Cyber-Attacks Could Cost Industry $2bn/yr

Emerging physical, financial and virtual risks pose an ever-greater threat to the security and supply of energy, says a new World Energy Council report.

By 2018, the oil and gas industries could be spending $1.87bn each year on cyber security, according to the Road to Resilience report published a month prior to the 23rd World Energy Congress in Istanbul. Cyber-attacks on the sector are becoming more frequent and sophisticated, it finds, and energy systems must be smarter, not just stronger, to withstand emergent risks. It also finds that climate change and extreme weather events are putting a marked strain on energy infrastructure and systems.

Former Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer, executive chair of the Road to Resilience report, said: “Missing out on deep understanding of the shifting resilience landscape will expose short-sighted investors, while a variety of financing mechanisms are available and under development to better cope with emerging risks.”

Former Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer at the World Economic Forum in 2009 (Photo credit: Flickr)

Key recommendations of the report include: smarter design of energy systems; encourage diversity within the energy sector and related industries; increasing private finance infrastructure; and, perhaps unusually for an industry-led report, improved regulation and market guidance.

High-level discussions on day two (October 10) of the congress on these energy resilience issues will be led by Chubu Electric president Satoru Katsuno, and Juerg Trueb, head of environmental and commodity markets at Swiss Re Corporate Solutions.

Graphic credit: World Energy Council (c) 2016

Mark Smedley