WECA 2025 Advisory Board Report: Pragmatic leadership for an uncertain energy future

As the global energy landscape undergoes a profound realignment, the 2025 World Energy Capital Assembly Advisory Board convened 30 senior leaders from across the energy value chain to explore how capital providers, operators, policymakers, and technology partners are adapting to new market realities. The group included representatives from leading E&P firms, institutional investors, private equity, and financial institutions with portfolios spanning Europe, Africa, and the Middle East.

This year’s Advisory Board discussions centered on navigating an increasingly complex macro environment defined by falling oil prices, rising trade tensions, capital discipline, and mounting pressure to deliver energy security and sustainability without sacrificing returns. The key message from the group was clear: pragmatic leadership, fiscal competitiveness, and a candid dialogue on risk, reward, and regulation must define this next phase of global energy investment.

Key insights from the report include:

• • Investability over ambition: capital providers remain focused on scalability, profitability, and policy clarity. Projects rooted in commercial realism are favoured over aspirational narratives that fail to meet return expectations or regulatory thresholds.
  • The role of policy and regulation: a call was made for policymakers to create consistent and investor-friendly frameworks that encourage long-term capital deployment, especially in transition technologies and frontier markets.
  • The Middle East’s strategic position: as geopolitical volatility continues, the Gulf’s ability to deploy capital globally while maintaining regional energy dominance, particularly in LNG and lower-carbon hydrocarbons, was highlighted as a competitive advantage.
  • Private Equity & Institutional capital flows: private capital continues to play a vital role in the energy transition, but deal-making has slowed due to valuation gaps and macro risk. Investors are increasingly selective, with growing interest in mid-market M&A and infrastructure plays.
  • Interplay of decarbonisation, diversification & deal-making: the most investable strategies lie at the intersection of lowering carbon intensity, diversifying portfolios across geographies and molecules, and structuring deals that balance risk with realistic upside.

WECA 2025 Key themes

Join us at the 16th edition of World Energy Capital Assmbely in London on 2-3 December & engage in two days of panel discussions, keynotes, private roundtable discussions and tailor-made lunches and dinners, designed to address the most critical elements shaping the energy transition, including capital allocation into the new energy system, shareholder returns, & evolving expectations. 

The Energy Council 2025. For further information please contact Charlie Abrines, Group Managing Director | The Energy Council
E: [email protected] | T: +44 20 4570 6237