It is CERAWeek, the sprawling Texas energy conference, and Sultan al-Jaber, who runs the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (Adnoc), one of the world’s largest oil companies, is in high demand.
Interviews with Jaber are vanishingly rare. He has been media-shy since he was named by the UAE as the president of COP28 and then flamed for holding two seemingly contradictory roles: oil boss and leader of global climate change negotiations.
And it is a good time to meet. Big Oil has got its swagger back in the Trump era. “We can all feel the winds of history in our industry’s sails again,” says Amin Nasser, head of Saudi Aramco, the world’s biggest oil company, on stage at the event.