CERAWeek 2023 – Recap & Reflections

Equitable Origin’s Senior Sustainability Advisor, Corey Jordan, attended S&P Global’s CERAWeek, one of the most prestigious annual gatherings of senior energy industry executives, investors and government officials, in Houston, Texas last month. 

As a first-time attendee of CERAWeek, I found it impressive how S&P orchestrated a seemingly focused conference given the diversity of the themes represented in a very successful manner. The week was extremely well organized given the sheer size of the conference layout and brought together a range of industry stakeholders from technical experts to NGOs, to the US Secretary of Energy, Jennifer Granholm.

The conference themes were:

• • The Energy Trilemma: Balancing security, transition, and affordability
  • Geopolitics and Geoeconomics: An era of volatility
  • Competitive Landscape, Technology, and Innovation
  • Financing the Energy Future: The capital transition

• Supply Chains, Commodity Markets and Energy Transition

• Future Workforce: Diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and next generation skills

While Carbon Capture and Hydrogen projects took center stage as the energy transition investment firms’ darlings, GHG emissions measurement and reporting certifications and technologies garnered great interest and attention from major producers, midstream operators, downstream buyers, tech investors, and government representatives. As one of our colleagues noted, the conference seemed less about oil and gas and more about decarbonization.

The week ended with an invitation-only roundtable hosted by the US Department of Energy (DoE) – Office of Fossil Energy and Carbon Management titled, “Draft Framework for Differentiated Natural Gas: Criteria, Transparency, and Governance”. Areas of focus provided by the DoE were: Natural Gas Certification Criteria, Accreditation, and Data Transparency. Equitable Origin was invited to and represented on the roundtable by our CEO, Soledad Mills. Soledad pointed out that Equitable Origin  has been developing standards for responsible energy production since 2012 and has been working with many of the companies represented at the table to create and improve the differentiated natural gas market. Furthermore, Soledad stressed the importance of a certification standard being verified and measured by a third-party to ensure credibility, independence and objectivity, and to prevent conflicts of interest. Finally, Soledad encouraged the DoE to consider the role the government could play in incentivizing companies to produce and source differentiated gas. 

As in any conference this size, there were certainly varying opinions held by the attendees at CERAWeek 2023, but overall, there was a spirit of collaboration among major stakeholders determined to develop a robust, transparent, and credible marketplace for responsibly produced, low emissions gas as soon as possible.

-Corey Jordan