Sustaining global gas demand will require $4.3tr in investment by 2030

Total investments of $4.3 trillion are needed in the coming 5 years to keep up with fast-growing demand for natural gas and make up for a lost decade of underinvestment, Majid Jafar, CEO of Crescent Petroleum, the Middle East’s oldest and largest private upstream oil and gas company, told ministers and energy industry leaders in Vienna.

The world must invest more to maintain and grow the current energy systems particularly in the developing world where demand is growing fastest, Jafar said in his remarks on the opening day of the 9th OPEC International Seminar.

“The world faces a massive energy challenge, with demand set to grow at the fastest pace in decades,” Jafar said. “The era of renewables growing at the expense of other energy sources is over—now, all forms of energy must expand together. We need an ‘and, and’ strategy: gas, oil, and renewables must all grow to meet surging global needs.”

Jafar made his comments on a high-level roundtable session titled “Policies and Regulations: A Just and Realistic Energy Future,” which discussed the need for sound and reliable energy policy with respect to sustainability. He was joined in the session by Tengku Muhammad Taufik the Chief Executive Officer of Petronas; Rovshan Najaf, President of SOCAR; and Francesco La Camera the Director-General of IRENA based in Abu Dhabi.

The developing world is where most energy growth will come in the future, Jafar said, because it is where population growth, urbanisation and air condition will require the most new resources. More than 1.2 billion people in the developing world lack access to reliable electricity, a gap that has actually grown in recent years, he said.

To meet that demand, the developing world must be enabled to develop its plentiful indigenous natural gas resources, replacing dirtier fuels and delivering cleaner, more reliable power, Jafar said.

“The ‘energy trap’ in developing countries leads to more coal burning, undermining both climate and development goals,” he said.

Demand growth from AI data centres worldwide will further boost demand, requiring the equivalent of Japan’s entire power demand by 2030. Data centres driven by AI will require an estimated $720 billion in global grid investment particularly in the West to support the surge in demand, he said.

“Reliable, affordable natural gas is a fundamental pillar for a just and equitable energy system which ensures technological progress, economic growth, and societal well-being,” he noted. Just by converting the world’s coal power use to natural gas would reduce global emissions by 15%, making a far greater impact than the trillions invested renewables so far.

The International Energy Agency estimates that global energy demand grew by 2.2% in 2024, well above average over the past decade, with electric power surging 4.3%, about a third higher than the average. This growth is driven by growing needs in developing countries as well as electrification and digitalisation from the AI revolution, which has grown energy demand in the Western world, after decline for years. In turn natural gas saw the strongest growth in demand among hydrocarbons, rising by 115 billion cubic metres (bcm), amounting to 2.7% in 2024, compared with an average 75 bcm annually over the past decade.

 The 9th OPEC International Seminar welcomed nearly 1,000 of the highest-level energy sector leaders, including ministers of OPEC member states, senior leaders from the oil and gas industry, policymakers, NGOs and invited guests. The two-day event, held at the historic Hofburg Palace in Vienna under the banner, “Charting pathways together: the future of global energy” takes place on July 9 and 10. The themes focused on during the seminar included energy security, market stability, sustainability, investments and finance, low-carbon technologies, just energy transitions, energy poverty and diversification.

Crescent Petroleum is the Middle East’s first and largest private oil and gas company, with over fifty years of experience operating internationally. Headquartered in the UAE, Crescent Petroleum maintains operations and offices across the Middle East and beyond, and is the largest shareholder in Dana Gas, the region’s leading private-sector natural gas company.

Meanwhile the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will launch the 19th edition of its World Oil Outlook (WOO) during the 9th OPEC International Seminar in Vienna, Austria.

The event been held in the Hofburg Palace yesterday (Thursday).

Haitham Al Ghais, Secretary General of OPEC, will deliver opening remarks, followed by a panel session with management and analysts from the OPEC Secretariat’s Research Division, which will discuss the publication’s key findings.

First published in 2007, the WOO, one of the OPEC’s flagship publications, provides an in-depth review and analysis of the global oil and energy industries and offers assessments of various scenarios in their medium- and long-term development.