!

Bryony:

As only we can. He's the head of a world-leading integrated gas business. He's also going to talk us through what LNG actually is. It’s Shell's President of Integrated Gas, Cederic Cremers.

[Visuals]

Transitions to The Energy Podcast title sting before returning to Eddie and Bryony with Cederic. The video will cut between them multiple times

Bryony:

Welcome to the podcast, Cederic Cremers. Great to have you here, Cederic. Let's start with a bit about you. How do you get to where you are today at Shell?

Cederic:

Thanks Bryony, it's great to be here today.

[Name strap]

Cederic Cremers

President, Integrated Gas at Shell

Cederic:

How did I get to where I am, here at Shell? Long story, but I'll try to keep it short. I actually - by degree - I studied economics and business. I'm from the Netherlands. I actually spent a short time in London looking at whether or not I enjoyed things like investment banking, which I figured out I didn't, and I wanted to work for a company that really built things, that made an impact, that served customers, and ended up going back to the Netherlands and ended up joining Shell and I’m still here today.

Bryony:

And President of Integrated Gas is actually a new role, isn't it? So, how are you finding that?

Cederic:

Ooh, it's still early days. Just about two months in. So, I think I'm, you know, you have that early phase of drinking from the firehose, and I actually have a feeling like I'm drinking a little bit of the water right now, so it's…. No, but it's great. It's a real privilege to be in this kind of role, to represent that massive amount of people that have passion for gas and that, you know, are running our business around the world and integrated gas.

Bryony:

Absolutely. And it's obviously hugely…hugely important. And we're going to get into the, kind of, to the details of why that's the case, but specifically around LNG. But let's talk about natural gas briefly. So, for listeners who might not know or might not follow it, give us a sense of the role that natural gas, firstly, is playing in the energy system.

Cederic:

Yeah, I think natural gas plays a huge part in helping us decarbonise and reduce emissions in our energy system. Both in terms of the role that it plays in terms of helping our customers shift away from higher-emitting alternatives, whether that's coal or even biomass or liquid fuels that they use in certain areas. But also how it helps support renewables actually. Maybe things that we can explore more during the podcast today. 

If we look at gas, we actually see in the next 15 years that it's…. we expect it to be the second fastest-growing energy source. And that’s second after what we would call ‘non-hydro renewables’ - so, all the renewables other than hydro energy. So, that's wind, that's solar, etc.. So those are absolutely number one, in terms of expected growth, but we actually expected gas to be second after that.

Bryony:

Just tell us, as well, just for people again who might not know: What do we use natural gas for?

Cederic:

We use it for lots of things. Traditionally, we use it in heavy industry, for example. It's used to produce electricity, so to generate power, but it's also used in a lot of places for, for example, residential heating, or commercial heating of buildings, etc. So a lot of different uses that it has, yeah.

Eddie:

Yeah, Cederic it’s really interesting to hear that commentary on the broader gas picture. Focusing a little bit now on LNG - or liquefied natural gas - well, what that is tangibly, right, is we chill the natural gas that you've been talking about to a really cold temperature to induce a phase change to get a liquid, which is easier to store, it's easier to transport, and it gives us the ability to bring it to different parts of the world that may not be connected to a pipeline or a natural gas source.

But it's still a relatively - ‘it’ being LNG - is a relatively small percentage of that broader natural gas picture that you've been painting in the energy system. So, can you maybe speak to why LNG is important?

Cederic:

Yeah. Yeah. So LNG just to be corny for a minute Eddie here, it's pretty cool right.

Bryony:

We’re alright with corny. Corny’s good.

Cederic:

Yeh exactly. So cool. And, you know, it is something that, just so people know, it's cooled down to minus 160 degrees. And that's in order to, as you say…

Eddi:

That’s Celsius, right?

Cederic:

Celsius. Actually, it doesn't matter too much when you get that cold, whether it's Celsius or Fahrenheit, but that’s Celsius indeed.

So that we can ship it around the world because it is in a gaseous form normally, and we make it liquid by doing that. So that's liquefied natural gas. If you look at gas - back to it - it's, you know, and you look at a large country, it would typically source its gas from three places. It either produces it itself, in the country - so that's what we would call domestic production - or it imports it through pipelines, from one country to another. Of course, that's something that we've seen in the past happen a lot across the European continent, for example. And the third one is that it would import LNG. So it comes in by vessel and then through what we call a re-gas terminal, it's re-gasified and turned into gas again before customers use it.

Eddie:

Are there any specific regions that do that more than others?

Cederic:

Yeah. So, I think if you look at it in terms of the key growth and of the demand traditionally, maybe let's start there, in the past, has been countries such as Japan, Korea, Taiwan. Those were the traditional consumers of LNG because they didn't have any of their own natural gas. Nowadays, Europe is also a big importer of LNG, and across the Asian continent, actually. China is a big importer, India is growing, Southeast Asian countries, etc. Now, as you said, LNG is actually not the largest out of those three, but it is the fastest growing. So, out of that gas growth that we see, we actually expect about two thirds to be from LNG.

There's a very simple reason why. Where the most of the gas is in the world - in terms of where it comes out of the ground and where it's stored underneath the ground - is not actually where it's consumed. And so the big areas where there is gas are places like the Middle East and North America, and the demand is in places like Asia. So it's around, you know… And that would be a pretty long pipeline to send one from North America all the way over to Asia. So, it's much more efficient and ultimately economic for our customers to liquefy it and then ship it across those long distances.

Bryony:

And give us an idea of that LNG and the difference that it makes to people's everyday lives.

C:

Yeah. So I think, first of all, in many places, actually having access to reliable energy is where it starts. Fuelling lives, fuelling economies, being able to have lights in the evening, being able to heat their homes, these kind of things, etc. But also, very importantly, because when we globally think about this, Bryony, it's emissions, you know, it's climate change that we often… and carbon that we think about. And in many of the places where our customers consume LNG, actually local air quality is also a huge impact in terms of making sure that people actually have healthy air to breathe, and that they can go out without, you know, large haze in the cities, etc.

We see in a number of Asian countries that LNG and gas have really played a role in shifting away, for example, from coal, not just for generating power, but also for large industry close to these cities. And it’s, therefore, ultimately improving and contributing to improving people's lives around the world.

Bryony:

So let's talk about market outlook and confidence in LNG. And, in our own outlook, we've projected 60% global growth in demand by 2040. Shell shareholders have asked Shell to provide more insight into our assumptions in that future demand. What makes you so confident in Shell's outlook?

Cederic:

So actually, indeed, I think it's really great that our shareholders are taking that deep interest in LNG and they see the plans that we have to grow in LNG. And I think, rightfully as a shareholder, they say, hey, help us understand why that would be the right thing to do. So, I welcome that querying and that debate, and I think it's healthy. I think, ultimately, if we look at the drivers of these economies and the growth, it starts with population growth in still large parts of Asia. And then, from there, it goes into people moving up the income curve. And there, the amount of energy that somebody consumes as you go along that curve grows actually quite rapidly. So, that's fundamentally what's underneath the energy demand growth in Asia and in many places still there. Now, first and foremost, again, back to where we started, wherever we can it’s trying to meet that with renewables. And in areas where energy is consumed as electricity, whether that's the lights that we have on or whether that's for more and more cars, what we would call light mobility, using electric vehicles would be the right way to go. I think it’s not always well understood when we think about energy, we very often as a, just a normal human being, we would think about electricity. But did you know that only 20% of worldwide energy is actually consumed as electricity today, if we look at it worldwide?

And that percentage only grows by a few percent every decade, if we look back. Now, that has to grow massively if we want to achieve our ambitions of energy transition and electrification. But there are so many parts of the economy that will just not be able to do that. Large industrial processes, they need high energy densities which they simply can't get from electricity. Or heavy transport, large ships, for example, you know, they just can't do that with electricity and they need the cleanest possible source of energy, but they also need it as a molecule. And we see that our customers are more and more turning to gas to help them do that.

Bryony:

So, if we look at the flip side of that coin, so talking about demand, if we look at global supply…. So, currently it’s dominated by a handful of countries, I think US, Qatar, Australia, and perhaps some others. Is that diverse enough, in terms of supply, to provide the world with that security of supply that you've been talking about?

Cederic:

Yeah. So, this is a hugely important question. And it is… it's a challenge that we hear back from our customers often, as when they are looking to buy LNG from us, they want to be sure that they're getting it when they need it, and when we've promised it to them, because ultimately they ensure that their factories can run, that their homes can stay warm in the winter, and that the lights stay on for all of their customers.

So they rely on that LNG being there when they need it. One of the big things they do look at us for to say is how can you make sure that you have a global portfolio, a company like Shell, to be able to provide that reliably?

[Text displays]

This episode was recorded on June 11, 2025

Cederic:

And, as you say, Bryony, with… let's just think about the geopolitical tensions we have in the world.

Tariffs, other things, you know. Trading routes, you know. Shipping routes that can't be used. So it's a big thing that's on our customers’ minds around having that global diversified portfolio. We work hard to keep that as diverse as possible. We have plants, as you say, in - where we source our LNG - in the Middle East, in Asia, in Australia, in Africa, even in places like Trinidad and Tobago and Peru. But it is also about balancing that against one of the other needs of our customers, which is that it's affordable. And so the balance between those two is what we try to strike in our portfolio. And one of the realities is that often places like North America and the Middle East are the most competitive sources in terms of producing LNG and bringing it to the customer.

