HOUSTON (Reuters) – The global natural gas market has been more fundamentally changed for the long term by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine than the oil market, Chief Executive Mike Wirth on Monday said on Monday.
The conflict in Ukraine and ensuing Western sanctions upended global oil and gas markets and disrupted supplies from Russia.
Europe has turned away from dependence on Russian gas supplies and has no intention of changing that in the future, Wirth said in remarks at the CERAWeek energy conference. The attack that disabled the Nord Stream pipeline from Russia to Europe means changes would be long-lasting, he added.
“Gas markets, I think, are structurally changed for the longest,” Wirth said.
Russian oil is still getting to the market, he said, but at different costs, as ships travel longer distances to get Russian crude and fuel to countries that have not imposed sanctions.
That has left the oil market and logistics tight and vulnerable to any unexpected supply disruption, he added.
“There’s not a lot of swing capacity, there’s not a lot of inventory capacity,” said Wirth. “There’s now a lot of constraints… an unexpected event today would create a different balance.”
Wirth said maintaining secure and affordable supplies while at the same time managing the energy transition to the low-carbon industry of the future was “one of the greatest challenges of all time.”
(Reporting by Simon Webb; Editing by Gary McWilliams)