As the world confronts its vulnerability to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, what remains unclear is when the energy crisis will abate. But what is clear, as speakers at the Atlantic Council’s tenth Global Energy Forum showed today, is that the future of energy systems will look very different from the past, as countries accelerate plans to diversify energy supplies, build more resilient and secure systems, and take the opportunity to define—or redefine—their energy legacies.
Reflecting on the historic moment that the Forum marks, Frederick Kempe, president and CEO of the Atlantic Council, said, “We’re in what we’re calling the demand era, with demand for energy as we’ve never seen it before in our history, speed of technology as we’ve never seen it before in our lifetime, and geopolitical risk maybe as great as it’s ever been in my lifetime colliding. This could turn out extremely well, it could turn out badly, it could turn out somewhere in between. We all have agency in shaping this.”
Indeed, discussions at the Forum show that policymakers, business leaders, and civil society have already begun to set the trajectory for what the future energy system will look like.
Click to jump to session insights:
Egyptian Petroleum Minister Karim Badawi: Hormuz crisis is accelerating Egypt’s six-pillar plan
Top Syrian energy officials outline a comeback built on pipelines and partnerships
Expect more: More production in the Western Hemisphere, more strategic reserves, and more bypass routes
In the Forum’s session on “America at 250: The making of an energy nation,” US Department of Energy Under Secretary of Energy Kyle Haustveit said, “Internationally, what we’re going to see, I believe is more announcements, more bypass routes.” He and Mike Sommers, president and CEO at the American Petroleum Institute (API), had a wide-ranging discussion examining the rise of American oil and gas, the Iran crisis and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), and the need for bipartisan permitting reform and greater Western hemisphere energy production.
“We’re a hundred and seventy years into the hydrocarbon age, where the world is still dependent on a 10-mile chokepoint in the Middle East, and we cannot continue to be subject to a terrorist regime in Iran stopping flows through the Strait of Hormuz,” said Sommers, as he argued for increased energy production across the entirety of the Americas.
Below are more highlights from this discussion, which was moderated by Tala Goudarzi, a partner with Torridon Group and former acting assistant secretary of fossil energy.
The rise of US oil and gas
- “We need a new IEA moment. How do we secure energy for decades and decades to come?” said Sommers, referring to the International Energy Agency.
- “Never bet against American ingenuity,” said Haustveit. He also noted that the United States used to import oil but now produces over 13 million barrels per day (b/d) of crude oil and 20 million b/d of total liquids.
The Iran crisis and the SPR
- “We’re meeting the near-term supply disruption,” said Haustveit.
- According to Haustveit, “We should expect to see more announcements of bypass routes around the Strait of Hormuz.” Haustveit also posited there would be more stockpiling of the strategic petroleum reserve.
The need for bipartisan permitting reform and US energy dominance
- “We as an industry and as a country need to be focused on energy security in the Western hemisphere … So our focus needs to be other countries that have tremendous resources, like Brazil, Argentina, Guyana, Canada, and Mexico. We need to build a secure energy corridor throughout the Americas,” said Sommers.
- “Comprehensive permitting reform on a bipartisan basis … could unlock tremendous resources. We just need the above-ground people to really focus on what’s below the ground and get the policy right,” said Sommers.
Egyptian Petroleum Minister Karim Badawi: Hormuz crisis is accelerating Egypt’s six-pillar plan
Egypt’s monthly gas import costs have climbed sharply since the US-Israeli war with Iran began, but the crisis has reinforced Cairo’s preexisting energy strategy, Egyptian Petroleum Minister Karim Badawi said at the Forum on Tuesday.
Badawi also said the war had pushed Egypt to accelerate efforts already underway: ramping up production from existing fields, deepening regional partnerships, and diversifying away from gas-fired power.
“Every country has to do whatever it can to have more molecules available on the global market to mitigate the impact of this crisis,” he said.
Fuel fallout
- Egypt’s monthly natural gas import costs have nearly tripled since the war began, after its overall energy import bill more than doubled.
- Cairo has raised domestic fuel prices by up to 17 percent, increased industrial gas prices, and imposed temporary nighttime closures on shops, restaurants, and businesses—measures it only began rolling back in late April.
- In May, Egypt secured a $1.5 billion loan from the Islamic Trade Finance Corporation to support food and energy security due to economic fallout from the closure of the Strait of Hormuz.
Badawi acknowledged that the crisis in the Strait of Hormuz has brought a high financial cost to Egypt, particularly driving up imports, but that it has also “re-emphasized the importance of the six pillars” strategy designed to maximize hydrocarbon value, restructure the energy mix, and establish Egypt as a premier regional energy hub.
Infrastructure solutions
- He pointed to Egypt’s Eastern Mediterranean infrastructure, including the Suez-Mediterranean (SUMED) pipeline, a partnership with Gulf states, as a key asset for moving regional crude and gas to global markets. The strategy was launched by Badawi in 2024.
- The strategy also aims to generate 42 percent of Egypt’s power from renewables by 2030, up from 12 percent today.
- The minister said data centers and power demand driven by artificial intelligence could become a major outlet for Egypt’s renewables build-out.
- The country’s first nuclear plant is expected to come online in the coming years.
Top Syrian energy officials outline a comeback built on pipelines and partnerships
Syria is positioning itself as a regional energy hub and overland alternative to Gulf chokepoints, with the US-Israeli war with Iran and the disruption of the Strait of Hormuz creating an opening for the war-battered country to welcome Gulf and US investors, top Syrian energy officials said Tuesday at the Forum.
Syrian Energy Minister Mohamed al-Bashir and Syrian Petroleum Company (SPC) Chief Executive Officer Yousef Qiblawy laid out an ambitious plan to rebuild the country’s oil and gas sector around foreign partnerships, refining capacity, and pipeline and port routes connecting Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, and eventually Europe.
“Syria has chosen to make the energy sector a key gateway to its openness to the world,” al-Bashir said, describing the country as “not a battleground, but a ground for opportunity.”
Shifting routes
- With the Strait of Hormuz disrupted by the Iran war, Syria’s Mediterranean port of Baniyas has emerged as a transit point for crude moved overland from the United Arab Emirates and Iraq.
- Qiblawy said Syria is already operating as an export corridor for Iraqi crude, with trucks ferrying Iraqi fuel through Syria scaling from two hundred to over one thousand shipments since the new government took office.
- “It’s become a hub now already,” he told Victoria Taylor, director of the Atlantic Council’s Iraq Initiative, who chaired the session. “The war in the Gulf and the situation in Hormuz give us a chance and opportunity.”
Future production
- Al-Bashir touted a $7 billion partnership with UCC Holding—the largest signing in the sector’s history—alongside roughly $28 billion in memorandums of understanding (MoU) with international firms.
- Qiblawy set a target of 1 million barrels per day of oil production by the end of 2030—well above Syria’s pre-war peak of about 380,000 barrels per day (b/d)—and said Syria expects to begin exporting oil to neighbors such as Jordan within three to four years.
- Damascus is also fielding interest from US and Gulf firms to revive the Kirkuk-Banias pipeline and to rebuild the Arab Gas Pipeline, with a longer-term ambition to ship offshore gas to Europe.
Reaching that point will require major investments, but al-Bashir closed with a reframing of the country’s trajectory, calling Syria “not just a story of recovery, but a story of resurgence.”
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