Energy leaders urge balanced path for Asia's energy transition

Energy leaders at Gastech 2026 in Bangkok called for a balanced approach to the energy transition, arguing that reducing emissions cannot be pursued separately from energy security, affordability, reliability and economic growth.

Speaking during the panel “On track or off course? Navigating the path towards lower carbon energy systems” on Monday (September 14), executives from PETRONAS, PTT, Saipem and Wood, alongside the CNPC Economics & Technology Research Institute, broadly agreed that the transition would require both existing energy systems and new lower-carbon technologies.

Their discussion highlighted a common challenge for Asia: how to meet rising energy demand and maintain affordable supplies while investing in renewables, carbon capture, methane reduction and other technologies needed for decarbonisation.

Security and affordability remain central to the transition

Charlotte Wolff-Bye, vice-president and group chief sustainability officer at PETRONAS, argued that growing populations and economies would continue to increase demand for energy and other natural resources.

That meant the transition could not simply involve moving away from existing energy sources before alternatives were ready at sufficient scale.

“We will have to strengthen our core hydrocarbon businesses to power the energy growth that’s very much there, but at the same time we have to do it responsibly,” she explained.

PETRONAS would therefore continue strengthening its existing businesses while developing new low-carbon solutions and reducing emissions through energy efficiency, electrification, reductions in venting and flaring, and carbon capture and storage (CCS).

Wolff-Bye noted that PETRONAS had cut its own carbon dioxide emissions by more than 32 million tonnes over recent years and pointed to methane reduction as evidence that established energy companies could make substantial progress.

“When you’re very clear about what needs to be done, the industry will deliver, hands down,” she remarked.

For Thailand, the balance between the energy transition and affordability is particularly important because of the country’s dependence on imported energy.

Dr Buranin Rattanasombat, chief new business and sustainability officer at PTT, described the central challenge as ensuring that “affordability meets decarbonisation”, particularly amid geopolitical tensions and volatile energy prices.

Maintaining a reliable and affordable energy supply for households and the economy had to accompany the country’s climate ambitions, he argued.

Decarbonisation could not remain solely a long-term target, Buranin added. “We need to make it into action.”

China combines energy security with transition

Dr Lu Ruquan, senior economist and president/executive deputy director at the CNPC Economics & Technology Research Institute, offered China’s experience as another example of attempting to balance existing energy needs with the expansion of cleaner alternatives.

He characterised China’s approach as “first steady and then breaking”.

The “steady” element involved maintaining adequate supplies of coal, oil and natural gas, while the “breaking” element referred to breakthroughs that could allow non-fossil energy to replace a growing share of conventional energy.

Lu pointed to the rapid expansion and declining costs of solar power as an example of how the energy transition had made significant progress.

He also outlined CNPC’s approach to integrating new energy technologies with its existing oil and gas operations. At the Tarim oilfield in western China, the company has installed at least 1 gigawatt of solar and wind capacity for local energy use.

CNPC is also deploying carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS) at the Jilin oilfield in northern China, where Lu said at least 6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide had been injected into deep geological formations and used for enhanced oil recovery. The company is also integrating green and blue hydrogen into some of its refinery operations.

Lu argued that combining traditional and new energy businesses could allow CNPC to advance its energy transition while maintaining commercially viable operations.

Existing energy assets can support decarbonisation

Fabrizio Botta, chief operating officer for Energy Carriers at Saipem, similarly argued against viewing conventional energy and the transition as two entirely separate paths.

Rather than abandoning existing infrastructure, companies should focus on “giving existing assets a new life”, he argued.

That could involve reducing gas flaring, improving energy efficiency, retrofitting carbon capture systems, converting refineries into biorefineries and integrating green hydrogen into existing industrial operations.

Botta described natural gas as a transition fuel and said Saipem was supporting the development of liquefied natural gas infrastructure, hydrogen and other lower-carbon projects.

Botta regarded the growing participation of international and national oil companies and major utilities in low-carbon projects as an encouraging sign because these companies already possess the technical expertise and project management capabilities needed for large-scale development.

At the same time, he warned of a sizeable gap between transition ambitions and projects reaching the implementation stage.

“There have been so many talks, so many announcements, MoUs, investment lines,” he observed, noting that many planned projects had not reached a final investment decision.

For projects that were technically and economically viable, Botta stressed that the necessary technology and engineering capabilities were already available, making appropriate policies and workable business models increasingly important.

Transition plans need investment and execution

Gerry Traynor, regional president for the Middle East, Africa and Caspian at Wood, also focused on the risk of allowing transition plans and technologies to remain undeployed.

“There’s no point in having a robust plan if we don’t actually implement the plan,” he warned.

He argued that many technologies were already available, but governments, investors and industry needed to create the conditions for faster deployment.

Geopolitical tensions, including conflicts affecting global energy markets, had meanwhile renewed governments’ focus on energy security, potentially influencing decisions about the pace of low-carbon investment.

For Traynor, one of the biggest disappointments of recent years was simply “too much talk and less action”.

He also called for greater measurement, disclosure and comparison of methane emissions intensity, combined with incentives to encourage faster adoption of existing emissions-reduction technologies.

Thailand looks to turn transition into economic opportunity

Buranin said Thailand’s transition would require clearer policy, sufficient investment and closer integration of technologies ranging from renewable energy and battery storage to artificial intelligence, digitalisation and smart grids.

He welcomed moves towards a greener power development plan and the consideration of technologies including small modular reactors (SMRs) and CCS.

On CCS, Buranin said a master development plan had been completed and seismic survey work had begun with support from the Thai government and the Japan International Cooperation Agency. PTT envisages an initial CCS capacity of around 5 million tonnes by 2035, with potential for subsequent expansion.

Rather than viewing decarbonisation solely as a cost, Buranin argued that it should also create new opportunities for industrial development in Thailand.

That approach reflected the wider message from the Gastech panel: the transition will not be achieved by choosing between conventional and lower-carbon energy overnight.

Instead, the executives advocated a staged approach that combines secure and affordable energy supplies with investment in cleaner technologies, supportive regulation and infrastructure capable of bringing projects to commercial scale.

Wolff-Bye pointed to Southeast Asia as a particular source of optimism, highlighting stronger regional cooperation and an increasing pace of activity.

For a region where energy demand is still growing, the challenge is therefore not whether to pursue the transition, but how to move faster on decarbonisation without sacrificing energy security, affordability and economic development, on which the transition itself depends.