Hi, welcome back to another of our Decarb Discourse discussions.
00:12
We're at the CEDIGAZ Annual Seminar 2023.
00:16
The annual meeting is going really well.
00:18
The weather's been fantastic and we're enjoying this beautiful gardens at the Maison Latin Amerique.
00:25
So I'm with Anne Sophie Corbeau of course former IEA and now with Columbia University.
00:30
Very well known face one of the global authorities on gas and LNG I like to say.
00:35
So what have you thought of the event? So far so good to catch up with friends and see some new.
00:39
Absolutely.
00:40
Yeah, it's very good.
00:41
I mean, you know, this is kind of annual event that you know, everybody is going to and always nice to see indeed a lot of faces, that you usually see at this event and also a couple of new faces as well.
00:51
Yeah, all good.
00:53
What did you think your panel? That was quite lively.
00:55
It was fun.
00:55
Yeah, no, that was fun.
00:56
And indeed, I mean we had a completely different background, you know, I mean I am obviously from the academia.
01:01
We have also somebody h more from the upstream, somebody who's more from the trading side.
01:05
So contrasting the views and also different geographical backgrounds was particularly interesting.
01:09
And in summary, the reliance on LNG that we've seen really comes to the forefront in Europe globally.
01:17
Is it a saviour? In a nutshell you see LNG as a saviour for global energy balance over the next two to three years in the immediate term? Well, I mean it definitely saved Europe at the expense of other people.
01:29
Now, I mean over the next two years, what we know is that there is not going to be that much in terms of new LNG export capacity.
01:35
You know the additions are pretty limited.
01:37
So we will see things arriving by the end of 2024, definitely 2025, yeah.
01:44
The question is, you know, what is the real exact timing of all these additions? And this is probably the question that everybody is asking himself.
01:50
And that the European Commission have thrown themselves at.
01:55
Oh they LOVE LNG! LNG has been you know like THE solution.
02:00
I mean when you remember the EU strategy and the first target, you know, plus 50 BCM.
02:06
Wow, OK we got them.
02:08
I am quite surprised that we got them indeed, I mean 20 BCM coming because China reduced its energy demand.
02:14
But you know we managed to attract all these energy at a cost.
02:19
We have paid like a very high price especially you know this period July, August which became completely crazy with everybody rushing in.
02:28
Because that was a big surprise, right.
02:30
And we've had the Commission here this morning, which was excellent, and it was very good to get the views from the deputy director general.
02:37
I'm going to give you an opportunity, Anne Sophie, let's pretend you're Kadri Simpson for the day.
02:42
No please! What would you do? What do you do as Commissioner with all that power? What's the first thing you do in terms of energy realignment or strategy? What would you would you like to change or what would you like to see? I think I need to get a better understanding about what's really happening, you know?On the ground because we discussed you know this fact that industry gas demand has been disappearing.
03:03
But I want to understand and to get to the bottom of that because you know it's all very good to say and I have heard some politicians saying it's great our gas demand in industry has dropped by say 40%.
03:15
I would actually be quite worried what is happening on the ground, what is going to be the impact for you know these factories, are they going to close down And this is exactly what we were discussing during our panel.
03:26
So I think you know.
03:27
Should be more worried and also I mean I will stop with the RePowerEU etcetera and I will try to have a better understanding about what we can really achieve rather than having pie in the sky targets because nobody believes in RePower but then you have a certain number of people who are saying ohh but you know I mean these are the people we would target.
03:46
So they are fixed actually they are not binding, we are going to reach them I don't think so for some of them.
03:55
You know, you need to basically manage expectations, but there is so much danger that we are getting it completely wrong.
04:02
But I think in my opinion this is actually totally misleading.
04:05
So I think, you know, politicians should be accountable for the targets that we are fixing.
04:09
Unfortunately the European Commissioner is going to disappear next year.
04:13
She's probably going to find a new job and therefore will not be accountable for all these targets, which I think is so very regrettable because, you know, four year job I go, I find you know, very nice job in the consulting department.
04:24
Something like that high paying job and then hopefully go but no, I mean it's it's actually quite serious and and we have paid like we have, we have spent so much money trying to protect a certain number of consumers from the effect of very high prices.
04:38
And this is also something that I think is missing in a certain number of governments and governments recognise that themselves is that they don't know how to protect specifically the poorest of the consumers.
04:50
You know, other than doing your blanket measure like we have done in France, you know, yeah you are going to increase 15%, but then somebody with wealth doesn't, doesn't care, you know, so they are just going to happily consume even more energy than before because there is hot weather and blah blah blah.
05:07
So this is actually bad.
05:08
You know, we need to have measures which are targeted to the poorest consumers, which are gradual and those who are really wealthy.
05:16
So I mean, they pay the full price of energy and if they can actually reduce their energy consumption, even better.
05:25
Maybe we should make you the Commissioner for the next four years. Oh my God! Have you thought about running? No, I don't think it would be political.
05:34
I mean, I am so honest and I'm so blunt in my comments that my longevity as a commissioner will be a couple of months at best, you know, and I think you know, with the country on the other side of the river, I mean, there will be probably some conflicts.
05:53
Because if there is one thing that I find completely crazy is that Germany closed the nuclear power plants.
05:59
Yes.
05:59
And you know, found very good reasons to when actually it was just ideology.
06:03
And this is completely stupid because at the end of the day, you know, that was obviously 6 BCM of gas equivalent annual demand.
06:09
And then we have Mr Habeck who's complaining that, Oh my God, the disruption of the Russian Ukraine transit agreement at the end of 2024 is going to remove 12 BCM from the equation.
06:22
Well, if you had not closed nuclear power you would have saved 6 BCM, so that's hard for the number.
06:29
Yes, short, short, termism rules, always.
06:33
Ideology 101.
06:35
Yeah, absolutely.
06:36
And me first and the rest after.
06:39
Thank you so much Anne Sophie for your time.
06:41
Thanks for joining us.
06:41
Thank you for the invitation.
06:42
Pleasure.