Leadership Circles

Africa’s energy sector stands at a pivotal crossroad: Surging demand and vast resource potential require urgent, strategic action to bridge infrastructure gaps and drive sustainable investment, transformation and access.

Africa’s energy and critical minerals sectors are at a turning point, facing the challenge of moving from untapped promise to tangible progress amid surging demand and shifting global priorities. The core debate centers on how to diversify energy sources, reform regulations and unlock local financing and regional partnerships to overcome infrastructure gaps, investment uncertainties and competition for resources. The outcome will shape Africa’s competitiveness and its role in the global energy transition, with far-reaching implications for sustainable growth, industry innovation and energy access.

What bold reforms, partnerships and financing innovations will unlock Africa’s energy and resource potential? How can industry and government collaborate to turn opportunity into lasting, inclusive growth? Is there any rivalry between energy and critical mineral development, or are they complementary?

Asia Pacific (APAC) sits at the center of the global energy system, shaping future energy trade, climate action and economic growth. With its mix of mature economies and fastgrowing markets, APAC is projected to remain the world’s largest energy consumer and emitter by 2050, giving the region outsized influence on global supply chains, energy flows and climate geopolitics. Achieving netzero across APAC will require a dramatic scaleup of renewable energy, sharp reductions in fossil fuel use, and stronger policy, financial and technology frameworks. At the same time, shifting global dynamics—including trade tensions, sanctions and geopolitical competition—are reshaping how governments and companies pursue energy security, investment and crossborder cooperation.  
 
The APAC Forum convenes senior leaders to explore how the region can balance security, affordability and decarbonization while navigating this uncertainty. The session will examine how APAC can leverage its scale and diversity to accelerate the energy transition and shape global climate and market outcomes.  
 
How can energy security and affordability be strengthened amid global volatility? How can countries and companies codevelop scalable decarbonization solutions? What policies can enable energy trade and resource optimization? How can APAC reduce renewable and mineral supply chain risks? What longterm role will gas play in regional competitiveness? How will digitalization and AI influence demand and investment?

The Future of Europe: Security, Competitiveness and Strategic Autonomy

Europe faces growing challenges to its security, economic openness and political cohesion. Shifting US support for NATO, rising trade tensions and new energy dynamics have pushed Europe to take more responsibility for defense and support for Ukraine, all while managing fiscal constraints and political pressures. Europe’s economic and energy models are under strain, with high electricity costs impacting competitiveness and policy uncertainty complicating investment. While “strategic autonomy” is a common goal, its meaning and implementation across defense, energy and technology remain debated. The key challenge is to define effective strategies and maintain unity and investment in a competitive global environment.

Join us for a discussion on the following topics: What does strategic autonomy mean for Europe’s security and defense, and what spending and coordination are needed? How can Europe balance rising security needs with fiscal and political constraints? Can energy reforms and investment restore competitiveness? Can Europe maintain climate leadership and growth, or will trade-offs be necessary?

Latin America is rising in strategic importance as global supply chains realign and competition for energy, metals and minerals intensifies. This forum will explore the challenges and opportunities for Latin America as the region rises to a central role in global economic security—and, with that, becomes more central to global geopolitical and economic competition.

The discussion will examine a shifting international environment marked by a more assertive US interpretation of hemispheric pre-eminence, China’s deepening role as a trade partner and investor—particularly in critical minerals, and visible demonstrations of US power as in Venezuela—all of which are reshaping perceptions of risk and opportunity. At the same time, countries across Latin America are reassessing national strategies to strengthen economic security, attract investment and improve well-being amid political diversity and fiscal constraints. Looking ahead, the forum will assess how these dynamics intersect with the region’s evolving energy mix, as investment increasingly drives electrification and power demand accelerates—especially from industry, urbanization and data centers—testing whether Latin America’s relatively clean power base can become a durable competitive advantage.

Join the conversation on: What alliances and strategies can maximize value from hydrocarbons and critical minerals such as lithium, copper and rare earths? How much room for maneuver do countries have to access financing and technology while sustaining growth and social well-being? What is needed to accelerate electrification—from 19% of final energy demand today to 35% by 2060—and what are the benefits and costs? Is Latin America prepared for surging power demand, and can energy efficiency prevent supply constraints from becoming a growth bottleneck?