Eddie:

Cederic, you know, I really appreciate the picture that you painted on the compelling future that LNG has. And you mentioned a little bit there around some of the geopolitical implications of what's going on in the world.

Cederic: Yeah

Eddie:

I think that we would be remiss if we didn't talk about one of those factors that's going on right now, and that's Russia's large-scale invasion of Ukraine and the disruption that it's had to the global LNG supply chain. So I guess my question there to you is: How has that conflict itself influenced that global LNG picture.

[Name strap]

Cederic Cremers

President, Integrated Gas at Shell

Cederic:

Yeah. So, just … I think it's a great question, Eddie, just linking back to what I just mentioned, right. How customers don't want to be dependent on just one supply source, right? Even when it comes to LNG. And I think one of the things that the… war and then… the energy crisis that followed showed us that Europe was actually too dependent on one source of gas, namely Russia, as a continent. And that drove prices up massively in that time period of ‘22 and ‘23. Now, a lot of that has been backfilled by LNG right now coming from places like the US, but also other things. And Europe is, kind of, reinventing its gas portfolio right now to make sure that it is reliable.

I was actually, this morning, with one of our large gas customers and, you know, in Germany, and their CEO was talking about making sure that they had product coming from the north, the south and the west, and less so from the east. But really, look, they're looking at multiple sources and a lot of it, it's not just LNG, by the way.

[Text displays]

Subscribe now (with white arrow pointing to bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Cederic:

They're also looking at, you know, pipeline gas from North Africa, for example, or Norway. But increasingly we see that LNG is the one that steps in to fill the final gap in terms of demand and available supply in a place like Europe.

Eddie:

So, as the world looks to those alternative sources, there's been some that have said we're actually going to get to a point where we have excess of LNG. Do you have any comments there?

Cederic:

We've actually come out of a period of very low new supply, if you look at the last few years. Now, why is that? You have to think of an LNG plant takes about five years to build from when you start until it starts producing LNG. Now let's go back five years. Where were we in 2020? Covid…..

Eddie:

Inside our house, probably.

Cederic:

Very low. You know, there wasn't a lot of investment in our industry. There was a lot of distraction, other things that were more important at the time in Covid. And so there weren't a lot of new projects being started in that time period. And that's why we see low supply now. And then, Eddie, what you just mentioned, what happened in 2022 and 2023 when prices went up? A lot of LNG sellers suddenly were making… bringing a lot of cash in. So, what did they do with that money? They started reinvesting it to meet that future demand. But because it all tends to happen at the same time, what we do see is that there's now, in the next few years, a lot of new plants coming on, particularly in places like the US. It may mean that we have a period where we have a little bit more supply than where demand, and demand will take a few years to catch up to that.

But I think that is something that is part of the nature of our business. Shell - we're very much a long term investor. We don't look just at what's going to happen in the next 2 to 3 years, but pretty much what happens over the next decade, the next 15 years. And those are the long term trends that we look at and that give us the confidence to continue to invest in LNG.

Bryony:

So, we've talked about market and we've talked about confidence. So, on top of that bigger picture….

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Bryony:

… let's layer on what Shell does and its impact that that has on producing and transporting and delivering LNG around the world.

Cederic:

Yeah. So we've been a pioneer in LNG for decades now. And we're about one fifth of the global market, in terms of LNG that is supplied to customers. We've done that through investing in plants around the world, in terms of where we produce the LNG, but also in re-gas terminals - whether that's in places like our Dragon terminal in Wales, or in Hazira, in India. So that's also throughout the value chain. You referred to my title at the start. That's why we call it integrated gas, because we're present in that full chain, right? We start with actually taking the gas from the ground, liquefying it, shipping it, re-gasifying it, and then selling it to customers integrated across the value chain.

Eddie:

So, Cederic, it's exciting times for LNG Canada.

Cederic:

Absolutely.

Eddie:

Could you speak to where those cargoes are going and how they fit into the broader energy picture?

Cederic:

It is, indeed, a super exciting time to see a project like LNG Canada start up. I've been there quite a lot recently, supporting that project. Maybe one fact: It's actually, if you look at the pipeline plus the plant, it’s the largest foreign investment in Canada ever.

And so it's not only bringing a lot of, you know, benefit to British Columbians, in a place like the West Coast of Canada but, exactly as you said, in terms of, if you think of it from North America, where the gas is, it's actually the shortest shipping route to all of those customers in Asia, across the continent, who are looking for more gas to help their livelihoods and to help them decarbonise. So we're pretty excited about that starting up.

Eddie:

Yeah, I mean, what a picture: Growth, expansion. But fundamentally we're still talking about a fossil fuel.

Cederic:

Yeah.

Eddie:

To those questioning why we need more LNG to advance the energy transition, what do you say?

Cederic:

Eddie, I think there's a number of studies. The IEA, the International Energy Agency, very well renowned, for example, you know, repeatedly has looked at this and says that if you use natural gas, including LNG, to generate electricity, then it's about half the emissions than when you use coal. And of course, it's a little bit different depending on exactly what that percentage is, based on what you use it for. But it's pretty similar when you use it for different industrial sources, etc. So that it's really a major difference that it can make in terms of transitioning to gas today in terms of the impact that it makes to help our customers decarbonise. There's one additional point that I would make, though, in terms of the role that gas plays to decarbonise, which is actually in many places that have seen a remarkably fast playout of renewable energy - and faster, actually, than even I would have believed maybe going five to 10 years back - is that actually they've also been continuing to use, or sometimes even increasing their uses of, gas as a way that complements renewable energy. Why? The simple reason is that renewable energy tends to be intermittent. The wind doesn't always blow at the same pace. The sun doesn't always shine across 24 hours, of course, at the same degree. And so, to be able to manage the peaks and the troughs of that energy generation, to have a stable energy supply, a stable grid, as we call it, often gas provides, you know, that stability that actually allows more renewables to come into our energy mix, as well.

Eddie:

Yeah, I think that for me, being a part of our trading business, one of the things that's been really interesting for us is we talk about those flexible assets, like a CCGT - or a combined cycle gas turbine - and, when you look at those CCGTs, the flexibility that it provides these energy grids to be able to ramp up or ramp down when those renewables do, the sun shines a little bit less or the wind blows not quite as hard.

Bryony:

But to Shell's strategy, if we have a strategy that's largely built on gas, is that really compatible, do you think, with our overall climate targets and our ambition?

Cederic:

I think, for me, there's three elements to that. Number one is the role that LNG plays today in helping our customers decarbonise. We've talked about that a little bit already. Switching away from sources like coal, supporting renewables, etc. So, that's a real world impact already being made today, in terms of helping, you know, to lower emissions. I think secondly, what's important and is a core part of our strategy is that we make sure that the LNG that we produce into the future will have a lower footprint, a lower carbon emission, than it does today. We do that in a number of places, for example when we build new LNG plants, by making sure that they have a lower carbon footprint. How do we do that? Sometimes by utilising carbon capture and storage. So, rather than admitting the carbon into the air is to actually capturing it, storing it underground. We're doing that together with our partners for the new plants that we're building in Qatar, for example. In other places, we will use as much as we can renewable energy to actually power the LNG plant. So, you know, a lot of energy is also consumed in cooling the gas. So, in the Emirates, for example, where a project called Ruwais LNG is where we will use renewable power to power the plant.

One of the really important things is also… is referred to as methane emissions, making sure that all of that actually stays in the process. So it stays either in the plant in the pipe and gets liquefied. Reducing that to really near zero, is also a really important part in reducing the emissions of the LNG production.

Bryony:

Methane was a really interesting point that we were actually discussing.

Eddie:

Yeah, absolutely. I was going to say we were talking about it right before we actually sat down to film this. But, speaking about those methane emissions specifically, what are we doing to reduce the emissions that come from methane as we produce, process and transport the broader gas that we process at Shell?

Cederic:

Yeah. So, there's lots of things, Eddie, that we do in terms of changing the equipments that we use that, have… basically ensure that we don't have any what's called ‘slippage’ of methane. Making sure that we have newer… On vessels, for example, that we have the most modern engines. Sometimes, it's also how we change the way that we execute processes on our plants, etc. But probably the most important thing that I've personally been working on for the last few years is making sure that, across the entire industry, we’re equally focused on this issue. And also, very importantly, in the upstream production of gas, making sure that there is no routine flaring, for example, and really bringing that down to zero and making sure that when there's oil production is that all the gas is actually captured and used to either consume through a pipeline or brought to an LNG plant to be liquefied. I think that's a really important way how, as a total industry, we end up reducing methane emissions to near zero.

Bryony:

Briefly before we started talking about methane as well, that you were talking about decarbonising, and that pathway of decarbonising LNG. And give us an example, or give us an idea, of what that looks like.

