As global energy systems face continued disruption, strengthening resilience and ensuring reliable supply have become critical priorities. Governments and industry leaders are accelerating efforts to diversify energy pathways, secure infrastructure and maintain system stability in an increasingly complex landscape.
Experts examine how infrastructure adaptation, policy responses and the scaling of emerging energy carriers such as hydrogen and ammonia are shaping the sector’s response to volatility while supporting long-term system resilience.
With global energy flows impacted by the ongoing Middle East conflict, Alex Tancock, CEO of InterContinental Energy, suggests that the way forward involves allocating a greater share of national GDPs to the energy sector, and building future resilience through new energy avenues such as green hydrogen and green ammonia, backed by policy actions ranging from offtake guarantees to export‑credit support. Excerpts from an exclusive interview:
During moments of acute disruption, such as we are facing across the Gulf, what indicators do you use to gauge the global energy market’s ability to absorb shocks, rebalance supply, and return to stability?
The near-term shock absorber in the oil and gas sector is inventory. Inventories cushion shock temporarily and help mitigate some of the worst immediate impacts. In the weeks ahead, we will need to watch how oil, gas and refined product inventories evolve. Every week that this conflict continues will likely lead to deeper draws, increasing fragility across the energy sector.
Over the longer term, stability depends not only on Gulf supply returning, but also on countries diversifying their sources of molecules. Given the limited availability of large, untapped reserves globally, green hydrogen is going to have to accelerate its role in the energy mix to help diversify production and strengthen energy security.
The world has underinvested in energy for several decades. Going forward, economies will need to allocate a greater share of GDP to the energy sector to build more resilient supply chains.
To what extent can green hydrogen and green ammonia produced in diverse locations help reduce global exposure to chokepoints like the Strait of Hormuz and improve market resilience?
Green hydrogen and green ammonia should play a meaningful role in improving resilience, particularly when produced in geographically diverse locations outside the Gulf.
InterContinental Energy has focused on Australia for precisely this reason. And, as the largest green fuels developer in the country, we are moving as quickly as possible to ensure our projects can contribute to a future that has enhanced energy diversity and security of supply.
Given the scale, complexity and capital intensity of these projects, it will take time for large‑scale green hydrogen and green ammonia developments to come online and start operating at scale. Green hydrogen and green ammonia will be part of a 2030s diversification and decarbonisation wave and will play an important role in strengthening future resilience.
Given current disruption, are you seeing heightened government or industrial off-taker interest in accelerating green hydrogen and green ammonia adoption in a push towards energy diversification?
Absolutely. We are seeing clear signs of increased interest from both governments and industrial off-takers in accelerating green hydrogen and green ammonia as part of their diversification strategies.
InterContinental Energy’s Australian Renewable Energy Hub has recently secured AUS$21 million in funding from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency to advance large‑scale green hydrogen production for green iron in the Pilbara.
In Western Australia, our Western Green Energy Hub has attracted enough green ammonia offtake interest from customers in North Asia to support a first phase of minimum 1.4 million tonnes per annum, targeted for the early 2030s, and our Green Energy Oman project is also advancing with strong international partner and offtake interest for an initial phase.
At the same time, we are seeing growing engagement from OEMs and EPC contractors who recognise the strategic importance of these hubs and want to help accelerate delivery, which is another strong indicator the market is moving in this direction.
Do you believe ammonia‑ready shipping, direct pipeline links, or alternative export routes – such as via Australia to Northeast Asia – could offer more secure long‑term energy pathways compared with traditional crude and LNG routes?
Certainly. Creating additional energy routes from Australia to North Asia – including ammonia-ready shipping and, where feasible, dedicated pipeline or corridor infrastructure – can offer more secure long-term pathways.
These options help diversify both fuels and routes, which is essential for reducing exposure to chokepoints and single points of failure in the system.
However, it is no longer a question of choosing a single preferred source of energy. We are entering a new paradigm where all sources of energy are needed, though green and clean molecules are clearly preferred over fossil fuels because of the climate benefits of renewable based energy.
Green e-fuels can make an important contribution to a more diversified and resilient supply chain.
What role do you see for green ammonia in stabilising future shipping resilience, given its transportability, existing carrier technologies, and ability to use diversified shipping lanes?
At today’s LNG and bunker fuel prices, the cost gap between existing fuel options and green ammonia from leading projects like ours is narrowing.
We should expect to see a shift emerge where customers can now choose an alternative green fuel which costs almost the same as existing fossil fuel options, with the added benefit of coming from a stable jurisdiction like Australia, and being zero emission.
From an investor perspective, is the Middle East conflict shifting the perception of large‑scale green molecule projects as climate‑driven investments to being strategic security hedges?
We are definitely seeing a stronger energy‑security lens being applied to large‑scale green molecule projects, alongside the existing climate and decarbonisation rationale.
In particular, there is growing interest in projects located in stable jurisdictions like Australia that can deliver low‑cost green e‑fuels at scale and help diversify away from concentrated fossil fuel supply routes.
What policy actions – from offtake guarantees to export‑credit support – are most critical now to maintain investor confidence and accelerate green hydrogen deployment even with current global instability?
Governments now need to give investors’ confidence that early green hydrogen projects will be backed through this period of instability.
That means clear, durable policy signals and targeted public support to help first projects move ahead, just as we saw in the early days of LNG, nuclear, wind and solar.
How do you envision international cooperation evolving between producing regions like the Middle East and Australia and demand centres such as Japan, South Korea, and Europe to build a more shock‑proof clean energy system?
We are already seeing that cooperation deepen. Australia and its North Asian partners have a long history of energy trade in LNG, iron ore and agriculture, and are now extending that into long‑term partnerships around green hydrogen and green ammonia supply chains.
Over time I expect producing regions such as Australia and the Middle East to be linked to demand centres in Japan, South Korea and Europe through dedicated green corridors, long‑term offtake agreements and shared infrastructure that make the clean energy system more shock‑resilient by design.