North America’s electricity demand is surging, but power—and the infrastructure required to generate and transmit that power—is not keeping pace, putting affordability, reliability and economic competitiveness at risk. Exploding electricity demand is colliding with stalled permitting, infrastructure bottlenecks and policy uncertainty. Natural gas remains the fastest scalable solution, yet new pipelines and power plants face growing delays and investment risk. What specific permitting, regulatory, and siting reforms would most quickly unlock new gas generation and pipeline capacity—without sacrificing environmental and community safeguards? How can policymakers and markets align incentives so new infrastructure is built fast enough to support data center growth while preventing sustained upward pressure on consumer energy bills?

Enabling necessary supply chains expansion in a competing and fractured world.

Clean energy supply chains are being asked to do two hard things at once: scale faster than ever and operate in a world that’s more competitive and fragmented. The systems built around minimizing cost and maximizing efficiency are now being redesigned around security, sustainability and resilience. At the same time, trade policy, industrial strategy and carbon-linked rules are reshaping access to key inputs. The question is simple: How do we expand and redesign existing supply chains to deliver reliably under growing volatility and at scale?

Panel Focus: Clean energy supply chains are not linear. They are an end-to-end system spanning upstream materials, processing, components manufacturing, logistics, permitting, interconnection and skilled labor. That system is under strain as electrification grows across transport, buildings (including heating), and industry, with incremental load growth from AI and data centers in many markets.

Yet delivery is being constrained by bottlenecks that are easy to underestimate, including interconnection backlogs, lagging grid buildout, long lead times for critical hardware such as transformers, switchgear, HVDC components and cables, and uneven upstream investment cycles. At the same time, industrial policy and trade rules, including tariffs, export controls and licensing, local content requirements and carbon-linked border measures, are reshaping where supply chains can expand and which risks companies must underwrite. This forum examines where the next wave of supply chain capacity must be built and what it takes to get it built on time under volatility. We will focus on how companies finance and de-risk expansion, and how policy can remove the delays that keep projects stuck.

What do “good” supply chain decisions look like in 2026?

How to balance cost vs. control—when is paying a self-sufficiency premium justified?

What makes a supply chain expansion “bankable” for lenders and insurers?

Are incentives and policy tools aimed at resolving the right supply chain constraints?

Data centers’ access to clean firm electricity is increasingly viewed as the key constraint that could limit US ambitions around AI. Only a few electricity sources can meet hyperscalers’ near-term call on generation as permitting and legal complexities bog down needed transmission investment. Power suppliers and data centers are under pressure to ensure power availability at a speed and scale commensurate with demand trajectories or risk ceding competitive edge to rivals gunning for AI dominance. Can North American utilities, IPPs and capital partners expand grid-connected capacity fast enough or should data centers accelerate behind-the-meter projects?

AI’s rapid advancement requires significant, immediate energy expansion, challenging leaders to rebalance strategically resilience, affordability and sustainability globally. This forum will discuss how the convergence of the energy and technology industries, amid rising geopolitical competition, influence investment strategies and supply chain integrity. How are CFOs adapting risk models, financing planning and capital allocation to meet accelerated investments? How can they leverage their influence to drive energy transition while ensuring affordability and reliability? What are the lessons learned as CFOs assume responsibilities in areas such as critical mineral sourcing, energy sovereignty and grid management?

Continuous Workforce Transformation in the AI Era

As rapid changes in technology, energy and the marketplace reshape the future of work, HR leaders are facing new challenges and opportunities. The pressure to adapt talent strategies and embrace innovation is greater than ever. This forum is an open conversation about what's working, what's challenging, and how HR can lead the way in creating new value for organizations.

What does it take to build adaptable, high-performing organizations that are ready for the future? We'll explore practical ways to align talent strategies with business goals—drawing on the strengths of both people and technology. The discussion will focus on real-world approaches to redesigning jobs, building skills-focused teams and thoughtfully adopting AI, as well as how data can guide talent decisions.

How can we reimagine workforce development to meet needs we can't yet predict? What lessons can we learn from organizations that have successfully navigated major workforce transformations What bold action sparks a culture where agility and innovation are the norm and not the exception? How can we empower employees to continuously learn and reinvent their roles in a fast-evolving environment? How can HR work with business and technology partners to make the most of AI? In what ways can data-driven insights transform talent decisions without losing human touch?