Cederic:

Yeah. So, Bryony: Three things. The role it plays today, maybe back to what I mentioned earlier; how we ensure that LNG is lower carbon into the future; and then the third one is how do we provide a pathway towards even defossilisation. So back to what you said, Eddie - you know, it is still a fossil fuel. One of the ways is that actually, at the end of the day, gas is primarily produced from fossil fuel today, but it can be produced from other sources into the future, from bio sources, for example, a bio gas, or even, further into the future perhaps, from synthetic sources. It’s something we can already technically do today, but it's still quite expensive.

But why is this important, is it actually allows our customers to use those defossilised sources of gas without changing any of their infrastructure. So, you can use the same engine on one of these vessels that we talked about, you know, that would be using LNG. And actually, if they, in future, use bio LNG, as we call it - so coming from a bio source - they can continue to reduce over time their carbon footprint and continue to… one of the ways how we continue to help our customers decarbonise.

Eddie:

It's interesting you mentioning pricing for some of those biofuels. When you look at LNG, compared to your traditional natural gas, LNG itself is - can be considered - expensive. And I guess there's a risk there that, because it is more expensive, people are inclined to move back towards a traditional source like coal. Is that a big issue that LNG is facing?

Cederic:

I think, Eddie, if you look at our customers, affordability is certainly one of the things that they look at, but they also look at the reliability, the flexibility and the confidence that an energy source provides. And I think it's that combination of things that our customers look at. And, of course, very importantly, also then their carbon footprint of what they're using. What we've seen is that customers are price sensitive, you know. We do see that, if prices increase a lot, that maybe for some customers it becomes unaffordable because they also have to meet their commitments, of course, in terms of what their product costs for their, you know, whichever customer’s next in the chain. But when prices drop, we do normally see a sharp demand response. So, we see more people buying LNG when prices drop in places like India, where we mentioned, and we see that much earlier than what I would call the equivalent price of coal. So, while price matters, I don't… what maybe is one of the misconceptions is that people will only buy LNG when it's the same price as coal. That's not what we actually see from our customers.

Bryony:

Some people in the industry still refer to LNG as a bridging fuel. And I know that you were at World Gas Conference in Beijing quite recently. And I got the sense that now this is, kind of, we've moved on from using that term. And I just wondered, you know, what you thought about that?

Cederic:

Yeah. I don't like the analogy of a bridge because an analogy of a bridge means you're in one place, there's a big divide in the middle, and you move to the other side. Right? And I don't think that that's the way that, in reality, the energy transition works. It's a much more gradual process. And if we've looked at energy transitions in the past as well, you know, even going back over a century, it's often that the new energy that we're transitioning to, it gets added to the mix. But, actually, the existing sources are also still very much needed, in continuing to play a role in terms of providing affordable, reliable energy to the world and meeting that energy demand. So, I don't expect it to be a bridge where it stops, but that LNG continues to play a role for a longer period of time.

And again, I think at the end of the day, it's gas that we're talking about which will also come from sources other than fossil fuels. The fact that parts of our economy that need a high energy density source, which is often a molecule. So, what do I mean by molecule? Power is an electron.

Something like a gas or a liquid is a molecule which has a higher energy density, which some hard to electrify sectors of our economy need. And it will continue to need something like that.

But even in the future, if it's coming from bio or synthetic and so really being low carbon, it's still that same gas type of solution. So, I believe that a company like ours will still have the competitive advantages to continue to provide an energy source like that to our customers for decades to come, really. And so not just a bridge from one place to another, but something that will continue.

Bryony:

And that point of addition was something that Peter Wood, as you mentioned, in our first episode talking about the energy transition, as well. But I've heard it in some other places as well. Interesting.

Cederic:

Yeah)

Bryony:

Cederic, we've covered quite a lot of ground today, I think. We've talked about Shell's role, price volatility, market outlook, and confidence. And thank you so much for coming in. So, this has been a really interesting conversation, Eddie, I don’t know what you think?

Eddie:

Yeah, definitely, Bryony, I've learned so much as we've sat here today. And then, I guess, for you, Cederic, as we bring it all together: For those people that are wondering if LNG more broadly is holding back the energy transition or something that enables it going forward. A final word?

Cederic:

Yeah, thanks as well. I've really enjoyed the conversation and hopefully the listeners have enjoyed it as well. Eddie, I think absolutely LNG and gas have a critical role to play in the energy transition, not only in meeting that increased energy demand that's about people's livelihoods and improving their lives, but also in helping to decarbonise and, over time, defossilise.

I'm actually convinced personally that, for our company in the next ten years, this will be the biggest impact that we can make on the energy transition. It’s being able to supply more LNG to those customers that need it. It's a critical part of us being the world-leading integrated energy company.

Eddie:

Thanks so much for joining us today, Cederic.

Cederic:

Thanks as well.

Bryony:

Good to have you.

Cederic:

Thanks.

[Visuals]

The Energy Podcast - Epilogue wipe. Then transitions back to Bryony and Eddie in their chairs. The camera cuts between them multiple times

Bryony:

Thanks again to Cederic for joining us today. And, Eddie, there was so much to take away from that conversation, wasn't there?

Eddie:

Absolutely. I think for me it was, if you look back to the first episode, we talked so much with Peter Wood about the global energy system. It was really cool to see how LNG fits into that and the crucial role that it's playing in the energy transition.

Bryony:

And today we talked about the bigger picture. But next, we're going to be bringing that to life really on the ground. So, in our upcoming bonus episode, which I had the pleasure of doing, we’ll be heading to LNG Canada, which is a major new gas project. And we're going to be going behind the scenes of what LNG - growing LNG, in fact - looks like in action.

And if you're into big engineering projects and innovation, this is definitely the episode for you. I'm not going to have any spoilers, but it does involve a ski lift and no skiers. It’s really, really interesting.

Eddie:

A ski lift. We don't get to play with those very often in the engineering world. So, that's going to be really cool.

[Text displays]

Subscribe now (with white arrow pointing to bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Eddie:

And to see that, you're going to want to make sure that you follow and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. Or you can watch us on YouTube.

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Share your questions and comments: @Shell

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Bryony:

And if you’re enjoying the series, of course you can leave us a rating and you can also share it. And just a reminder, you'll find Shell's cautionary note and references from today's show below in the show notes. Thanks so much for watching.

Eddie:

Thanks for listening.

Bryony:

Bye.

[Visuals]

’The Energy Podcast from Shell‘ title sting

[Shell endboard with logo]

© SHELL INTERNATIONAL LIMITED 2025

Title: The Energy Podcast Bonus Episode – What could the future of energy look like?

Duration: 09:42

Description: One of the hosts of The Energy Podcast, Eddie Veal, introduces a special ‘Bonus Episode’ in conversation with Shell’s Chief Energy Advisor, Peter Wood, and featuring contributions from Shell’s Chief Economist, Dr Mallika Ishwaran. In this episode, they will be responding to the question: What could the future of energy look like?

Shell – The Energy Podcast Bonus Episode – “What could the future of energy look like?” - Accessibility Transcript

[Background music]

Up-tempo music bed, which rises in volume when the sting appears on screen, and then fades out after 40 seconds.

[Visuals]

Begins with Eddie sat in The Energy Podcast studio, talking to camera on a medium shot.

Eddie (in vision):

Welcome to the Energy podcast. I'm Eddie….

[Text displays]

Eddie’s name animates on screen with an arrow pointing to him.

Eddie (in vision):

… and on today's episode, we're going to dive into the future of what energy can look like. 

[Visuals]

A full screen sting animates on screen, with a yellow pecten ‘ripple’ background. A microphone logo relating to ‘The Energy Podcast’ is visible centre-left, and “The Energy Podcast” appears in large text, and “From Shell” appears below in smaller text.

[Visuals]

Eddie remains in The Energy Podcast studio, talking to camera on a medium shot.

Eddie (in vision):

On our last episode, we talked about the energy system, the energy transition, and where we are right now.

[Text displays]

A graphic appears on screen that reads: ‘Subscribe now’ with an arrow pointing down to where the subscribe button would be on YouTube.

Eddie (in vision):

Today we're looking forward, talking about the exciting future of energy and discussing the forward-facing world that is Shell Scenarios.

We're joined by Peter Wood, Shell's Chief Energy Advisor, someone who's had a career spanning from engineering to energy advising, and is a key member of the Shell Scenarios team. We'll also be joined by Doctor Mallika Ishwaran, Shell's Chief Economist, who's also a key member of the Shell Scenarios team. I've asked her a couple of questions and we'll fold her answers in as we go throughout.

Just a quick note, before we start. When we say “Shell” or “we”, we're talking about Shell PLC and its subsidiaries, in general. The companies in which Shell PLC directly and indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities.

[Visuals]

A full screen sting animates on screen, with a yellow pecten ‘ripple’ background. A microphone logo relating to ‘The Energy Podcast’ is visible centre-left, and “The Energy Podcast” appears in large text, and “From Shell” appears below in smaller text.

[Visuals]

Eddie remains in The Energy Podcast studio, addressing Peter in The Energy Podcast studio on a wider medium shot.

Eddie (in vision):

Let's get into it. And Peter….

[Visuals]

A graphic ‘strap’ appears over the centre of the screen, saying: “Share your questions and comments: @Shell”, with logos – from left to right – for LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram appearing below.

