Based on today’s assessment and the projections we have, and it will probably be confirmed by our oil companies, <...> exactly for more than 50 years they [hydrocarbon producers and oil companies in particular, – Ed.] will be dominating in the energy balance — Alexander Novak, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.

Renewable energy is, in my view, a very heavy load at the moment. In the future, when these technologies reach a sufficiently high level – I agree, a switch to renewable energy is possible, but the prospect of a switch within the next few years seems to me to be rather optimistic — Guzel Valeeva, Student, Kazan State Power Engineering University.

The future will not be limited to technological development in just two areas – wind and solar power generation. Over the next twenty years, new discoveries will be made, and more advanced technologies will emerge. Most likely, we will come to the point where we need to balance the entire life cycle and look at process efficiency, taking into account extraction, capture, landfill, and disposal. There will probably be competition between all types of energy in the future — Sergey Kudryashov, General Director, Zarubezhneft.

In March, we had a decline in production of about 10% compared to last year's levels, then we gradually started to recover volumes and by June we regained our pre-crisis levels. So, this year in the oil sector we expect a small but still increase in production volumes compared to last year. Exports will increase by about 8%. Our oil companies were able to reorient themselves to other markets, were able to establish new supply chains and find new payment mechanisms — Alexander Novak, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.

We are now in the fourth energy transition – the future belongs to clean energy. There is no doubt that solar, wind, hydrogen, and nuclear power will actively develop, <...> but hydrocarbons will also remain. I told the young people in the audience [schoolchildren and students participating in the Russian Energy Week Youth Day, – Ed.], there will be enough hydrocarbon energy for both your generation and your children’s one — Alexander Novak, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.

The industry remains interesting, and people go into it, despite what is happening in the geopolitics — Dmitry Konov, Member of the Council, Russian Chemists Union.

There are problems related to disposal, not only of batteries, but also of solar panels and wind turbines. First, they build them, and then 30 years later, when the life of this equipment is over, they cannot solve the problem of recycling. The same will happen with batteries and accumulators for electric cars, production of which is growing, and the existing disposal technologies are very expensive — Alexander Novak, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.

In upstream [the upstream sector of the oil industry, which includes oil exploration operations, drilling of exploration and production wells and the subsequent process of hydrocarbon production, – Ed.] <...> equipment localization is close to 100%. We see our competitive advantages and we believe we have the potential to develop them — Sergey Kudryashov, General Director, Zarubezhneft.

We are not experiencing [a shortage of lithium, – Ed.] <...> Our country has enough lithium of its own, it only needs to be mined – we are doing that. There is a task to make lithium completely independent of supply. <...> A parallel task is to learn how to make our own batteries and energy storage systems — Alexander Novak, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.

Where do we see the future development? Certainly, in the CIS and the Middle East at the moment — Sergey Kudryashov, General Director, Zarubezhneft.

We are redirecting the flow [of hydrocarbons, – Ed.] to the Asia-Pacific region, to countries such as India, Pakistan, as well as countries in Africa, Latin America, which need our energy resources — Alexander Novak, Deputy Prime Minister of the Russian Federation.