India Energy Week sessions to be hosted by yours truly

As India Energy Week 2026 approaches, the Oilholic is looking forward to moderating panels and fireside chats at the event being held in Goa, India from Jan 27 to 30, covering vital topics across the international energy sphere. It will bring together global leaders, corporate visionaries and technical experts. Here are the detail's of yours truly's sessions:

Wednesday, January 28, The Addition Stage, MDF Building, ONGC ATI, Goa @ 12:00pm

From reset to results: translating Canada–India political momentum into a priority partnership for long-term energy and critical minerals cooperation

• A fireside chat under the event's Energy Talks programme with Hon. Timothy Hodgson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Government of Canada.

Wednesday, January 28, The Transition Stage, Convention Centre, ONGC ATI, Goa @ 10:30am

Global South clean energy solidarity: Powering South-South cooperation for a shared future

With panellists:

• H.E. Prof. Elmutasim Ibrahim Ahmed Ali, Minister of Energy and Petroleum, Republic of Sudan
• H.E. Ralph Regenvanu, Minister of Climate Change Adaptation, Meteorology and Geo-Hazards, Energy, Environment and Disaster Management, Vanuatu
• H.E. Dr. Eng. Sultan Welle Ahmed, State Minister of Energy, Ministry of Water and Energy, Ethiopia
• H.E. Indra Mani Pandey, Secretary General, The BIMSTEC Secretariat

Wednesday, January 28, The Resilience Stage, Convention Centre, ONGC ATI, Goa @ 13:40pm IST

Establishing global models for City Gas Distribution (CGD) networks: building clean, secure and equitable gas-based economies

With panellists:

• Suresh P Manglani, Executive Director and CEO, Adani Total Gas
• Goutom Chakraborty, CEO, GAIL Gas Limited
• Kamal Kishore Chatiwal, MD, Indraprastha Gas Limited
• Abhilesh Gupta, MD & CEO, THINK Gas
• Sandeep Jain, Former Executive Director, Gas, Indian Oil Corporation Limited

Thursday, January 29, The Resilience Stage, Convention Centre, ONGC ATI @ 16:30pm IST

Coal’s evolving role in a secure energy mix: charting a balanced and pragmatic approach

With panellists:

• Shri Vikram Dev Dutt, Secretary, Ministry of Coal - Official, Government of India
• Kyle Haustveit, P.E., Assistant Secretary for Hydrocarbons and Geothermal Energy, U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)
• B. Sairam, Chairman-cum-MD, Coal India Limited

Explore the event's exciting agenda here, and be sure to register here. 

The Oilholic is excited to play his part in the deliberations on pathways towards secure, inclusive, and affordable energy systems, tackling critical challenges such as decarbonisation, investment security and industrial transformation.

Looking forward to meeting old friends and making new ones! See you in Goa, if you can make it! More to follow. Keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'! 

To follow The Oilholic on Twitter click here.

To follow The Oilholic on Forbes click here.

To follow The Oilholic on Energy Connects click here.

To email: journalist_gsharma@yahoo.co.uk  

© Gaurav Sharma, January 2026. Photo: IEW 2026 speaker profile of energy analyst Gaurav Sharma © India Energy Week / dmgevents, January 2026.

Media missives from WFES 2026

The World Future Energy Summit 2026 - held as part of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week and hosted by Masdar - drew to a close on January 15, as the Oilholic rounded off an engaging week out in Abu Dhabi.

Yours truly hosted pivotal industry panel sessions and fireside chats at the event on subjects ranging from hydrogen to green bonds. 

This blogger also wrote plenty of missives via the keyboard for Forbes, and of course this blog. 

All blog entries for WFES 2026 are below: 

• WFES 2026 sessions to be hosted by yours truly
• WFES Day I: Kick-off after ADSW opening ceremony
• WFES Day II: Nexus of Next at ADSW
• WFES Day III: Talking green bonds & more on final day

And here are selected Forbes copies in chronological order based on soundbites and insights from the event:

• ‘Artificial’ Intelligence Craves ‘Actual’ Energy, Says Masdar Chairman, January 13, 2025
• Middle East Set For High Renewable Energy Capacity Growth By 2040, January 14, 2025
• UAE’s Masdar Raising Green Finance On An ‘Industrial Scale’, Says CFO, January 19, 2025.

That's a wrap for this year's WFES. More musing to follow soon. Keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'! 

To follow The Oilholic on Twitter click here.

To follow The Oilholic on Forbes click here.

To follow The Oilholic on Energy Connects click here.

To email: journalist_gsharma@yahoo.co.uk  

© Gaurav Sharma 2026. Photo: Gaurav Sharma at WFES 2026 in Abu Dhabi, UAE on January 15, 2026 © Gaurav Sharma, 2026. 