Navigating Uncertainty in the Energy Transition

In a rapidly evolving landscape marked by transformative shifts in energy and technology, operational disruptions from extreme climate events and fracturing of global alliances and supply chains due to economic nationalism and geopolitical tensions, effective risk management has never been more crucial. This forum convenes senior leaders to engage in dynamic discussions and innovative strategies that address the diverse spectrum of risks today—encompassing strategic, financial, operational, geopolitical and liability challenges. This discussion will explore pathways for strategic transformation and execution in this unprecedented era.

Participants will engage in a thought-provoking forum focused on:

• Uncovering new risks and opportunities in the energy transition sector, particularly in relation to protracted permitting processes and supply chain bottlenecks that create challenges for timely investment and execution. 
• Navigating diverging policy and regulatory changes in a landscape marked by both evolving competition and affordability challenges. 
• Evaluating opportunities and risks for energy players arising from the data center supercycle, including operational and financial implications.
•  Balancing decarbonization objectives with resilience and immediate supply certainty, including the renewed interest in gas amid shifting market fundamentals and long-term business model viability. 
• Understanding the impact of geopolitical fragmentation on cross-border energy investments and supply chains, and developing strategies to mitigate exposure. 
• Developing resilience strategies to maintain business continuity in the face of climate-related disruptions, cyber threats and market volatility.

Key questions for discussion will include: How can risk management and strategic planning adapt to effectively balance the urgent demands of today with the long-term goals of energy transition, especially as these may increasingly diverge? What cross-industry partnerships and governance models prove most effective in identifying, quantifying and mitigating risks across all categories?

As AI adoption evolves from chatbots to agentic systems and from experimentation to enterprise-scale deployment, chief AI officers and their C-suite peers face growing pressure to govern risk, infrastructure and trust without slowing innovation. This session brings together chief AI officers and senior AI stakeholders to examine how energy companies are operationalizing AI at scale, and where progress is stalling. The discussion will focus on AI operating models, governance, infrastructure and compute strategy, talent, and alignment between AI investment and business value. 

Debates: Where should AI sit within the organization to accelerate value and scale? How centralized should AI platforms, data and compute decisions be? Who is accountable when AI models fail in mission-critical environments? Which AI capabilities must remain strategic and internal, and how can energy firms close persistent AI skills gaps?

Key Question: How can CAIOs balance speed, cost and risk while scaling AI across the enterprise?

LNG’s Age of Expansion: Opportunities and Challenges in the Next Phase

The LNG market is primed to move into its next phase—a new age of abundance that will again reshape global energy markets. Global liquefaction capacity is set to grow by more than 55% by the end of this decade, with the US leading the way but many other sources contributing. This Leadership Circle Summit will focus on the outlook for the global LNG market as supply surges, focusing on commercial, geopolitical, and economic implications. Can the FID surge continue? 2025 was a record year for both US and global liquefaction FIDs. Can this momentum be extended into 2026 and beyond, or is a relative pause ahead? How will the global market absorb the forthcoming period of growth in LNG supply? Will lower prices and changing climate policies help drive strong and extended demand growth alongside continuing renewables expansion? How will the global LNG markets and business models be transformed as companies seek to create value as portfolio players, optimizing trading, shipping and risk management?

The Role of Gas and Renewables in Meeting the Power Surge

As global energy demand expands, the relationship between natural gas and renewables is coming into sharper focus. Can gas and renewables work together to support sustainable growth, or will they increasingly compete for market share? This Leadership Circle Forum will examine the strategic, commercial, supply chain and policy dimensions, highlighting the dynamics between gas, renewables and coal.

In rapidly expanding markets, will gas and renewables emerge as collaborative pillars of the energy mix, or will they become competitors as nations secure energy access? How will markets absorb the influx of low-cost supply chain solutions, particularly from China? Will this drive strong and extended demand for renewables, or will the major LNG supply surge drive gas demand growth? With coal still playing a significant role in many regions, how will the competition between technologies and fuels evolve, and what are the implications for energy security, affordability and climate commitments?

Upstream Risk: Control what you can; navigate what you can't.  
 
Environmental, political and market forces increasingly dictate outcomes for upstream companies. Price cycles, carbon regulation, and the prospect of plateauing demand present long-term challenges. At the same time, success often hinges on controllable factors such as disciplined investment, efficient execution and digital innovation. What strategies can executives deploy to build optionality and resilience in this shifting landscape? What are the biggest roadblocks to upstream success today, and how can companies mitigate them? What lessons emerge from other sectors that have successfully adapted to structural change? Can rigorous cost control, capital discipline and technology-driven efficiency offset these pressures and improve long-term returns?

