Natural gas reigns supreme, Shell says

THE HAGUE, Netherlands, April 14 (UPI) -- Fossil fuels will be the main energy source for years, though natural gas will account for the bulk of the energy mix, a Shell executive said from The Hague.

Royal Dutch Shell Thursday unveiled its annual sustainability report from its headquarters in The Hague, Netherlands.

Peter Voser, chief executive at the energy giant, said the global energy sector was turned on its head in the wake of last year's deadly explosion on the Deepwater Horizon oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico. The April 2010 disaster killed 11 workers and resulted in one of the worst environmental catastrophes in the history of the industry.

World governments reviewed their policies regarding offshore work in the wake of the disaster but Voser said the global appetite for energy requires working in hard-to-reach places.

"Producing oil and gas from deep waters will remain crucial," he said in a statement. "These resources are a vital part of the secure and diverse supplies of energy the world will need, as are energy resources from other technically challenging environments."

Voser added, however, that meeting rising energy demand also raised the bar for environmental stewardship. Natural gas, he said, was a logical solution to those dual challenges.

"We continued to raise our production of natural gas, by far the cleanest-burning fossil fuel, that will account for over half our energy output in 2012," he said. "We believe natural gas will play an essential role in managing the CO2 emissions caused by the world's rising energy demand."