Eddie (in vision):

… to start, for those that aren't aware. Shell has a long history of scenarios…

[Visuals]

Eddie’s camera changes to a tighter medium shot.

Eddie (in vision):

What do we mean by that and why do we make them?

[Visuals]

We see Peter Wood in The Energy Podcast studio, looking towards Eddie on a loose medium shot.

Peter (in vision):

Yeah….

[Text displays]

A name strap animates on screen that reads: ‘Peter Wood, Chief Energy Advisor, Shell’

Peter (in vision):

 Thanks, Eddie. Yeah, indeed, we've been making scenarios for about 50 years. What we're trying to do is really understand what the future might look like. We're not trying to forecast, and we're not trying to predict. We're trying to, sort of, portray what the breadth of uncertainty might look like going out 30, 40, 50 years. And why do we do that? It's because the business that Shell's in, and the things that we build, have a very long life, and may be around in 30 or 40 or 50 years’ time.

[Visuals]

We see a wider shot of the studio, with Peter seated on the left of shot, and Eddie seated on the right of shot. Between them in the foreground is a coffee table, while in the background is a monitor with the logo for ‘The Energy Podcast’ displayed on the screen. 

Eddie (in vision):

And just to be really clear, there. The Shell Scenarios - they're not predictions…

[Visuals]

Eddie’s camera changes to a tighter medium shot.

Eddie (in vision):

…they're not expectations of what will happen, or what probably will happen, they're not expressions of Shell strategy…

[Visuals]

We see Peter in a medium shot, listening to and looking at Eddie as he speaks.

Eddie (out of vision):

… they're not Shell's business plan…

[Visuals]

We cut to Eddie on a medium shot.

Eddie (in vision):

…they're one of the many inputs that Shell uses to make decisions. Right?

[Visuals]

We cut to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he responds to his question.

Peter (in vision)

That's exactly right. We're trying to look at a range of possible futures. Some of them are what I would call normative, so they’re a sophisticated goal-seek exercise. What would need to happen to achieve a certain outcome, e.g. net zero 2050. Other scenarios are more exploratory, and they riff off the trends that we see today, and view….

[Visuals]

We cut to the wide shot of the studio.

Peter (in vision):

…. and propagate those out to what the future might look like.

[Visuals]

We cut to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he responds to his question.

Peter (in vision):

In the early 1970s, the Scenario team sort of came about, and had a bit of success, sort of, wouldn’t say ‘predicted’ some of the oil crises, but it certainly primed Shell's management at the time that there may be oil crises. And when they came along, I think we were maybe in a better position to handle them.

[Visuals]

We cut to Eddie on a medium shot.

Eddie (in vision):

So, Peter, over those 50 years that we've been making scenarios, are they just for us or are we the only ones that use them?

[Visuals]

We cut to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he responds to his question.

Peter (in vision):

I think, in the beginning, Shell was a little bit on its own doing it. But we see more and more people building scenarios now. We produce our scenarios for our own internal work. But we've been sharing them for a very long time. It's a tool for helping the company engage….

[Visuals]

We cut to our wide shot of the studio.

Peter (in vision):

But you now have a number of organisations…

[Visuals]

We cut to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he responds to his question.

Peter (in vision):

…. that make scenarios. I think maybe one thing that separates Shell scenarios from others is that we have a very clear narrative, but we also have an underlying model - a techno-economic optimisation ….

[Visuals]

We cut to see Eddie listening attentively to Peter, seen on a loose medium shot

[Visuals]

We cut to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he responds to his question.

Peter (in vision):

… that, sort of, keeps it in check. Many scenarios you see out there are either a modelling effort or they're a narrative effort. You can't do that. You need both.

[Visuals]

We cut to Eddie on a medium shot.

Eddie (in vision):

How are scenarios developed? We asked Mallika to help us with this question.

[Visuals]

A pecten graphic wipe reveals a full screen graphic. We see a photo of Dr Mallika Ishwaran on the left side of screen.

[Text displays]

“Dr Mallika Ishwaran, Chief Economist, Shell” appears as a name strap on the lower right part of the screen.

[Visuals]

In the upper right part of the screen, a waveform animates to mirror the audio from Mallika’s voice as she gives her response.

Mallika (audio only):

Well, scenarios are genuinely a multidisciplinary effort. The process of developing the scenarios draws on, firstly, the knowledge and expertise in energy markets and energy modelling. It incorporates economics, whether that is the macroeconomic context for the scenarios or the economics around specific technologies, policies or behaviour change. And finally, it brings in the geopolitical lens that is so essential in thinking about energy. And it is a combination of these different perspectives that provides a richness to our scenarios.

[Visuals]

A pecten ‘wipe’ reveals Eddie seated in a medium shot, addressing Peter.

Eddie (in vision):

So, Peter, the latest report, ‘The 2025 Energy Security Scenarios’, published a few weeks back. What prompted Shell to develop it now?

[Visuals]

We cut to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he responds to his question.

Peter (in vision):

We developed the first two Energy Security Scenarios in 2022….

[Visuals]

A graphic ‘strap’ appears over the centre of the screen, saying: “Share your questions and comments: @Shell”, with logos – from left to right – for LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram appearing below.

Peter (in vision):

 …following events in Europe, and they were published in 2023. And there was a normative scenario there, Sky, which has since been renamed Horizon…

[Visuals]

We cut to see Eddie listening attentively to Peter, seen on a loose medium shot

[Visuals]

We cut back to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he continues his response to the question.

Peter (in vision):

… and Archipelagos. And it became evident, in the last year or so, that there was potentially a new credible scenario there, which we are now calling Surge, and that's basically looking at the potential impact of Artificial Intelligence on the energy system and, in particular, how AI could increase …

[Visuals]

We cut to see Eddie listening attentively to Peter, seen on a loose medium shot

[Visuals]

We cut back to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he continues his response to the question.

Peter (in vision):

…. productivity, economic productivity, leading to a larger economy. And that would then drive a larger energy system.

[Visuals]

We cut to Eddie on a loose medium shot.

Eddie (in vision):

And before we dive into the three specific scenarios, when you pick up the report and you read through, what would you find in the overall report?

Visuals]

We cut to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he responds to his question.

Peter (in vision):

Well, we spend more time on Surge…

[Text displays]

A name strap animates on screen that reads: ‘Peter Wood, Chief Energy Advisor, Shell’

Peter (in vision):

…. in the report, and we're really looking to explore what AI can and cannot do to the energy system. And we're also looking at, sort of, the trends that we've seen firm up in the last two years. So, you'll see in there, for example, quite a lot of emphasis on solar…

[Visuals]

We cut to see Eddie listening attentively to Peter, seen on a loose medium shot.

[Visuals]

We cut back to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he continues his response to the question.

Peter (in vision):

…. and batteries, because they’re proving to be really quite impactful.

But you'll also see the scenario still has quite a lot of oil and gas in it, because we're not really seeing the energy system move away from those fuels just yet.

[Visuals]

We cut to Eddie on a loose medium shot.

Eddie (in vision):

So, Peter.….

[Text displays]

A graphic appears on screen that reads: ‘Subscribe now’ with an arrow pointing down to where the subscribe button would be on YouTube.

Eddie (in vision):

… if you could, let's step through those three scenarios. We'll start with Archipelagos.

[Visuals]

We cut to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he responds to his question.

Peter (in vision):

Yeah. Archipelagos is what you call a fragmentation scenario - a geopolitical fragmentation scenario - where different countries, different regions, maybe don't get along as well as they have in the past. So you get a little bit less trade, a little bit less spread of technology….

[Visuals]

We cut to see Eddie listening attentively to Peter, seen on a loose medium shot.

[Visuals]

We cut back to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he continues his response to the question.

Peter (in vision):

Then we move to the Horizon scenario. That is a normative scenario that looks at what needs to happen to reach net zero 2050. So we've engineered our models to reach that target. It's not a forecast. It's just saying this is what we think might need to happen. And then, of course, we've got the Surge scenario.

[Visuals]

We cut to Eddie on a loose medium shot.

Eddie (in vision):

You just mentioned Surge. We asked Mallika to tell us more about it.

[Visuals]

A pecten graphic wipe reveals a full screen graphic on screen. We see a photo of Dr Mallika Ishwaran on the left side of screen.

[Text displays]

“Dr Mallika Ishwaran, Chief Economist, Shell” appears as a name strap on the lower right part of the screen.

[Visuals]

In the upper right part of the screen, a waveform animates to mirror the audio from Mallika’s voice as she gives her response.

Mallika (audio only):

Now, Surge is a techno-optimistic scenario. AI and advanced digitalisation technologies are assumed to realise their potential to boost economic growth and to boost economic productivity. So, this is a scenario with higher economic growth compared to Horizon and Archipelagos. Now, the proliferation of this technology is based on technological advances and efficiency improvements that drive down costs and help to make it a general purpose technology with wide applications across different economic sectors and different types of activities.

Now, the impact of AI and advanced digitalisation is not likely to be uniform across different countries and regions. In terms of specifically looking at the energy system, this technology raises energy demand, particularly electricity demand, but it also has the potential to drive efficiencies and to optimise this energy demand, down the road.

