This time….it will still be the same

Art Schroeder, Co-founder and CEO, Safe Marine Transfer LLC   

Oil and gas prices are falling, industry is consolidating, demand is slowing, supply is growing, and new tools, such as artificial intelligence (AI), are better and cheaper. Your job is in jeopardy. Thinking this time, that it will be different, won’t really help.   

We are in a commodity business and don’t control prices, but we can control production and expenses. As individual companies, growing production in our own microcosm can be beneficial. In the larger macroenvironment, when other producers are growing supply to gain market share with demand flat or sinking, a growth strategy can be counter-productive.¹ By not growing production, capital expenditures (CAPEX) are lowered, as well as staff expenses, to manage such activities—a two-fer. Today, most producers are focused on cutting costs to improve margins, including squeezing more from fewer workers.  

So, it is happening again. We have been through this cycle several times. Workers are required to apply for their own current job. When the music stops playing, there are fewer chairs, or your new chair may be in India.^2,3,4,5 Not all bad news, the faster and further prices and reinvestments fall, the sooner and higher the rebound. Meanwhile, invest in your career. Start by stepping back and taking in the big view, study the trends, read more (World Oil!), participate in professional societies, search out new technologies. Inventory your strengths and figure out where you can most add value. Perhaps do what entrepreneurs do and pivot and reinvent yourself.   

POLICY IS IMPORTANT  

Former U.S. President Joe Biden’s signature  Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) made the single-largest investment in climate and energy in American history, “…enabling America to tackle the climate crisis, advancing environmental justice, securing America’s position as a world leader in domestic clean energy manufacturing, and putting the United States on a pathway to achieving climate goals, including a net-zero economy by 2050.”⁶   

Governments and industries around the globe piled on the clean energy band wagon. With Beyond Petroleum branding, Bernard Looney of BP pledged in 2020 to cut oil and gas output 40% while rapidly growing renewables by 2030. Shell committed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions 20% by 2030 and 45% by 2035 (relative to 2016) under earlier pledges. To support the transition, Shell allocated significant funding: between 2023 and end-2025, it planned US$10–15 billion toward “low-carbon energy solutions. 

As a result, investment in the low-carbon energy transition worldwide grew 11%, to hit a record $2.1 trillion in 2024, according to Bloomberg NEF’s annual report, Energy Transition Investment Trends 2025.⁷ The International Energy Agency (IEA) publishes additional valuation, with their estimate of $2.2 trillion in clean energy, at twice the $1.1 trillion going to oil, gas and coal.⁸ So, will this trend continue?   

Likely not. Energy costs, availability and reliability are built into virtually every aspect of our lives. Recognizing this, President Trump’s policies have certainly turned Biden’s agenda on its head; promoting fossil fuel growth, opening new drilling acreage, relaxing regulations which restricted/reduce their use— Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards, rolling back renewable incentives, etc. While many of these actions may be beneficial to the larger American economy, lower product prices are pushing oil companies to further reduce costs, with jobs being a large component.       

CLIMATE POLICY IS NOW WHAT’S TRANSITIONING 

For those that thought about, or still think about, a career in renewables, former heavyweight boxing champion Mike Tyson is credited with pointing out, “Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Supply interruptions with the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the pandemic, volatile energy markets, and economics are now changing attitudes with respect to energy reliability, security and, by extension, renewable energy and climate change. Most everyone acknowledges climate has changed and will continue to change. The questions have been how fast, to what harm, and to what extent the human contribution, as well as what are the trade-offs, and more specifically, how will this impact your career trajectory?   

A key study on climate from 1,600 regions over four decades reported in the August 2025 journal Nature was recently retracted. World economic output by 2100 was projected to decline 62% under high-carbon emissions. It was found that data from just one country, Uzbekistan, from just 1995 to 1999 had significantly skewed the results. Removing these data, the forecast projects a 23% decline, casting concerns on the entire study.⁹  

Bill Gates in his 2021 book, How to Avoid a Climate Disaster wrote, “we cannot keep the earth livable”… the effect on humans…” will in all likelihood be catastrophic.” Just ahead of COP30 on Oct. 27, 2025, in Gate’s “Three Tough Truths about Climate,” his posture changes to “climate change is serious” but “will not be the end of civilization,” and “the biggest problems are poverty and disease, just as they always have been.”¹⁰  

