The Inside Energy interview: Maarten Wetselaar

Title: The Inside Energy Interview: Maarten Wetselaar

Duration: 05:15 minutes

[Panning shots of buildings in London]

[A quick shot of a sign for Canary Wharf]

[A man is standing on an escalator as it moves towards the camera]

[The camera pans down to a busy train station]

[The man is seen walking towards the camera through the crowds of people]

[Louise Kingham voiceover:]

“I’ve got quite high expectations of him actually.”

[Louise Kingham in vision]

Text: Louise Kingham, Chief Executive, The Energy Institute

“I think the industry now is at a stage where it has to have some quite honest conversations.”

[The man is walking through an empty tunnel towards the camera]

[The camera pans around and they both greet each other and shake hands]

[Louise Kingham]

“Hi Maarten, lovely to meet you. I’m Louise.”

[Louise Kingham in vision]

“We’ve got some tricky subjects to talk about, I think he’ll be up for talking about those really candidly, because it’s an important part of the story that needs to be told.”

[They both walk through an empty indoor garden]

[Both are sitting down in an indoor garden]

[Louise Kingham]

“Do you think people really understand energy and should we be worried?”

[Maarten Wetselaar in vision]

Text: Maarten Wetselaar, Shell Integrated Gas & New Energies Director

“I think we should be worried, because the future of the energy system is tied very deeply to the future of our economy, our world, and our health. Part of it is about education. It’s about making it simple, and communicate in ways that don’t require a PhD in Physics or Chemical Engineering, and then trying to bring the key choices down to choices that everybody can talk about and discuss.”

[Louise Kingham]

“I’m interested in behaviour change. I’ve spent, like you, a long time working in and around energy, it’s really hard to get people excited about the subject. You’ve got the informed few, but actually the masses that we really need to step up and help us on this journey aren’t as engaged, so how do we change behaviours?”

[Maarten Wetselaar]

“Climate change is not really in your face for people so it’s hard to create that awareness. It’s a bit like the tiger rather than the lion. You know, if you walk on the steps and the lions in front of you, you’re going to take action, but the tiger is somewhere in the woods, you don’t quite know where he is, he might be far away, maybe you don’t need to worry about him and chances are you’ll never meet him. But as with all things, pricing signals help. If emitting carbon becomes expensive, then people will start to find ways around it. Will change the way to produce things, we’ll change the way to consume things. And the only way to get there I’m convinced, is by putting a strong price, a high price on carbon. I am optimistic that when we do that we will get innovations, entrepreneurs, we will get a lot of people chasing low carbon or no carbon solutions, and innovations to decarbonize our lives and then it will happen.”

[Louise Kingham]

“People will say to me ‘if we need energy to give us power, heat, mobility to move us around, do we need oil and gas to do that?’”

[Maarten Wetselaar]

“People see the cost of renewables coming down, and thinking well solar and wind are clean, why don’t we rely on that? And we should. However, solar and wind don’t produce electricity all the time, so they need a friend to partner with them. Natural gas can address every source of energy demand. Whether that’s electricity, mobility, heating, cooling, industry, planes. Renewables can’t do it alone, renewables plus natural gas can do almost anything we need.”

[Louise Kingham]

“There’s methane as well, what’s Shell doing about that as a company?”

[Maarten Wetselaar]

“Methane is actually quite a strong greenhouse gas and so if instead of burning it in our power plants or using it to heat our homes, we actually leak it into the atmosphere then we make the problem bigger rather than smaller. We can build gas plants and pipelines and connections that keep all the gas in the pipe. The important thing for the industry to do is to make sure that practice is applied everywhere. That we help governments regulate their gas industries in the right way and that we work with all our industry partners including NOCs, national oil companies, to make sure that also their distribution systems are tight. That we don’t lose the product, that we actually use the product.”

[Louise Kingham]

“Taking all of that into account, wouldn’t I expect Shell to say to me well oil and gas is important, because you’re an oil and gas company, no?”

[Maarten Wetselaar]

“Well, I can’t talk to your expectations, but clearly, we’re very good at producing oil and gas and marketing it to people, and it’s a very important source of energy to the world and it’s an important source of wellbeing to the world. But that portfolio will have to change over time. So we’ll be adding, biofuels, hydrogen, clean power and other products to the mix of products that we sell to our customers, in order to be part of their energy transition, but at the same time, we know that will we need gas particularly, but oil also, for quite some time to come.”

[Louise Kingham]

“Isn’t there a bit of a challenge for a company like Shell that’s had a heritage in the oil and gas industry, with its boom and bust cycles that it can be seen as a yesterday industry in terms of attracting young talent and the leaders of the energy business that you want to become?”

[Maarten Wetselaar]
“The gas industry and the oil industry are here to stay for quite a long time, and nobody, the company or the people interested working in it need to apologise for being in those industries. They drive wealth and health and wellbeing for billions of people around the planet. And as a company, we need to change with the energy system, and we need to get more involved in low carbon and no carbon solutions in order to help countries fulfil their Paris commitments, in order to help decarbonize the energy system. We need to do both.”

[Louise Kingham]

“Maarten, thank you ever so much.”

[They both shake hands]

[Maarten Wetselaar]

“Thank you! And thank you so much for coming out.”

[They both stand up to leave]

[Graphics]

Fade to white

Graphic: Shell logo

Text: #makethefuture

© Shell International 2017