Jun 2008 - OPEC

Above (l–r): Gerhard Roiss, OMV Deputy Chairman; Mohamed Nasser Al Khaily,
former Managing Director, International Petroleum Investment Company (IPIC);
and Helmut Langanger, Member of the OMV Executive Board and Head of the E&P
Division.
Above right (l–r): Dr Heinz Fischer, Austrian President; Dr Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer,
OMV Director General; and Helmut Langanger.
Global trends
Asked to survey the global panorama, Langanger takes
note of several global trends. “Energy will, to a large
degree, determine the future wealth of mankind,” he says.
“Without energy, there will be no economic progress.”
Furthermore, he says emphatically, there is little reason
to think that oil will be displaced as the main engine of
world economic growth.
He elaborates: “Currently, oil and gas cover around
60 per cent of the world’s energy, both supply and
demand.” And since even the best renewables will only
ever capture ten or 15 per cent of the world’s energy
demand in the next 30 years, oil and gas will continue
to play a dominant role.
In addition, Langanger says that coal, which currently
provides 20 per cent of the world’s energy supply, will
experience a revival over the next 30 or 40 years. Thus,
in the formidable mind of OMV’s head of E&P, oil, gas
and coal will continue to contribute 70 to 80 per cent of
the world’s energy supply.
Of course, this has tremendous implications for OPEC.
With 77.6 per cent of the world’s proven oil reserves situated
in Member Countries, and with the 100-year lifeindexes
of oil reserves in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iran, Iraq
and the United Arab Emirates, OPEC is well-positioned to
Mohamed Bin Dhaen
Al Hamli (l), Minister of
Energy of the UAE, and
Gerhard Roiss, at the
inauguration of OMV’s
Abu Dhabi office on
May 13, 2007.
play an increasingly important global role in the coming
years. And with no replacements on the horizon, oil and
gas will remain valuable commodities.
“This is the reason why I’m a 100 per cent sure that
OPEC will become even more important in the future,”
says Langanger. Organizations like OPEC can only gain in
influence, he says, because only they will be able to provide
something that the world desperately needs. Thus,
OPEC will be responsible, to a large degree, for the “further
prosperity of the world,” Langanger says. “Without
oil and gas there is no economic development.”
All photographs in this article, courtesy OMV.
OPEC bulletin 6/08
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