Statoil’s CEO Helge Lund gave keynote remarks to the audience at Columbia University’s Center on Global Energy Policy Spring Conference last week. He also engaged in some Q&A with IHS Vice Chairman and author of The Prize Daniel Yergin, who asked Lund about how Europe looks at the US unconventional production boom predominantly fueled by shale gas and oil development.

When asked about how attitudes toward natural gas differ in the US and Europe, Lund said it’s interesting to see gas in Europe struggling in more areas than a few years ago, while coal is becoming a preferred power generation fuel in many cases based on price. “Europe concentrated more on injecting renewables than reducing carbon,” Lund said.

“Europe has had trouble meeting its goals of reducing carbon and making energy cheaper (…) they now have a more expensive product [electricity] and more carbon. – Helge Lund, Statoil CEO