Since the 1930’s when oil was first discovered in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, the countries that make up the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) -- Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Oman, and Bahrain -- have been key players in the global oil market. While their vast endowment of oil resources has enhanced the region's economic and geopolitical importance, it has also linked its fate to the cycle of oil prices. The rapid pace of change in the energy sector today, from the rise of US shale and the historic collapse in oil prices to the growing international commitment to address climate change, poses key challenges for the GCC. How the countries deal with these issues will have profound implications for them and the world as a whole.
 
On this episode of Columbia Energy Exchange, Jason Bordoff, the director of the Center on Global Energy Policy, sat down with Nader Sultan, the former CEO of Kuwait Petroleum Corporation, who is now a Senior Partner in the company F&N Consultancy as well as the Director of the Oxford Energy Seminar. The discussion touched on a range of topics, including:  

1. How are GCC countries adapting to the lower oil price environment? 
2. What are the implications of Saudi Arabia's ambitious National Transformation Program?
3. How has the Paris climate agreement affected GCC business plans and long-term energy strategies?
4. Does OPEC still matter for the world in terms of oil production decisions? Is Saudi Arabia still a swing producer? 
5. How do geopolitics weigh on OPEC relations and decisions, especially given the tensions between Iran and Saudi Arabia?

This conversation was originally recorded on June 14, 2016.

Seven years ago, David Sandalow pitched an idea that’s turned into one of the biggest international gatherings on clean energy. While an assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of Energy, Sandalow proposed to then-Energy Secretary Steven Chu an annual meeting of energy ministers from around the world to help accelerate the transition to clean energy technologies. The first Clean Energy Ministerial was held in Washington, D.C. in the summer of 2010.

Recently, the seventh Clean Energy Ministerial took place in San Francisco.  Delegates from 23 governments and the European Union participated.  Thousands of business leaders, NGO leaders and members of the public attended the public meetings and trade show at the Ministerial. Sandalow, the Inaugural Fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy, was in San Francisco and, not long after returning, joined Bill Loveless on the Columbia Energy Exchange podcast. Among their topics:

• What new steps did U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz and other ministers take to give more momentum to clean energy?
• How did December’s historic climate agreement in Paris influence this meeting?
• Bill Gates and other investors in the Breakthrough Energy Coalition attended the ministerial and met separately. What did they do?
• What should we look forward to when the ministers meet next year, in Beijing?

1. What is president Vladimir Putin trying to achieve with his foreign policy agenda? Does Russia use natural gas as a weapon?
2. How might the economic reform underway in Saudi Arabia unfold? What opportunities and risks does it present to energy markets?
3. What does the future hold for the Middle East given ISIS actions, the return of Iran to the global market, the ongoing conflict in Syria, and instability in Iraq? What security concerns has the collapse in oil prices brought about to producing and importing countries? 
4. From a security and geopolitical perspective, how will the Paris climate agreement shift key risk considerations, if at all?
5. What are the most significant implications of a potential Brexit?
6. And many more.