The takeaways from COP30 held in Brazil with 194 countries—notably the United States was absent with no official delegation—was that private markets need to step forward as government funding (tax payers) was dropping.¹¹ Nearly two decades in and trillions invested, the promises of renewables have largely proved costly for consumers and damaging for the economy.¹²  Bjorn Lomborg and many others argue climate is a manageable problem, not an existential crisis, and current climate policies are excessively expensive for minimal benefit. Lomborg advocates prioritizing investments in research and development (R&D) for cheaper new technologies as the most effective long-term solution, believing this is the only way to get widespread adoption.¹³  

Industry is clearly pivoting toward making money and focusing less on climate. bp has revised its approach to so-called Scope 3¹⁴ emissions by removing its previous target of a 20%-to-30% absolute reduction between 2019 and 2030.¹⁵  Shell cut its 2030 target for low-carbon/renewables investment from 20% of capital expenditures to 10% by 2030.¹⁶ So, while I am predicting that the investment pendulum will be swinging away from so called “clean and green,” it is not yet rebounding in fossil energy. What to do in the interim?   

WAY FORWARD EXAMPLE 

I have done several pivots during my 50-year career. After 25 years with a major oil and gas firm, I reinvented myself, obtaining an Executive MBA from University of Houston. I took newly acquired business skills and layered them on my technical skills. I started a consultancy, assisting companies with identifying new technologies and adapting existing ones from other industries and then performing techno-economic analysis.  A company I co-founded, Subsea Shuttle, LLC,¹⁷ (SSS) exemplifies taking an existing set of technologies and re purposing them for oil and gas applications and boosting my career!  

SSS was originally founded, based on a need articulated by the Chevron-led industry consortium DeepStar.® The goal was to lower costs and extend the reach of subsea tie-backs by developing subsea chemical storage and injection (SCSI) for production chemicals; hydrate, scale, corrosion, wax, asphaltene and other inhibitors. The incumbent chemical delivery technology, umbilicals, is great, but also very expensive and has long lead times.  

SCSI can lower development costs by reducing host facility space and weight requirements on newbuilds. In brownfield applications, moving subsea will free up space and weight-loading for de-bottlenecking. It will also ease third-party tie-in complications when chemistry requirements differ from the host’s. Overall chemical costs may also be reduced. On long-distance tie-backs, particularly with high-pressure wells, dilutants are frequently used to reduce drag, meaning more volume and less effectiveness, which then has a multiplier effect requiring even more chemicals. With SCSI, neat, high-concentration chemicals can be utilized, as the chemicals are stored subsea, immediately adjacent to the injection point. 

Most interesting for early technology adoption will be late-life field applications, when existing umbilical tubes may clog up or become compromised. Even without tube failure, an operator may find the umbilical “under-tubed” when water hits, or asphaltenes previously in solution fall out in the flowline, as the reservoir pressure drops, all causing flow assurance issues.   

We matured the technology with financial help from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), along with both technical guidance and financial cost share from DeepStar.® Military use of engineered fabrics was one of several technologies we saw that could be useful for our oil and gas application. As design progressed, we identified other technologies for adaptation. It was really in the testing and qualification stages, where we iterated on existing technologies and developed a ‘better mouse trap’, culminating today with over 100 issued patents. OTC paper #32028, titled “Key Technology Qualification of a Full Scale Subsea Chemical Storage” and OTC-28775, titled, “Enabling Longer and Cheaper Subsea Tie-backs Utilizing Local Subsea Chemical Storage and Injection” chronicle the journey.  

Fig. 1. Subsea Chemical Storage and Injection System, customer appreciation day.

Most interesting, and exciting, was our circle-back to the military. As subcontractors, we provided a design basis and assisted a team that built and deployed off the Virgina coast a “very large” subsea storage system and pumping system, providing additional confidence in our solution and at the same time helping the U.S. Navy. Today, a prototype unit for oil and gas has been built and qualified, and stands ready for deployment, Fig. 1. We are also pleased that DOE is currently supporting our efforts and stands ready to provide incentive funding for an oil and gas operator’s deployment of the unit.  

