At ExxonMobil in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, Gloria Moncada oversees the nation's fourth-largest refinery and is the first woman to do so. Moncada recently provided insight into the global economic outlook and its anticipated effect on Louisiana. Like many other global oil and gas companies, ExxonMobil has been impacted by COVID- 19, but Moncada is optimistic about what lies ahead for industry.
"Billions of people in developing nations are going to need energy -and more energy than we're producing today - with half of it coming from oil and gas," Moncada explained during a recent webinar. "In the next 20 years, the world is going to need 20-percent more energy than it's consuming today. We have to be ready to supply those needs in the years ahead. Yes, there's a pause right now on capital projects throughout the industry, but they will come back because they're strong, resilient projects. We need to be ready for that future growth."
Furthermore, Moncada stressed that industry must keep a close eye on its upcoming capital spending
"Frankly, that's going to have a big impact on what those production outlooks are going to be in the years ahead," she said. "It depends on how slow or fast companies react to bringing capital projects back on. If capital isn't being spent, thousands of jobs will be affected."
Moncada reminded listeners the Baton Rouge refinery is producing energy not only for the state of Louisiana, but also for the world at large.
"We have to keep remembering that energy has to be affordable and scalable," Moncada explained. "While government regulations can try to push in the direction of renewables, energy has to be affordable for the people who are buying it and not cause a different environmental issue than what it's trying to solve."
Moncada also addressed Louisiana's Industrial Tax Exemption Program (ITEP).
"When we make a major technology addition or expansion, we pick which site is the most advantaged, and we build there," she said. "We see time and time again that our Texas sites are more advantaged in the Gulf Coast, and that's the combination of a better tax or business environment, legal climate and infrastructure. We need to be able to offset those disadvantages and encourage that capital investment to come here and create jobs.
"If folks are being misinformed or having a short-term focus on ITEP, parishes run the risk of forfeiting their futures. When we're looking at projects and comparing Louisiana to Texas or anywhere globally, unpredictability means we enter a '0' as our assumption of that incentive. That's not a great thing to do when you're analyzing a project in the very beginning. It takes you out of the race immediately."
According to Moncada, the process of recruiting the future workforce has also changed because technology continues to play a bigger role in industry operations.
"We want today's students, and obviously our future employees, to see there's success not just through colleges but also trade schools," Moncada said. "We have quality jobs in the industry, and they are high-technology jobs. We are focused on partnering with high schools and technical colleges to help create career opportunities. We provide wage internships to give people a solid footing and have developed programs like VR training.
"We recently completed a major maintenance project at the site that was very high tech. We used drones for inspection and other remote tools. We need to put the skillsets in our employees to keep up with and lead these new technology areas."
Last year, Moncada was named the first female chair of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil & Gas Association, Louisiana's longest-standing trade association representing all aspects of the oil and gas industry for the past 97 years.