Woodside Energy on navigating a complex energy future

Shiva McMahon, executive vice president, international operations, Woodside Energy said the key focus when it comes to the energy industry in TT is the people.

“The human face of our industry, for those in terms of energy transition have been collectively collaborating to adapt and of course, our first priority as a company and an industry is to maintain safe operations.”

She said in order to do that it requires diligent focus and attention and there should be no losing sight of that when navigating the complexities of distractions within the industry. She said some examples of these are the covid19 pandemic and fast-paced changes in technology, but the most prominent would be the increased social corporate responsibility of the companies in the industry.

“It also highlighted the complexities of what people have to deal with to navigate on a daily basis to setting the right pace and building on our existing industry is going to be critical in our set up to think and act through the energy transition.”

McMahon said she knows the companies have a role to play in the future for the energy security of the world and to provide access to affordable energy needed.

“Our ongoing investments in hydrocarbons are also very much linked to the decarbonisation goals of the world. So we heard this morning from his Excellency President Ali as well that the role of gas in providing the baseload capacity to deal intimacy challenge of renewable power generation.”

McMahon said they have even started doing things differently in their core operations in terms of improving efficiency, so how the operation of power generation facilities are handled, how the flaring systems can be optimised, how they can improve the efficiency of power generation and improving reliability.

“We also have to design out some of those admissions, leveraging some of the existing, but also some of the new technologies. Hydrogen for example and the downstream it depends upon, methanol and ammonia that are also prevalently there. We do have an absolutely critical role in how we decarbonise with these low-carbon intensity products.”

She drew reference to Massy Woodside Energy and its work in transitioning to handle the complex energy future.

McMahon was speaking at a panel discussion under the topic Navigating a Complex Energy Future. She was joined by Sarah Boon, vice president, corporate sustainability of Methanex Corporation, Chan Boodhai, senior advisor to the Chairman and CEO, bp, Anita Gajadhar, managing director, marketing, shipping and logistics, Proman, David L Goldwyn, chairman energy advisory group, Atlantic Council while the facilitator of the panel was Dr Thackwray Driver, president and CEO, TT Energy Chamber.