CONCLUSIONS 

Moving forward, one of the biggest tasks facing humanity today is lifting the world’s most impoverished people while continuing to improve the rest. As petroleum professionals, we can help by doing what we do best, find, develop and deliver oil and gas safely, reliably, and at an affordable price. My company is doing its part by helping extend the reach, and lower the cost, of subsea tie-backs. These new, longer tie-backs will produce more oil, at a lower cost, by increasing the productive life of critical hubs and pipeline infrastructure. Reinvent yourself and join in the next wave of innovation.   

REFERENCES 

1. Wall Street Journal, 2025-10-06, Eight OPEC+ Members Agree to Boost Oil Output 
2. AP News, 2025,01-16, BP Cutting 4,700 Jobs as Part of Cost-Savings Drive, https://apnews.com/article/bp-job-cuts-oil-b96729fc515a1495ca2fae320f62fefc
3. Reuters, 2025-07-23, Chevron Cuts 575 Jobs in Houston, https://www.reuters.com/legal/litigation/chevron-cuts-575-jobs-houston-after-closing-hess-acquisition-filing-reveals-2025-07-23/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
4. AP News, 2025-09-03, ConocoPhillips Says Will Lay Off Up to 25% of Workforce, https://apnews.com/article/conocophillips-layoffs-job-cuts-2025-f35528aad7d8c02895853d73bb12842e
5. Rinnovabili, Major Oil and Gas Firms Plan More Job cuts after Thousands Laid Off in 2024, https://www.rinnovabili.net/business/markets/layoffs-oil-gas-companies-2025/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
6. https://www.energy.gov/lpo/community-jobs-and-justice
7. Bloomberg, 2025-01-25, https://about.bnef.com/insights/finance/energy-transition-investment-trends/
8. International Energy Agency, World Energy Investment 2025, https://www.iea.org/reports/world-energy-investment-2025/executive-summary
9. Wall Street Journal, 2025-10-04, “A Key Study on Climate Change Is Retracted.” 
10. https://www.gatesnotes.com/home/home-page-topic/reader/three-tough-truths-about-climate
11. Wall Street Journal, 2025-11-25, “Climate Leaders Turn to Private Markets.  
12. WSJ, 2025-12-03, Green Energy Push in Europe Backfires” 
13. Bjorn Lomborg, “False Alarm, how climate change panic costs us trillions, hurts the poor, and fails to fix the planet”   
14. Emissions such as carbon dioxide released in the atmosphere from a company's supply chain and the consumption of its products by customers. 
15. Reuters, 2025-02-27, BP cuts renewable investment and boosts oil and gas in strategy shift 
16. Energy Voice, 2025-02-25, Shell cuts low-carbon investment amid ‘discipline’ drive , boosts CEO pay, https://www.energyvoice.com/oilandgas/568668/shell-cuts-low-carbon-investment-amid-discipline-drive-boosts-ceo-pay/?utm_source=chatgpt.com
17. https://www.SubseaShuttle.com/

ART SCHROEDER co-founded Safe Marine Transfer LLC in 2012, where he serves as a Board member and CEO. He also co-founded Subsea Shuttle, LLC in 2019 where he serves as a Board member and CEO. Previously Mr. Schroeder founded Energy Valley in 2000, a company that provides money, marketing and management to commercialize and advance energy-related technologies. Prior to that, he spent 25 years working for a major integrated oil company, serving in operations, engineering, construction, strategy development, and crisis management roles, domestic and internationally. Mr. Schroeder has served on numerous civic, corporate, and professional boards, including Offshore Technology Conference and the AIChE Program subcommittee, since 1989. He has published over 100 technical papers and has been granted 100+ patents. He is the recipient of numerous awards including OTC’s Special Citation; Engineering, Science and Technology Council of Houston’s Lifetime Achievement Award; U.S. Department of Energy recognition for leadership building Offshore Technology Roadmap; designation by Society of Petroleum Engineers as a Distinguished Member; SPE’s Management and Information Award; and election as a Fellow of American Institute of Chemical Engineers. Mr. Schroeder graduated from Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) with B.S. and M.S. degrees in chemical engineering, with a minor in environmental engineering, and from the University of Houston with an MBA, majoring in Finance and International Business.