WFES Day III: Talking green bonds & more on final day

On the final day of the World Future Energy Summit another 61 sessions deep-dived into various aspects of the energy transition, aspects of renewable energy and green finance. 

On the latter point, yours truly kicked off the event's green finance discussion in the day's first fireside chat with Mazin Khan, Chief Financial Officer of Masdar. 

In his opening remarks ahead of the fireside chat, Khan set the stall for the efficacy of green bonds as a financial instrument to enable the transition and bring about change in hard-to-abate sectors. 

The Masdar CFO also shared the experience of his company on its issuances of green bonds and how they continue to play a key role in making it the UAE's renewables champion. 

Following the opening remarks, yours truly and the Masdar executive had a wide-ranging fireside chat touching on how green bonds improve transparency, drive resource efficiency, enhance governance, and, of course, signal a commitment to the cause of lowering carbon emissions. 

We also discussed how green bonds were now mainstream and issuances of 100-years maturities - indicative of an ultra long-term commitment - are no longer the novelty headline grabbers like they used to be, but rather routine. 

Additionally, Khan also touched on the incentives for issuing green bonds ranging from attracting a wider investor base to enhancing corporate reputation. They also form part of the wider agenda that encourages the development of regulatory frameworks supportive of the green finance industry. 

As of mid-2025, Masdar has raised $2.75 billion via its own green bond issuance programme, and Khan's concluding verdict was that the future of the green bonds remains bright with the global market only expected to get bigger. 

Away from the fireside chat, the Oilholic also joined the thousands who attended the event for a visit to its exhibition floor on its final day, as the conclusion of Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week approached. 

The event saw over 41,000 visitors from 114 countries and 455 exhibiting companies from 60 countries. It was also a great place to network and gain the latest energy industry insights. And on that note, its time to bid goodbye. 

As always, it has been a memorable and insightful time out here in Abu Dhabi for ADSW and WFES. More musings to follow soon. Keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'! 

To follow The Oilholic on Twitter click here.

To follow The Oilholic on Forbes click here.

To follow The Oilholic on Energy Connects click here.

To email: journalist_gsharma@yahoo.co.uk  

© Gaurav Sharma, January 2026. Photo I: Energy Analyst Gaurav Sharma at WFES 2026. Photo II: Energy Analyst Gaurav Sharma hosts fireside with Mazin Khan, Chief Financial Officer of Masdar. Photo III: Exhibition floor of WFES 2026 panel on January 15, 2026. Photos I & III © Gaurav Sharma, January 2026. Photo II © Zeena Zalamea / Portalproductions.me January 2026.

WFES Day II: Nexus of Next at ADSW

As the second day of the World Future Energy Summit 2026 and its programme came into its element, the Oilholic took some time out to have a walk about the event's sprawling Innovation Intelligence Hub spread over 3,600 sqm at the venue.

It's here that the forces shaping the transformation of the global energy system appear to be on full display covering all facets from technology to infrastructure, ideas for capital investment to future concepts. 

Bringing all of these facets to the foreground at the hub were over 70 startups translating breakthrough ideas into commercially viable solutions they appear to be pitching to the world. Of particular significance was an AI pavilion with over 30 companies embedding intelligence across generation, grids and demand. 

For the energy sector, AI is no longer an enabling tool - it is quite simply becoming a core infrastructure play.

Today, AI-driven optimisation can improve asset performance by up to 30%, while advanced forecasting and control systems are redefining how grids operate, balance risk and absorb variability. 

At the same time, it was observed at WFES 2026 that global investment in clean and intelligent energy start-ups now exceeds $50 billion annually, with capital flowing fastest into AI-enabled systems, hydrogen, storage and digital resilience. The good folks at the summit and the wider Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week family, as well as the hosts Masdar call it the “Nexus of Next: All Systems Go.”

This in their words is "a theme to life by reflecting a clear strategic reality: the next phase of energy systems transformation will be driven not by standalone technologies, but by integrated, intelligent, and secure systems designed to perform together, investable at scale, and ready for deployment."

As the second day progressed, 59 sessions across various WFES and ADSW content streams discussed the very forces shaping tomorrow, alongside discussions on energy transition economics and technologies. 

The discussion slants ranged from challenges and opportunities to capital investment and policy frameworks. 

The Oilholic got his summit speaking engagements underway by moderating two panels on the clean energy track. The first of these was on the subject of PV-battery storage. 