[Visuals]

A pecten ‘wipe’ reveals Eddie seated in a medium shot, addressing Peter.

Eddie (in vision):

Peter, I really appreciate the insights from you and Mallika about the different scenarios. And we've heard about three fairly different ones. Is it possible to say which one we're in or where we're headed?

[Visuals]

We cut to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he responds to his question.

Peter (in vision):

Everybody wants to turn a scenario into a forecast, and that's not what we do. I think you can see aspects of all three scenarios, sort of featuring the world we're in now. You know, you have some countries that are striving hard to reach net zero and they're exhibiting some aspects of Horizon. On the other hand, if you read the newspapers and you can see that there's global tensions, not everybody's getting along,…

[Visuals]

We cut to our wide shot of the studio.

Peter (in vision):

… that will be Archipelagos.

And then, equally, if you look at particularly what's going on in the United States, there is a big push to build data centres and drive Artificial Intelligence forward. And that is having an impact on energy demand.

[Visuals]

We cut to Eddie on a loose medium shot.

Eddie (in vision):

How do these scenarios help a company like Shell prepare for what's coming forward? We asked Mallika to help us out with that.

[Visuals]

A pecten graphic wipe reveals a full screen graphic on screen. We see a photo of Dr Mallika Ishwaran on the left side of screen.

[Text displays]

“Dr Mallika Ishwaran, Chief Economist, Shell” appears as a name strap on the lower right part of the screen.

[Visuals]

In the upper right part of the screen, a waveform animates to mirror the audio from Mallika’s voice as she gives her response.

Mallika (audio only):

Now, the purpose of these scenarios is then to support better decision-making within Shell. For example, considering the different opportunities and challenges created by these different visions of the world helps make better and more resilient decisions.

[Visuals]

A pecten ‘wipe’ reveals Eddie seated in a medium shot, addressing Peter.

Eddie (in vision):

Peter, do you have anything that you would want to add to that?

[Visuals]

We cut to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he responds to his question.

Peter (in vision):

Recognising the range of uncertainty, what you are really trying to do is set your company up for success in a very wide range of future outcomes….

[Visuals]

We cut to our wide shot of the studio.

[Visuals]

We cut back to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he responds to his question.

Peter (in vision):

So, our scenarios help inform our management in that. Lots of other things do as well. And, as time evolves, we will adjust and the business will adjust.

[Visuals]

We cut to Eddie on a loose medium shot.

Eddie (in vision):

Going back in time, Peter…

[Visuals]

A graphic ‘strap’ appears over the centre of the screen, saying: “Share your questions and comments: @Shell”, with logos – from left to right – for LinkedIn, YouTube and Instagram appearing below.

Eddie (in vision):

…. is there a particular scenario that's near and dear to your heart, or a favourite?

[Visuals]

We cut back to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he responds to his question.

Peter (in vision):

I think we had a scenario about, maybe about, 15 years ago called Scramble…

[Visuals]

We cut to Eddie on a loose medium shot.

Eddie (in vision):

Okay…

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We cut back to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he continues his response to the question.

Peter (in vision):

Let's say the child of Scramble is probably Archipelagos. And I think, you know, over the last 15 years we have seen some aspects of Scramble. At the time, we also had another scenario called Blueprints, the idea that the world will be very organised in how it addressed climate change, and that sort of morphed into Horizon. It's less evident that that's happening.

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[Visuals]

We cut back to Peter in a medium shot, looking towards Eddie as he continues his response to the question.

Peter (in vision):

But as I say, you know, it's like having children. You don't have a favourite child. You shouldn't have a favourite scenario. You should look to learn from all of them.

[Visuals]

We cut back to Eddie on a loose medium shot.

Eddie (in vision):

Peter, thank you so much for your time as to you, Mallika…

[Visuals]

The shot changes to a tighter medium shot of Eddie.

Eddie (in vision):

And thank you for joining us on this bonus episode of The Energy Podcast. Remember, you can find Shell's cautionary note in the show notes. Follow us on social media…

[Text displays]

A graphic appears on screen that reads: ‘Subscribe now’ with an arrow pointing down to where the subscribe button would be on YouTube.

Eddie (in vision):

… click the ‘like’ button, and don't forget to subscribe however you get your podcasts. Thank you again and we'll see you next time.

[Visuals]

A full screen sting animates on screen, with a yellow pecten ‘ripple’ background. A microphone logo relating to ‘The Energy Podcast’ is visible centre-left, and “The Energy Podcast” appears in large text, and “From Shell” appears below in smaller text.

[Visuals]

[Shell endboard with logo]

Shell

© SHELL INTERNATIONAL LIMITED 2025

Title: The Energy Podcast from Shell: Episode One – The Energy Transition

Duration: 35:24

Description: Bryony Mackenzie and Eddie Veal speak to Peter Wood about growing energy demands, the impact of technology and the future of the energy that powers our world

The Energy Podcast Episode One – Accessibility Transcript

[Background music]

Up-tempo music

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Opens on Peter Wood sat in a yellow chair with a large microphone in front of him. There is a white microphone ‘logo’ in top right-hand corner of screen which remains throughout video

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Coming up

Peter Wood:

Energy transition means different things to different people in different places. Texas is an ‘all of the above’ state. It’s a very large oil and gas producing state. But it’s also a very large renewable energy producing state. So Texas is doing not a bit of everything, but a lot of everything. People tend to overestimate the impact of technology in the short run, but they underestimate it in the long run, and that’s very much how it feels in the energy system.

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Cuts to ‘The Energy Podcast from Shell’ title sting

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Transitions to shot of Bryony and Eddie sat in yellow chairs in an interview/podcast setting. The camera switches often between them.

Bryony:

Hello and welcome to The Energy Podcast from Shell, the home of conversation about the energy that powers our world.

[Text displays]

Bryony (with a white arrow pointing to her)

Bryony:

I'm Bryony Mackenzie…

Eddie:

And I'm Eddie Veal.

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Eddie (with a white arrow pointing at him)

Bryony:

And Eddie, it's great to have you here with us for this new season. I've hosted the podcast before, but this is new for you. Now we both work for Shell as well, but we're in different parts of the business. So tell us a bit about yourself.

Eddie:

Yeah, I started off my career as a mechanical engineer at some of our assets in the field, and now I'm working in our trading and supply business.

Bryony:

And I'm from corporate relations. And before that used to be a journalist.

Eddie:

So, Bryony, what are we talking about this year on the podcast?

Bryony:

Well, Shell has more than a century of experience of connecting people with energy. So we're going to be talking about the really big, important topics with experts as well. So everything from LNG to technology, carbon capture and storage, AI…

Eddie:

That's exciting. And new episodes drop every month with bonus episodes in-between. So make sure…

[Text displays]

Subscribe now (with a white arrow pointing o bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Eddie:

…that you like and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Bryony:

And of course, you can also watch us on YouTube this season as well, so I can't wait to get started. But before we do, just a quick note that when we say Shell - or ‘we’ - we're talking about Shell PLC and its subsidiaries, in general. The companies in which Shell PLC directly and indirectly owns investments are separate legal entities. Today's topic is a big one to kick us off. We're talking about the energy transition.

Eddie:

It's the foundation of so many conversations that we're going to have this year.

Bryony:

Absolutely. And we have an expert guest to help us out.

Eddie:

Let's get to it.

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Transitions to The Energy Podcast title sting before returning to Eddie and Bryony with Peter. The video will cut between them multiple times

Eddie:

Today on The Energy Podcast from Shell, we're talking to Peter Wood, Shell's Chief Energy Advisor. Peter, welcome.

Bryony:

So good to have you here, Peter. It's a great job title, isn't it? I'm just wondering what Shell's Chief Energy Advisor does?!

Peter:

Yeah, sometimes the Chief Energy Advisor wonders, too (ALL LAUGH). So, our team…

[Name strap]

Peter Wood

Chief Energy Advisor, Shell

Peter:

…we're about 25 people. We look at… we look at how the energy system might play out over the next, sort of, 25, 30 years. And to do that, we… we have a series of models. So we play those out. And then from that we get… a number of views. We build scenarios to.. to capture those. And then the final thing we do is we engage externally. So on the podcast today, but sometimes it's talking to customers, governments, shareholders. Engaging - so that means sharing our views, but it also means listening. I want to know what our customers think they're going to do in the next 10 or 20 years.

Eddie:

Peter, you grew up on a farm. Can you talk us through that transition from farm life to the job that you have here at Shell?

Peter:

I did indeed. I grew up in a… on a hill farm in the Yorkshire Dales. And I really enjoyed it. Still go back. And from there, about the only thing I was good at at school was physics. And that sort of led me to joining Shell in 1997 and since then I've… I've worked in our upstream part of the business finding… finding oil and gas. And then more recently on the strategy side, and I've done that in, in Europe, the Middle East, and the United States.

Bryony:

So you've... you've gone from, that you said, a, sort of, a bit of a broad range of things. And the focus now being on on the energy transition and obviously when we say that we're referring to the shift away from fossil fuels to low carbon, zero carbon energy sources. Obviously that's how you understand it?

