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  • I'm Christophe Boulanger, Vice President of Shell Global Solutions

  • Today I have the pleasure of hosting Andy Xie.

  • Andy is an economist who's views are shared quite widely

  • through different channels. You'll find his views sometimes controversial

  • certainly always thought provoking and stimulating. The picture today is consumption in Europe

  • has been coming down for a number of years. In the US, there is slow growth

  • but not very high. Asia has been driving the growth

  • for the last few years and that seems to be slowing.

  • So what's your perspective on growth in the oil consumption

  • in the context of some economies moving away investment driven

  • to more consumer-led?

  • Well, in Chinese energy consumption in the 1990s,

  • the elasticity to the economy was .5 or so. It was bascically when the ecomony grows

  • at 7%, energy consumption will rise by about 3.5%

  • But in the last 15 years it's changed. It's changed to like one to one.

  • And this is because of the rise of the auto industry

  • and rise of heavy industry so China has been driving energy consumption.

  • tremendously.

  • The people who invested when the oil price

  • was $150 to produce more oil, it just takes many years

  • for the production to come around. If you compare this to the iron ore industry

  • - it also take three or four years for production

  • to come online if you invest. If you look at what's going on now,

  • the global demand is stagnant. But the production has gone up.

  • So what happens? You have price war.

  • You have to squeeze out high cost producers.

  • These high cost producers are in China. All these small iron ore mines

  • have production costs at 100 down to 50 dollars.

  • Australians or Brazilians they slash prices

  • and increase production. They cause the Chinese mines to shut down.

  • So that's how they get the volume going.

  • So what makes the difference now?

  • What are the key factors that will allow those companies to be successful?

  • Strategical advantages - I think that is very important.

  • I see that emerging economies are developing a consumer economy.

  • These developing economies used to rely on

  • exporting to richer economies, and I believe this story is really over.

  • The rich people are not rich anymore. So they look rich but

  • they have a lot of debt. So I think that emerging economies have to

  • balance between investment and consumption. That transition takes five years

  • but eventually it will happen. It's a slower but balanced growth.

  • For any company or business it's really the last mile that matters.

  • So people who own LNG terminals or gas stations would be in a very good position.

  • That's one way to look at it. The other is access to raw materials.

  • That still will be interesting. In a business with a very low margin

  • you have to have a key edge. Look at the steel industry -

  • it is just several years ahead of you guys.

  • They have been experiencing overcapacity,

  • cut throat competition for many years.

  • When I look at the steel companies in China

  • people are still profitable. How they can minimize waste and maximise efficiency

  • is just incredible.

  • You talked about the human capital.

  • The oil and gas industry is a cyclical one and we've been recruiting in cycles.

  • We went through a decade where we recruited a lot,

  • a decade where nobody recruited.

  • We're seeing a lot of expertise leave the industry

  • over the next few years, and a lot of oil companies are

  • facing a weird transition in the expertise.

  • Two questions - the first one is

  • how do you adjust to that transition

  • in the short term as you lose a critical mass of expertise?

  • And the second one is - how do you attract new talent in an old industry?

  • Let's start with the transition in the shorter term.

  • The HR solution is based on the market.

  • I think this is very difficult. For an industry like yours,

  • there is a long gestation. A lot of other industries have a similar nature

  • It's very difficult to have a market-based HR solution.

  • The reason is that young people don't like things that are going to take many years.

  • They are interested in this dot com thing. It's not easy.

  • They key is to nurture your own people to develop some sort of elite labour force

  • inside of the company. I think for any large company, if you are

  • going to have an edge you have got to have a core of your own people who have sense of

  • ownership of the company.

  • Andy, thank you very much.

  • Thanks for having me.

I'm Christophe Boulanger, Vice President of Shell Global Solutions

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殼牌全球解決方案。殼牌全球解決方案:獨立經濟學家謝安迪訪談 (Shell Global Solutions: An interview with independent economist Andy Xie)

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    wehou 發佈於 2021 年 01 月 14 日
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