The new-old boogies of oil and gas industry

World Petroleum Congress was held in Houston, Texas on 06.12.2021. Where “executives from Saudi Aramco, Exxon Mobil, and Chevron, speaking at the World Petroleum Congress in Houston on Monday, blamed demand for renewables and lack of investment in fossil fuels for recent fuel shortages and price volatility.”

The things that need more attention according to the oil and gas giants are “”Energy security, economic development and affordability are clearly not receiving enough attention.” Energy security and economic development on a dead planet? The economic development of the last century – especially since the neoliberal period has been that of massive concentration of wealth and power and people losing access to essential energy needs. And the worry about affordability once again shows how the state and its subsidies and fundings are essentially what makes a technology, sector, or industry feasible under contemporary capitalism.

The industry is also raising the boogieman of inflation and social unrest. Which are not unlikely but not inevitable and both are guaranteed in a scenario where the world enters irreversible cascading climate collapse.

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