Peter:

Well, I think I'd probably say that we've been in a, an energy transition for a very long time. So if you take a look at history, you know, we started getting serious about moving away from renewables at the start of the Industrial Revolution. So, 250 years ago, because remember prior…

Bryony:

Moving away from renewables?

Peter:

Moving away - because prior to the Industrial Revolution, we were in a renewables world. All of our energy was derived from renewable energy. It was what you could grow, what animals could work for you, or how you could harness wind or water. And then when the Industrial Revolution started, we started harnessing fossil fuels, we started harnessing coal. And then we used coal for… what… a hundred and fifty years rise of coal. Still rising. Well, not rising, maybe flattening, but we're still using a lot. But then we moved to oil, then gas, then nuclear and now renewables. So over that period of time, we've basically been continually adding to the energy that we use. So even today we use more biomass than we ever have done before. So that's burning wood.

Eddie:

So can you maybe put that picture in a little bit more context and talk about where we are right now and what that energy mix looks like?

Peter:

Yeah. So if you take the overall energy mix today, just under 80% is coming from fossil. Very roughly, that's… a third of that is oil. A third of it is coal, and a third’s gas. It's actually a little bit more oil, a little bit less gas, but broadly speaking. And then the other 20% is coming from… renewable power. So, wind, solar, hydro - it’s about five, six percent… another five, six percent coming from nuclear - so, important. And then the remaining ten is still a lot of biomass, a lot of wood and waste biomaterials and one or two other things. So that's where the energy is coming from. And that's what we call primary energy. And that's what comes into the energy system.

Eddie:

So that's where we are now. How has that evolved over the past ten years? Has it been fairly constant or has it changed?

Peter:

It hasn't changed all that much. We've been at around 80% of primary energy from fossil for the last 50 years - around… What you have seen change over the last ten years is a substantial growth in renewable power. So wind and solar, they have gone from really rather modest amounts to 3 or 4% today. And you see that. Look out of the window. Look at the solar cells. Look at the wind turbines. So that's changing. And if you think about the overall energy system, where are we seeing the most rapid changes? It's in the power sector. That's where we are managing to find new technologies to push carbon intensity out. But power is only about a fifth of our final energy. That's the energy we actually use. The remainder of it has not changed that quickly yet.

Bryony:

And where is that energy going? What… what is that energy fuelling?

Peter:

Yeah. So it's fuelling everything, all around you, including materials. People forget about materials.

Bryony:

And when you say materials, you mean…?

Peter:

I mean, I mean the pen… to the building that I’m in, to the road that you travelled in on this morning or… or… so industrial materials like steel and cement and, and so forth. Industry is about half of final use energy. Buildings are roughly - again, it's roughly - about a quarter, and transport is a quarter. So if you think about your daily life, you got up this morning, got out of bed, you're in a building, you went for a warm shower, you've got a gas boiler, you used a quarter of a cubic meter of gas to have warm water. Then you popped outside. Maybe you cycled to work. So you were on an aluminium bicycle frame, perhaps. Or you walked to work….

Eddie:

Wait wait wait. Aluminium?

Peter:

Aluminium!

Eddie:

Do you mean aluminum?!!

Peter:

I mean ‘aluminum’ to my American friends! (ALL LAUGH)

Eddie:

Thank you. (PETER LAUGHS)

Peter:

You needed all those materials, and then when you start moving, you need energy to move, if you came in on the tube. And then here we are now recording a podcast in a building, yes, but we need all the power to keep everything going. So those are your components of the energy system.

Bryony:

Do you think people realise how integral that energy is to their daily lives? I mean, it's obviously…. you know, some of the things that you've mentioned now, I wouldn't even think about.

Peter:

So I don't think they do when we are doing a good job of providing it. But when, for whatever reason, and that's ‘we’ - people in the energy business - not just Shell. But when there's a problem, people pretty quickly realise I'm very dependent on energy. So we're recording this podcast in May. And there was a power outage a couple of weeks ago in Spain. There was another power outage a couple of weeks before that at Heathrow Airport. Power outage, everything grinds to a halt, and all of a sudden…

Bryony:

We did hear about Heathrow

Peter:

…you realise what energy does for you because you can't do the things you want to do.

Eddie:

Let's turn to emissions. What does the global emissions picture look like right now?

Peter:

Yeah. So if you look at total greenhouse gas emissions, it's approaching 60 gigatons - or billion tonnes, depending on which unit you like to use. The energy system is about three quarters of that. The other quarter is to do with land use change, farming practices and other things. But we’ll come to energy. It's about… it's about three quarters of that. And that mix is… roughly, roughly equivalent to how energy is used, sort of a quarter in transport, a quarter in buildings, and a half in industry.

Eddie:

Do you have a good analogy at to what 60 gigatons is, or how somebody could picture the scale of that?

Peter:

Probably - not a good analogy - but if you think of industries that operate at a gigaton scale, so how many industries in the world that we have, there's only a handful. So we have oil, gas and coal. They all produce more than one gigaton of product a year. You have the iron… industry - iron ore, cement. I think if you added up all agricultural grains, so everything - corn, rice… you'd probably be at about a gigaton. Another way of thinking about it is there are 8 billion people, and we burn very roughly eight gigatons of coal a year. So that's one ton of coal per person.

Bryony and Eddie:

Okay.

Peter:

So it's big numbers.

Bryony:

And that emissions trend. Where is that headed globally?

Peter:

If you sort of look over the last 20, 25 years, we've been on quite a steep upward trajectory.

Bryony:

Upwards because…

Peter:

Upwards

Bryony:

…of the growth in demand?

Peter:

Because of growth in demand, and particularly… there was a tremendous surge of coal growth in the 2000s with the.. development of the economy in China. Now, what's happened, sort of, from about 2015 to about the last ten years, we've been on what I characterised generously as an undulating plateau. Now, if you look at….

Eddie:

Tell us more.

Peter:

Well, it's going up and down, but it might be going up more than it's coming down. So if you look at the most recent estimates for emissions… we are … we are still trending up a bit. And why is that. Because we're burning that bit more fossil. But if you look at our own internal analysis and those of externals… it's… we don't see emissions continuing to grow at a steep pace over the next ten, 20, 30 years, that there are too many new technologies that are sort of bending the curve, and there are too many people who want to bend the curve. So the question is increasingly, when will emissions really genuinely plateau? And then, more importantly, when will they start to decline? And how steeply will they decline? What's having the most impact right now is the shift to lower carbon technologies in power generation, because it's starting to happen at scale. But if you look, at say electric vehicles, you know, here in… in… in the UK I think it will be about 20% of new car sales are electric. In China, it will be 50%, in the United States, maybe a bit less, maybe 10%. That will sort of probably be the next wave of emission reduction, along with heating in buildings. When people start to move away from using natural gas to using heat pumps again with low carbon electricity.

Eddie:

So back to the, the electric vehicles. You said that a big spike in the … the emissions was from coal in China.

Peter:

Yes.

Eddie:

You said that a big portion of EV sales or vehicle sales in China are electric. So does that negatively correlate with where we're trying to go on emissions, or has China made some sort of improvement or change to the… where they get their energy?

Peter:

Yeah, I think it's a good question. You're sitting over there and I think you've perhaps got tablets, and those tablets will have components that have been made in South Asia, quite possibly in China. So, in effect, you have a little bit of coal sitting on your lap because there was coal energy used to make the materials to.. for the devices you've got in hand. So coal has been very important in.. in enabling the rapid growth in solar production - solar panel production - batteries, motors and so forth. If you look at the Chinese energy system - now, of course, it depends where you are in the country - but you're at a point now where driving an electric car, I think, is… is lower carbon than… than driving a.. an internal combustion engine vehicle. Now, if you're in, I think, Inner Mongolia is one of the regions where there's a tremendous lot of coal, that that equation is probably not correct. But if you're in an area where there was a lot of wind, then you were very much, sort of, in the money in terms of lower carbon. If you do the same sort of analysis here in Europe… You know, somewhere like Norway with a lot of hydro or France with a lot of nuclear, driving electric cars is a bit of a no brainer. But if you were driving an electric car in Poland that’s still got a reasonable amount of coal in the energy mix, then.. the carbon benefit is, is not as good.

Eddie:

Peter, demand growth, where is it coming from?

Peter:

It's largely… the energy system, largely from now on is coming.. growth is coming from, from east of Suez. So Asia, Indian subcontinent, South Asia... probably a bit more growth in China. Because that's where a large, very large portion of the population is sort of entering the middle class. In the energy system, you have to have a certain amount of wealth before you can really, sort of, harness energy consumption. But when you become so rich, which is where we are in Europe and North America, you sort of reach a saturation point, there's only so many aeroplane trips you can take a year, and you tend to have a bit more money to make things a bit more efficient in your life. So if you, you buy an air conditioning unit in the United States, that will be more efficient unit than if you were to buy one, perhaps in, in, in India.

Bryony:

I think it’s really…

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Subscribe now (with white arrow pointing to bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Bryony:

…interesting about the, you know, the regional differences. And I think we can perhaps kind of come back to that, in a while. But I think the, the point about growth in demand and, and that growth putting pressure on the system and the kind of growth of the overall pie, I mean, you probably would have heard already, but Dan Yergin, who's a prominent voice in the… in the world of energy, he recently described what's happening as adding new energy, not replacing it or transforming it. Do you agree with that?