The panellists (see above) included Syed Ali Gilani, Planning and Energy Markets Director, Department of Energy Abu Dhabi, Jad Abdel Masri, Senior Director, Group Supply Chain and Procurement, Masdar, Dr. Thi Minh Phuong Nguyen, Battery Storage Systems Expert, MAI Group, Mike Sronce, Managing Director and Vice President, Sargent & Lundy and Mohammad Al Natour, Managing Director, SMA Solar Technology. 

We explored the economic drivers of grid-connected battery storage, deployment hurdles, and policy enablers positioning large-scale storage as the backbone of a clean energy future. 

The second panel touched on financing hydrogen and the innovative mechanisms that could be deployed to unlock capital in the segment. 

The panellists for this session included (see below) Dr Dimitrios Dimitriou, Group Vice President of ESG and Sustainability, EMSTEEL Group, Cornelius Matthes, CEO, Dii Desert Energy, Siddharth Malik, Managing Partner, Green Investors, Dan Feldman, Global Head of Energy, King & Spalding and Santosh Raikar, Managing Partner, Silverpeak.

Apart from discussing innovative financing structures, we also touched on risk mitigation strategies to instil investor confidence and secure guarantees necessary to scale hydrogen infrastructure. 

Elsewhere at WFES, attendees got to hear about the natural path of progression of renewable energy in the Middle East which is being led by the UAE. It appears the nation's renewable energy capacity is on track for a tenfold increase by 2040. 

And it is quite simply serving as a beacon for its peers with a pragmatic blend of traditional with renewable energy. Here's yours truly's feature on Forbes on the subject. 

Well that's all for now folks. More musings to follow as the event and the week enter their home stretch tomorrow. Keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'! 

To follow The Oilholic on Twitter click here.

To follow The Oilholic on Forbes click here.

To follow The Oilholic on Energy Connects click here.

To email: journalist_gsharma@yahoo.co.uk  

© Gaurav Sharma, January 2026. Photo I: Innovation Intelligence Hub at WFES 2026. Photo II: Masdar's innovation globe. Photo III: Energy Analyst Gaurav Sharma moderates PV-battery storage panel at WFES 2026 on January 14, 2026. Photo IV: Energy Analyst Gaurav Sharma speaks at WFES 2026 on January 14, 2026. Photo V: Energy Analyst Gaurav Sharma moderates WFES 2026 panel on hydrogen on January 14, 2026. Photos I & II © Gaurav Sharma, January 2026. Photos III, IV & V © Zeena Zalamea / Portalproductions.me January 2026.

WFES Day I: Kick-off after ADSW opening ceremony

The World Future Energy Summit 2026 - being held as part of the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week - got underway with aplomb on Tuesday. 

Before formal proceedings began, the attendees including were treated to an opening ceremony marked by cultural performances. 

The performances were followed by a keynote address from Dr. Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, UAE’s Minister of Industry and Advanced Technology, Chairman of the country’s international renewable energy company Masdar, and CEO of ADNOC.

In his remarks, Al Jaber called for pragmatic thinking on the energy mix, innovation, harnessing the power of artificial intelligence and continued investments in renewable energy and cleantech. Here is your truly's latest Forbes missive touching on it. 

The morning's proceedings also included the Zayed Sustainability Prize awarding ceremony. The prizes were handed out in various categories. These included the energy category prize, which went to Switzerland's BASE. It is a specialized partner of the United Nations Environment Programme, that offers "Cooling as a Service" or CaaS in emerging markets.

BASE's innovative business model enables a diverse range of end users of cooling systems to base their decisions on life-cycle costs rather than on the purchase price of cooling equipment. (If interested, read more about them here.)

The conclusion of the awards ceremony marked the mid-morning start of the summit with a packed agenda. 

Two of the world's most pressing topics - AI and climate change  - took centerstage at the Envision Global Technology Day, with a discussion in how technology is reshaping the future of global energy systems.

Science Based Targets Initiative's pathways for low carbon cities were also widely discussed throughout the first morning. 

Among other things, the attendees got treated to a special screening of Ocean - the powerful new documentary by Sir David Attenborough. 

The documentary was a compelling call to action that explores the beauty, fragility, and future of our oceans. 

A full day's programme - including two panels hosted yours truly - gets underway on Day II. But that's all for now folks. More musings to follow throughout the week. Keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'! 

To follow The Oilholic on Twitter click here.

To follow The Oilholic on Forbes click here.

To follow The Oilholic on Energy Connects click here.

To email: journalist_gsharma@yahoo.co.uk  

© Gaurav Sharma, January 2026. Photo I: Signage of the Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week. Photo II: Glimpses of the ADSW opening ceremony. Photo III: Energy Analyst Gaurav Sharma at the World Future Energy Summit 2026 in Abu Dhabi, UAE. © Gaurav Sharma, January 2026.