Energy Execs: Climate Change a Concern, but Oil & Gas Will Be Needed for Decades

At a major energy conference in Houston, a few oil executives talked about a need to reinvent the industry, but they still see a long fossil future.

A weeklong energy industry conference that came to a close on Friday revealed an oil and gas industry in the midst of a working contradiction.

In speeches that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago, executives from some of the world's largest oil companies said the future is low-carbon and the industry needs to reinvent itself or risk becoming irrelevant as the world turns to cleaner energy.

Yet at the same time, their peers talked about a future where oil and gas demand would remain strong for decades.  They spoke of natural gas not as a bridge to some fossil-fuel-free world but as a "forever fuel."

The public debate highlighted the gap between a stated desire to become part of a climate solution and the reality of a booming oil and gas industry that remains the biggest part of the greenhouse.

Read more at Energy Execs:  Climate Change a Concern, but Oil & Gas Will Be Needed for Decades