SPE Denver February General Meeting
February 12 @ 11:30 AM - 1:00 PM
Society of Petroleum Engineers
Distinguished Lecturer 2024-25 Lecture Season
ESG for Petroleum Engineers – Without the Hot Air
(What the International Capital Markets Expect from the Oil & Gas Industry)
Abstract:
Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) continues to gain attention. Increasingly, ESG
compliance is a condition for funding by shareholders and banks. Most recently, the European Union
has started to turn ESG industry standards into regulation. Unfortunately, ESG has become clouded in
an overload of jargon, requirements and metrics; in addition, it is now also becoming politicized.
This lecture shows that ESG has been developing since the start of the industrial revolution and is here
to stay. It will identify key long term ESG trends and will use them to foresee what the future may bring.
The capital markets have converged on a handful of industry standards that are almost universally
accepted and applied by all major financial organizations. These standards are risk- and value-based,
and project focused. As such they are a blessing in disguise: although elaborate and demanding, they
provide a level playing field and can be easily integrated in existing business processes.
ESG scrutiny is moving from auditing of policies and manuals to carrying out due diligence on actual
implementation in the field. In other words, petroleum engineers, project and operations managers have
become part of ESG compliance. This lecture will use case studies to highlight the essentials that they
need to know.
Biography:
Christiaan Luca holds a MSc in petroleum engineering from Delft University, the Netherlands. The first
part of his 32-year career with Shell he spent in various petroleum engineering roles, including drilling,
reservoir engineering, project planning and economics, while developing oil and gas fields in Thailand,
Syria, Gabon and Nigeria.
Upon returning to Shell’s corporate offices in the Netherlands he held various management roles in
technology and business strategy and planning. He was closely involved with externally challenged
programs in CCS and Rigs-to-Reefs. Until end 2016, Christiaan was the head of Shell’s global practice
in non-technical risk management. He now is an independent trainer, assessor and coach in this
expertise area.