Peter:

Yeah. So, I mean… what Dan said is, is just factually correct. So far we've… we've really at a global level, only been adding more on top of more on top of more. But, if you look down at a more regional, more local level, you can start to see some transition. So here in the UK, we were sort of the first people to start using a lot of coal in our economy, and we're going to be some of the first, not probably the first, to move away from coal. So I read a statistic earlier this year, I think Britain used… about the same amount of coal last year as we did in 1600 and something…

Bryony:

I think I read that too.

Peter:

…so we’ve really kind of pushed coal out. So what have… what have we done? The lights are still on. Well, we're generating more electricity from gas, but also a lot more electricity from wind and some from solar. So we've… we've seen a transition in our electricity system. You could make the same arguments in, in Southern California - bit of a different equation - there wasn't as much coal, but there's a lot more renewables. So you've seen that happen. But then in, in other parts of the world, perhaps earlier in the, you know, economic…. stages of economic development, coal is still really, really important, you know.

Eddie:

Can you maybe help us visualise a little bit how it is different in those different parts of the world, like we talked about…you know, that equation might be different from driving an electric vehicle in China to Norway to, to maybe in Poland. But just as that transition happens across the world, help us visualise that.

Peter:

Yeah. So if you sort of… you sort of think about… the high income countries that are part of the OECD, so organisation of cooperation, economic development. That's about … about one sixth of the world's population. And these countries’ people are now wealthy enough to be able to make choices… that they can… they can afford to drive down their emissions. So, driving an electric car, moving towards electrified heating, perhaps making choices about… going towards lower carbon fuels if, if it's not, and even using biofuels, for example. So that's one end of the spectrum. But then you could look at the other end of the spectrum, which will be largely Africa again, about one sixth of the world population, 1.5 billion people. You still have vast numbers of people who… who don't have access to electricity. You know, I think it’s 600 million people in, in, in sub-Saharan Africa who, you know, they don't have lights in their house. And there's a very large number of that population - well north of a billion - who are still cooking on open fires. So they need to progress in energy terms from that, to modern forms of energy that are more efficient. And.. they're also going to want to travel more. So if you look at, per capita vehicle miles. Here in Europe, each year we all travel somewhere between 10 and 15,000 kilometres per person in a vehicle. So that's not aeroplanes, that's just in in cars. In Africa that number’s 500 kilometres per year per person. So my significant other is from Texas. You.. you can.. you can drive 500 kilometres in an afternoon in Texas.

Eddie:

Done it many times! (BRYONY LAUGHS)

Peter:

Yeah. So, at that end of the spectrum, the energy demand growth is just tremendous. And there will likely be some emissions that come with that.

Bryony:

And there's an acceptance that, that how each country goes through that transition may, the picture may look very different. (It may not involve fossil fuels for some countries, they may go… leap that entirely and go to mini grids that run off solar power.

Peter:

Yes. So I think, you know, when I sort of think to myself is energy transition means different things to different people in different places. And so, this idea that you described is called leapfrogging. And if you think about how telephones work, you've got a really good example of that. You know, folks in… in Africa, are using mobile phones. They've probably never had a landline phone and they maybe never will. But you're in that situation where they've got a mobile phone with the internet on it, but they're still cooking their lunch… on an open fire, which is something that, you know, somebody from Roman times will be familiar with. So you've got technologies that are two thousand years apart, so you don't necessarily get leapfrogging everywhere.

Bryony:

So Peter, give us some examples of progress. Where would you point to?

Peter:

Yeah I think I'll, I'll pick sort of… sort of… two sides of the world, opposite sides, Texas and China for different reasons. If you're… if you're in China today, about half of new car sales are electric. And that's, sort of, head and shoulders above the other major vehicle markets. And you can hear that. I haven’t travelled to China for a bit, but but one of my colleagues was there and… the streets in the cities are becoming noticeably quieter because an electric vehicle doesn't make as much noise. Now, that means when you're crossing the street, you better pay attention. (EDDIE AND BRYONY LAUGH) But, so, so you're seeing a big change there. And a structural change in a large market. And then the other, will be Texas, where I was lucky to spend some time. Texas is an ‘all of the above’ state. It's a very large oil and gas producing state, but it's also a very large renewable energy producing state. And I believe that Tesla is now manufacturing electric vehicles there. So Texas is doing, not a bit of everything, but a lot of everything. And I think it's, it's probably an example of what we'll need to do. The energy system is going to require all of these things working together for a good while before we go to, you know, 100% renewables, which some people have a vision for.

Eddie:

I guess the thing that I always struggle with, Bryony, is how as a country do you make the trade off of saying, I want to do this big renewable energy project or bring electricity, but I also need hospitals and roads and all of this, this infrastructure that that also impacts people's lives.

Peter:

Yeah. So I mean that… that's a… that's a bigger question of government policy than just energy. What you see with energy consumption - certainly in the early stages of development - that your development progress and the amount of energy that's available to you and that you can use, are very closely linked. So, if you don't have the energy, you won't… you won't get the hospital. Now, I'm not saying that the energy comes first. Maybe the hospital comes first, but the two can't be too far apart. And so I think where countries tend to start is what resources have they got available to them around them. So come back here to the UK. Why did we get interested in coal? Because we had it. But why did we drill in the North Sea for oil and gas? Because we discovered it and we needed it. And so there are countries today around the world who want to explore for these resources, and they will and they have every right to, and that will be part of their economic development. At the same time, they probably will leapfrog with solar and batteries because it's affordable, it's modular, and it doesn't require a big network. So I think what you'll see - and humans do this all the time is if there's a new idea, we just add it into the mix and keep going.

Bryony:

So trade offs and where you spend your money is just one of the challenges, to faster progress. What do you think are the others?

Peter:

Yeah, I think maybe a way of thinking about it is… is to use a physics analogy, which is the three body problem. So if you study physics… two body problems are kind of simple to solve. But three body are really difficult. So what is three body in the energy system? Well you've got somebody who sells a piece of equipment that uses energy - a car or refrigerator or whatever. So you've got that. And then you've got the person who buys that, and then you've got the person who sells the energy. Me. Shell. Coordinating those actions is very difficult. And that can be done with government. But it can also be done with technology. And it sometimes can be done by the customer of their own instinct. But that's harder. Customers tend to go for the lowest cost solution in energy. There's not too much love for paying more just for energy. But if you have a government policy that comes in there that tries to align interests, you can move things a little faster. So back to electric vehicles. I spend a lot of time looking at electric vehicles because it's very important for our company (BRYONY LAUGHS). You need customers to start buying them because a manufacturer needs to build capacity. The customer is only going to buy it when they're confident that they can charge it. So that means companies like ours need to start building charging networks. And so you've got to, sort of, nudge each other along that we are building charging networks just a little bit ahead of where the customer is, because they won't buy otherwise… but not too far ahead that the charging network’s sitting there doing nothing. And the same for the vehicle manufacturer. You can't build a factory that's sitting there producing product that people don't want. And so that's why you see the hand of government nudging electric vehicles along, with the view that as momentum builds, costs will fall, barriers will be reduced, charging networks will grow, and eventually, probably not too long in this country, another five to eight years maybe, it'll become the natural thing to do.

Eddie:

And we've talked about the change over the past ten years a little bit in the podcast. How much of that, that impetus to change is government driven and how much of that change that we've seen right now is, is the manufacturer trying to… to get the consumer to change?

Peter:

Yeah. I think… if you take solar as an example. I think that’s quite… because that's really one of the biggest changes over the last ten, 15 years. You could say batteries as well, but we’ll stick with solar. And the intellectual property behind it, I believe, came from, sort of, European, North American universities. The space race had a lot to do with solar a long time ago. That knowledge found its way onto Chinese factory floors and it was those factory floors that drove down the cost of manufacturing through sheer scale. But they did that because they had a market, and a number of those markets were in Europe where we were prepared to subsidise the the implementation. And that got the, if you like, the flywheel going. Now, there's not a lot of subsidy anymore because it's cheap enough and it's scaling. So what set off as a sort of a ‘rich country plus China’ sort of thing is now spinning out into the globe. So we go back to somewhere in Africa that doesn't have a lot of funding, doesn't have a big R&D capacity, doesn't have a government that's able to.. to… to subsidise. You don't need to subsidise anymore. It's… it's value for money without subsidy.

Eddie:

On that though, if it's not going quickly, does that mean that we're failing at this energy transition?

Peter:

No I don't… well, first of all, I'm not sure it's… it's not going quickly. And secondly, I definitely don't think we're failing. So let's start with the failing. So, you know, we go back ten years, to the Paris Accord. If we'd been having that interview ten years ago and we were to step into the delicate topic of temperature, we would have had to have talked about temperatures going above four degrees centigrade, because there were very plausible trajectories that would take you there. There are not plausible trajectories that will take you to that, those levels of temperature today. So in the last ten years, I really think technological improvements, policy improvements, the way the world works, we've… we've really reduced the chances of very high temperature outcomes, but we've not equally got a trajectory to 1.5 easily yet. That's clear. So I think there has been progress. It's just not enough progress. And then you come to the question of pace. Some people perhaps thought we were moving faster than we are, and they're now a bit disappointed, you know, we're slowing down. No, we're not slowing down. We just never picked up pace to the quite the same degree. And then it depends which sectors you're looking at. If you're in the power business, things are changing quite quickly. If you're in the aviation business, not yet. So you can splice and dice this in whichever way you like.

