I am the moderator Nobuo Tanaka, former executive director of the iea, International

Nobuo Tanaka: You still have 2 minutes but… Yes, Bob, you mention about Russian situation. What is 

your (BP) view about what Mr Sechin talk about Saudi Arabia? It’s now moving for the restructuring. 

What transferences are the alarm call on public? Do you think this is a good direction? 

Robert Dudley: There’ve been some remarkable ambitions in announce by Saudi Arabia. And, Mr 

Tanaka, I’m not an expert on Saudi Arabia but today 30-32% of the world’s energy is oil. And it’s going 

to be a large percentage as the world is going forward. So, I don’t think it’s actually realistic for Saudi 

Arabia to not worry about oil going forward, I think they will. This is going to be a long, long wavelength 

transition, but I think Saudi Arabia is starting. I have been sympathetic to Saudi Arabia’s position: 

essentially why should we shut the lowest cost oil producing in the world and subsidize highest cost oil? 

And I think this has been their policy, which is driven events to the grades in the last 2-3 years. So, I 

think, as Mr Sechin said, our industry need to be based on some fundamental economics and what 

sufficient for investments to be made. And I think for whatever the reasons that brought us to this period, 

which, I think, in many ways were the high production rates in the United States from the revolution of 

fracking. It’s also now as always happens with commodities when they get overproduced and the prices 

drop, the marginal barrel usually determines the price of oil. So in the period even today we probably are 

producing more than we are using. But I do think demand is as response to prices, as there have been low 

prices of oil and fuels, we are now seeing an increase in demand for oil and fuels. You see that in China, 

you see that in North America, you see that in Europe. It always leads to recorrection, which shows that 

the market is working. We’ll see how things are unfolding in Saudi Arabia. It’s very ambitious, it’s a big 

change and the world is looking at it very, very closely. People are wondering and starting to think about 

the age after oil. It’s a good thing to do, we’re on a long wavelength transition to low-carbon energy, it’s 

gonna take time. It has to because of the population of the Earth. I think that changes announced are 

healthy.  

Nobuo Tanaka: OK, thank you very much, Bob. Let’s move to Lorenzo Simonelli of the GE Oil Gas. 

Lorenzo, it’s to some extent the same question: what do you see the prospects of the oil and gas sector 

through this downtime? Also, important point, is that Mr Sechin talked about - lots of technology 

innovations in this sector to overcome this downturn. What technology do you think is important? If we 

are talking of digitization or subsea technologies, what is your view on this?  

Lorenzo Simonelli: Thank you, Tanaka-san, and thank you Mr Sechin, thank you. It’s great to be at the 

forum at such a great distinguished panel. As you’ve said, we are in challenging times, that are very 

volatile. We do believe that the long term, though, is still very positive. We’ve got to navigate through 

the short-term sick locality that you’ve heard about, the tremendous reduction we’ve seen in capex, the 

projects’ slowdown. We’ve got to focus on really new technologies, and the way in which we can 

provide a new era for the industry to be profitable and actually continue at a lower cost per barrel. We 

think that is possible. The way in which we actually become successful is by challenging ourselves 

through technology, innovation and destructive thinking. The way in which we do that is through a 

program of digitization. I’d just like to cover digital for a few moments, and then some other topics. But 

General Electric has invested heavily in becoming, what we say as a digital industrial company. We think 

that the fourth industrial revolution is really around the usage of data and becoming more predictive, 

being able to become more analytical and actually utilizing the data to lower the cost going forward. And 

if you think about costs, the large cost within this industry is based on unplanned downtime. We think 

that by providing way in which you utilize the algorithms, you take data, you can actually reduce the 

unplanned downtime by effect that is significant. Now, I’ll give you an example. If you think about a 

subsea well. On a daily basis this well is not producing, you have $2-3 mln lost from the revenue 

perspective. Now, we can actually take information from the well, it be a reservoir information, or 

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machine data, and perform algorithmic assessment to be able to provide an outcome that reduces the 

unplanned event. We actually have programs that have been in place with a number of our LNG  

facilities where we a now providing uptime of 99.9% reliability. And that’s being achieved through new 

software, such as a reliability map. Destructive technology means that you have to create what is now 

known as an industrial operating system. And that’s what we call predex within General Electric. It’s a 

way in which, like all of you have your iPhones or your Galaxies, with map is created within an industrial 

operating system for large-scale data. That large-scale data can now interface between the RPs, between 

different dislocated systems and provide the capability of assessing an algorithmic math required for the 

better outcome. Another example would be field advantage which is a software application that you 

utilize within onshore fields and can be used even here in Russia where we’re utilizing them at least at 

the moment. By looking at differences in water card, between oil, water and also dielectrical submersible 

pump, you can optimize the production of the well. And that provides anywhere 2-5% increase in 

production, which is a better outcome for the industry. I’d just say another final example is a project we 

are undertaking with Bob Dudley and BP monitoring 4,000 wells and looking at the data from those 

wells to insure we reduce the unplanned downtime. We are taking that also to platform information. So if 

you look at the way in which we improve technology, data’s gonna be central, and being able to utilize 

that data to become more predictive and improve the outcomes for the customers. Additionally, 

technology allows us to look at new products, standardizations. You’ve seen the effort discussed before 

in the industry. But there’s still more that we can do from the aspect of taking away ad hoc, taking 

customized engineering out of the equation, and focusing on standardization of products and then also 

moving towards innovative commercial approaches on services. We’ve launched the fast contractual 

service agreement in the industry around blow-up preventers, but we think there’s more that can be done 

by actually marrying the service sector with the operators and looking at the way in which we engage in 

undertaking the management of equipment out in the field, where the true expertise is, and utilizing 

contractual service arrangements, financing arrangements to get a better outcome. So, we feel very 

positive that over the long term, as the industry comes back, as we take some of these steps, with data, 

with some of the aspects of product standardization, and also services, that we can find a new better 

standard of working together, and in Russia in particular. We feel very positive about the way in which 

Russia is positioned in the industry. We all know about resource capabilities, we also know the costs is 

very productive here in Russia. So we are engaging in a number of collaborations our thirds in strategic 

partnerships with Rosneft, as well as the joint projects on regasification solutions, which we think will 

help the industry as we continue to progress. So, there are difficult challenges at the moment but through 

technology that we provide and also by collaboration we’ve got an optimistic outlook and feel very 

positive about the age of gas continuing as we go through the increasing need for energy which is going 

to be here for the next 20 years. So, Tanaka-san, that’s a technological view. 

Nobuo Tanaka: Thank you very much, Lorenzo. Now we have to talk about… I remember some time 

ago Al Naimi was the Minister of the oil of Saudi Arabia. He measured about if we have: “Mr Tanaka, 

you are talking all about clean call. There should be clean oil”. So that is his strong incentive for 

investment in renewable energy. Now we have to talk about digital oil. This is a very interesting concept. 

But we’ve spent five minutes already, so let’s move to the next speaker panelist. Next question is to 

Claudio Descalzi, the CEO of Eni, Italy. The renewable energy is certainly under challenge with very low 

oil price and price of gas because renewable is very expensive in a way. What do you think the prospect 

of oil and gas market prospects in the view of development of alternative energy and renewable energy 

sources? What is the strategy for Eni in this context?  

Claudio Descalzi: Thank you. I think that the question is very right because now the oil price and the gas 

price is very low, and it’s not easy for the renewable. In Paris, I think that in 1990s 6 countries 

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