Oil’s monopoly in fueling the global transportation system is coming to an end as electrons and low-carbon molecules gain a share of demand. However, the past 12 months have seen a major reset in thinking about the energy transition and several important policy shifts, leading to a widening range of expectations for the future of oil demand, not just in the long term but also in the next planning cycle. How will the global demand for fuels evolve? Can production of new fuels achieve scale and become cost-competitive? What steps should existing oil-product players take to prepare for the future and create options for their businesses? How can companies manage commercialization risks in niche and emerging markets? What role will policy play in the future of fuels?

Nuclear power is at a pivotal moment as COP30 outcomes and heightened geopolitical tensions drive renewed urgency for energy security and decarbonization. The sector is seeing continued momentum, with advanced reactor designs, digitalization and cross-sector partnerships reshaping the market—in addition to ever-increasing political support. Yet persistent uncertainties—ranging from regulatory processes to supply chain and technology readiness—continue to hinder progress. This forum will examine how industry leaders can turn today’s momentum into concrete action, ensuring nuclear energy’s role in a resilient, low-carbon future. How can the nuclear sector accelerate project delivery and secure investment? What innovative collaborations and policy shifts are needed to unlock nuclear’s full potential?

Coming soon

After years of discussion, critical minerals were catapulted into mainstream focus in 2025 as a major geopolitical and national security priority. China's dominant production and trade restrictions exposed single points of failure in existing supply chains, disrupting global industries. Governments and companies are now racing to reshore and reposition sourcing strategies, yet face limited near-term alternatives. Critical minerals policies are proliferating as nations build domestic and politically aligned supply chains for traditional industries, rapidly expanding AI datacenters, defense and energy applications. Creating these supply chains from the ground up requires significant investment in mining, processing and refining capacity—facing challenges from limited discoveries, long development timelines, permitting and financing constraints.  
 
This forum will examine alternative recovery methods, bypass technologies, financing solutions and potential price premiums in more resilient supply chains.

Copper is foundational to rapid electrification. By 2040, electrification across power, transmission, transport, industry, data centers and defense is expected to rise nearly 50 percent. AI, clean energy, EVs and modernized defense are copper-intensive, reinforcing a structural—not cyclical—shift driven by policy and security imperatives. 
 
Supply is constrained by declining ore grades, long development timelines, permitting challenges and concentrated processing. The strategic challenge: expanding and securing copper supply so electrification, energy transition, technology and national security advance at scale and speed. 
 
What strategic repositioning is required as demand shifts from cyclical to structural? How can mine development, processing, recycling and innovation expand supply at scale? How can public understanding advance around copper mining's essential role in AI, renewables and defense? How can supply chains be diversified to reduce geopolitical risk across mining, smelting and refining What policy and investment frameworks can accelerate supply while maintaining market discipline and sustainability?

AI Advancements in Energy: Cutting through the hype

Amid growing demand for energy, the sector is increasingly relying on artificial intelligence technologies to boost supply, cut costs and lower greenhouse gas emissions—but what’s its actual state? Bringing together senior leaders who are actively applying AI in their company developments and operations, this Leadership Circle aims to foster an open discussion about the progress of AI in the energy sector. The discussions will address both major successes and challenges encountered.

Tops and tips: In which domains have AI made the biggest impacts (e.g., trading, energy efficiency, predictive maintenance), and which areas of application are lagging?

Barriers to advancement: What are the biggest obstacles to progress (e.g., data center growth limitations, energy usage, IP issues), and how is the industry addressing them? 

The New Oil & Gas Innovation Landscape: Advancing through incrementalism? 
 
If oil and gas technology activity is a window into broader company strategies, then developments over the past couple of years suggest: a measured return to Upstream, a de-emphasis on longer-term capital-intense investments and a permeation of AI and digital into most aspects of the oil and gas value chain. These would also indicate a more incremental approach to oil and gas innovation than the step-change advances (e.g., horizontal drilling) that have shaped the industry over the past several decades. Are we in a period of incremental technology advances? Will they be sufficient to meet industry needs? How best to pursue them? 
What strategic repositioning is required as demand shifts from cyclical to structural? How can mine development, processing, recycling and innovation expand supply at scale? How can public understanding advance around copper mining's essential role in AI, renewables and defense? How can supply chains be diversified to reduce geopolitical risk across mining, smelting and refining What policy and investment frameworks can accelerate supply while maintaining market discipline and sustainability?