Eddie:

Yeah. So, you know.. Bryony, I don't know if .. if you get this like I do, but but I've had people that just ask me, you know, isn't it simple? Why don't we just turn off oil and just switch over different energy sources? Do you hear that as well?

Bryony:

I hear that a lot, broadly. And I'm sure Peter's heard it a lot. And, you know, that familiar question is, ‘why doesn't Shell - and or any other energy company - just stop producing oil and gas and just let the transition happen?’

Peter:

Yeah, let me give a short answer and then a long answer. The short answer is… we have, like 45,000 tank stations… I don't know how many million people visit us every day, but they need gasoline, petrol in Europe, diesel. The same when you go for a warm shower, you’ve got a gas boiler, you need the gas. That's what people need today. And if we just stop, they're not going to stop going for warm showers, they're going to source it from somebody else. So the fact of the matter is we need these energy sources today. Question is how can we move it over time? Now, why does it not move as quickly as some people would think? Well, there's a useful framework from MIT, Science System and Societies. And I think that… this is…. that fits the energy system very well. So there's a science component to it. You can't beat thermodynamics. You've got to work with it.

Eddie:

As a mechanical engineer, my professors would be very proud of that statement (BRYONY LAUGHS).

Peter:

Thank you (LAUGHS). So you've… you've, you’ve got the science element we’ve talked a bit about that now in, you know, learning how to make sustainable aviation fuel, second generation. So you've got that. Then you've got the system. It's big and it's complicated. I keep talking about people having showers and driving to work in the morning. There's 8 billion people on the planet and they're all part of the energy system. And we need to, you know, sort of get it to work for them. And then there's the society bit, which is, I suppose that's the personal side of it. There’s the mechanical side and the personal, people need to make the choices. So that's why it's a slow moving machine. And if you, sort of, work from people like Vaclav Smil - he's written a number of books that sort of explain why things take time. But, when you do my job, that's one thing you say, but the other side of your mouth you’ve got to say, ‘but change is coming’. So, Roy Amara, came up with a law in computer science. You know, people tend to overestimate the impact of technology in the short run, but they underestimate it in the long run, and that's very much how it feels in the energy system. People sort of go, oh, you know, electric cars… electric cars are going to change the world tomorrow, you know all demand is going to go into decline. No, that's not true. It won't happen overnight. It won't happen in the next five years. Could it happen in the next 25 years? Yeah, it could.

Bryony:

And Shell's role in the energy transition?

Peter:

Yeah. So I sort of view… sort of, our role, sort of, of horizons - three time horizons, so that the here and now is to deliver the energy people want today in an affordable and a secure way. If you don't have your energy, your world goes backwards very, very quickly. So that's a really important job. And then how do we lower the carbon intensity of what we're delivering? So not necessarily going straight to zero, but how do we, how do we reduce carbon intensity? And we've been doing this. We look at our internal… our facilities, how do we make them more efficient? How do we reduce methane emissions. Biofuels... Can you blend those in? Can you reduce the carbon intensity of a liquid fuel? So you’ve got that - that… that's sort of the bow wave we're coming to in some markets. And then the third thing is you've got to think much further out. How do I go to something that is zero emission? Now some of those things are going to be electrified, and that might not be all for us, but there are going to be other areas where electricity won't cut it and we are going to need new molecules or we're going to need carbon management. What do I mean by that? There is definitely a world out there where we put far more carbon into the atmosphere than is good for us.

Bryony:

Yeah.

Peter:

So then we have to sort of get that carbon out, stick it back in the ground. And there's two ways - you can do that through nature, or you can do that through engineering. And I think we may have a role in either or both of those.

Bryony:

Peter, so good to talk to you today. Thank you very much for coming in to the Energy Podcast.

Eddie:

It was a pleasure.

Peter:

Thank you!

[Visuals]

The Energy Podcast - Epilogue wipe. Then transitions back to Bryony and Eddie in their chairs. The camera cuts between them multiple times

Eddie:

Thanks again, Peter, for the wonderful conversation around the energy transition and Bryony, I'm interested, what are your takeaways from that.

Bryony:

So the two takeaways that I had from that conversation were firstly about the growing energy demand and how that's going to be met over the course of the next decades to come. And I thought what he said about Texas was really interesting as well, about giving examples of where progress is happening. And that's somewhere that I found quite surprising that there was that that mix of fossil fuel production, but with renewables as well. What did you think?

Eddie:

I mean, for me, it was really nice to hear Texas get mentioned…

Bryony:

Because you're from Texas…

Eddie:

That’s right!

Bryony:

…you want to talk about Texas.

Eddie:

I mean, my family's from there. So it's always nice to… to hear the state get mentioned. But I think what was also really interesting was Peter talking about how complex the overall system is between the governments that need to play, the consumers, but then also the producers like us and how we fit into that broader three body problem.

[Visuals]

The Energy Podcast – Outro wipe. Then transitions back to Bryony and Eddie in their chairs. The camera cuts between them multiple times before end of the video.

Eddie:

If you're interested in what the future of the energy system could look like, look out for our bonus episode with Peter Wood on Shell Scenarios.

Bryony:

And you can also drop us a rating. You can share this episode with a friend, and of course, you can…

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Subscribe now (with white arrow pointing to bottom right-hand corner of screen)

Bryony:

…subscribe to the Energy Podcast on your favourite podcast platform, and you can watch us on YouTube as well. And if you've got any comments that you'd like us to put to our guests that come on the show, of course you can

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Share your questions and comments: @Shell

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Bryony:

…drop those in on our Shell social media accounts as well. Remember that you can find Shell’s cautionary note and references to today's episodes in the show notes.

Eddie:

Thanks for joining. See you next time.

Bryony:

Bye.

[Visuals]

’The Energy Podcast from Shell‘ title sting

[Shell endboard with logo]

^©SHELL INTERNATIONAL LIMITED 2025

Title: Coming soon: a new season of The Energy Podcast from Shell

Duration: 01:21

Description: Hosts of The Energy Podcast, Bryony & Eddie, prepare us for the new series and provide a taster of their upcoming first episode when they are in conversation with Shell’s Chief Energy Advisor, Peter Wood.

Shell – The Energy Podcast External Teaser - Accessibility Transcript

[Background music]

Gentle ambient music bed, continuing throughout the duration of the video.

[Visuals]

Opens to find Bryony and Eddie seated in The Energy Podcast studio, facing camera. The camera shot alternates between a ‘two shot’ featuring both Bryony & Eddie, along with occasional ‘single’ shots focusing on the host that is speaking to camera.

Bryony (in vision):

Hi, I'm Bryony…

Eddie (in vision):

And I'm Eddie.

[Text displays]

Bryony’s name animates on screen with arrow pointing to her.

Eddie’s name animates on screen with arrow pointing to him.

Bryony (in vision):

And together we’re the hosts of the Energy Podcast from Shell, the home of conversation about the energy that powers our world.

Eddie (in vision):

You might have heard of the podcast before, but we're back soon with a new series and this time you can watch it on YouTube.

Bryony (in vision):

You can expect lively chat with our own experts and guests on the big topics in energy, everything from LNG to AI to carbon capture and storage. And in our first episode, we sit down with Shell's Chief Energy Advisor, Peter Wood, and have a chat about the energy transition.

[Visuals]

A ripple effect transition occurs, marking the start of the montage of ‘soundbite’ clips taken from Bryony and Eddie’s interview with Peter Wood, Shell’s Chief Energy Advisor.

[Visuals]

Peter appears on screen on a single shot, delivering a montage of soundbite responses from his interview with Bryony and Eddie, as featured in Episode 1 of The Energy Podcast.

[Text displays]

A namestrap animates on screen saying ‘Peter Wood, Chief Energy Advisor, Shell’

Peter (in vision):

Energy transition means different things to different people in different places. 

Texas is an ‘all of the above’ state. It's a very large oil and gas producing state. But it's also a very large renewable energy producing state. So, Texas is doing not a bit of everything, but a lot of everything.

People tend to overestimate the impact of technology in the short run, but they underestimate it in the long run. And that's very much how it feels in the energy system.

[Visuals]

A ripple effect transition occurs, marking the end of the montage of ‘soundbite’ clips taken from Bryony and Eddie’s interview with Peter Wood, Shell’s Chief Energy Advisor.

Eddie (in vision):

You can find us wherever you get your podcasts…

Bryony (in vision):

And don't forget to click and subscribe!

[Visuals]

A full screen graphic appears on screen with The Energy Podcast logo on a yellow ‘ripple’ background – along with ‘Subscribe now’ written in text, along with logos below for Apple, Spotify and YouTube.

[Shell endboard with logo]

Shell

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