Even though oil and gas companies are increasingly focusing on reducing the environmental impact of their operations with aggressive efforts centered on the narrative of energy transition, they aren’t going to move away from fossil fuels, at least over the next few decades, according to Dr. Jerry Bailey, director of Petroteq Energy and former president of Exxon Arabian Gulf.

“Oil companies are not going to move from oil, that’s what got them where they are,” Bailey said in a recent interview with Hart Energy’s Faiza Rizvi.

“Oil companies have an important and lucrative niche in this regard. There is no reason to transition away from that. There are enough companies working in the other arenas that can cover those types of things,” he said, referring to renewable energy.

Although a few oil and gas companies could partially venture in alternative energy sources like wind, solar and geothermal, but Bailey said they represent “a small niche” and only 12% to 15% energy could be generated from these sources over the next 25 years.

Commenting on investment in oil and gas, Bailey said there will always be demand for petroleum-based products. “Investors will always have some secured interest in fossil fuels and in oil because the returns have always been good and they continue to be good.”

Bailey also talked about the new environmentally friendly oil extraction technology developed by his company Petroteq Energy, which is producing oil out of Vernal, Utah using this new solution. Petroteq’s clean oil recovery technology (CORT) greatly reduces harmful greenhouse gases that are emitted as a byproduct of oil sands extraction. Using CORT, Petroteq can also extract up to 99% of hydrocarbons, allowing maximum bitumen extraction while leaving zero waste.

“You could call it a ‘Green Oil’ operation,” he said. “It’s really a remediation process, which not only extracts the oil in an environmentally friendly way, but cleans up the sand and makes it agriculturally available again.”

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