Policy Innovations: Scaling new technologies require an innovation ecosystem that accelerates deployment at scale. Even with significant government support, developers continue to encounter long timelines, unclear processes and structural barriers that slow progress and leave funds unspent. The challenge is not just investment, but execution. We will explore how to transform energy innovation from a sequence of disconnected experiments into a cohesive end-to-end pipeline that delivers market-ready solutions at speed and scale by strengthening industry-led public-private partnerships and demand-aggregation mechanisms that can create new markets. 
 
Innovation in Subsurface Synergies: There are new subsurface opportunities across the energy sector: next-generation geothermal, geological hydrogen, critical-mineral extraction and oil and gas drilling. These areas face similar challenges and opportunities: subsurface characterization, above-ground permitting constraints, and the need for cost-effective, shared infrastructure that enables large-scale development. We will explore how cross-sector collaboration can accelerate innovation and reduce costs by leveraging overlapping capabilities, data and supply chains.

Carbon Accounting: Defining a practical framework 
 
Consensus is building on the importance of harmonized product-level carbon accounting to support investment in decarbonization of commodity supply chains. Despite momentum, there is still a range of opinions about the sources of discrepancies, critical paths towards harmonization and how best to align and coordinate. Leveraging a wide-ranging survey on the state of carbon accounting, this session will review stakeholder views on the state of carbon accounting. Where and what are the key sources of inconsistency around emissions quantification, accounting and reporting? What do stakeholders see as key efforts, gaps and solutions that could facilitate greater alignment? What should occur next to advance a more harmonized approach? 
 
Note: Ahead of this session, S&P Global Energy will be conducting a survey of market participants and stakeholders. If you would like your views to be included, please complete the survey—COMING SOON. While we appreciate your input, participating in this survey does not guarantee an invitation to the Carbon Accounting Forum.

Over the last decade, the drive to address methane emissions first focused on increasing the accessibility and affordability of technologies to find and quantify—and then reduce emissions. Efforts are starting to bear fruit, but these gains are uneven and challenges exist to scaling methane abatement globally. Of utmost importance, little to no economic benefit has emerged for lower methane products. With the rise of affordability and security, regulation pressure has ebbed and even reversed in some areas. 

In this environment, what needs to happen to make methane performance matter across the oil and gas sector? 
What role will regulation and policy play in the future? 
How can companies and other stakeholders justify investments? 
How might mechanisms such as markets, benchmarks or carbon accounting create differentiation and yield a “green premium”?

In the past two years, clean hydrogen market growth has been constrained by a lack of demand for low-carbon hydrogen and derivative products like ammonia. 
 
Projects are developing slowly in Europe, the Middle East, Australia and the Americas due to high costs. Project financing is often unavailable without long-term offtake agreements, but buyers and sellers are often at odds on contract tenor. The Chinese government has recommitted to hydrogen development as part of a "new type energy system" in the 15th Five-Year Plan. In parallel, India has already signed domestic offtake agreements through government-backed auctions at record low prices in refineries and fertilizers, kickstarting the hydrogen economy. Chinese and Indian policy commitment to hydrogen and related technologies could also be bearing fruit, with falling costs for electrolyzers and clean ammonia making those products much more competitive in both domestic and global markets. 
 
The 2026 Global Hydrogen Summit will be organized around two themes:  
Theme 1: Stimulating demand: What combination of policy, technology and market mechanisms can unlock demand bottlenecks? 
Theme 2: The rise of China and India: Could the competition between India and China mean cheaper molecules for the global market?

Climate goals and corporate strategy: Divorce or temporary pause? As governments worldwide roll back climate policies and incentives, energy companies face urgent questions about the future of sustainability goals and investments in a rapidly shifting landscape. 
 
The Climate and Sustainability Summit will explore the impact of recent policy reversals such as the repeal of the clean energy incentives in the US and EU backing off on its climate targets on corporate strategy, investment flows and the energy transition. While clean energy investments are hitting record highs, fossil fuel investments are increasing again after declining for a few years. Today business leaders have to make their investment choices in an environment where some governments are taking interventionist stands, low-carbon targets have been softened and consumers are focused on price of energy.  
 
Are climate priorities in permanent retreat, or is this a temporary “greenhushing” phase? Which energy assets remain truly investable in the absence of policy support?