Why is that?

The industry's "safe grey space" messaging could be partly explained as an adaptation to a rollercoaster of shifting contexts. In 2017, for the first time since 1957, the US became a net gas exporter, after a revolution in shale extraction technology changed the whole industry's paradigm and eventually unleashed an LNG technology boom, radically reframing gas in the global energy context. No longer a quiet regional commodity dominated by 30-year contracts, fixed pipelines, and a handful of exporters, natural gas was becoming a major global commodity.

In parallel, it entered the post-2015 Paris Agreement world, with policies to move away from fossil fuels gaining prominence in both the public and private sectors. That culminated in the post-Covid net-zero roadmap consensus, which was amplified all along by effective and prominent advocates of environmental causes who called for reversing the sector's growth and keeping the remaining resources in the ground.

Then, in 2022 the Russia-Ukraine war ushered in the first ever gas supply crisis of a global scale that nobody could have imagined before. The historic and single largest supply relationship in the market was severed, as Russian pipeline gas to Europe fell to a near stop. It was the first test at global scale of the industry's geopolitical resilience and reputation. This year, the rollercoaster continued with fresh tests from Venezuela to Hormuz, and big public arguments to position against, from price to AI and electrification.

Even though the net-zero consensus has been all but dismantled in practice, the rhetoric has not adjusted, and nothing new is available in its place, except a haphazard narrative about accelerating electrification by decree.

The choice of imprecise messaging could also be practical. Generic language is simpler and arguably more easily understood. But this is a slippery slope into the grey.

In this unstable environment, trying to position a gas value chain business between conflicting and often contradictory forces can easily feel like a "damned if you do, damned if you don't" situation, and I’ve heard that very line from industry executives more than once. So, it is tempting to reach for the safety of the grey, keeping messaging broad enough to work in any context.

Why change?

The global context is not getting any clearer. Volatility will probably only increase in the foreseeable future, and the world has yet to make up its mind about how it will actually deal with climate change, emissions, and net-zero. The grey position might look pretty prudent here.

But looking across the industry information bubble walls, the more volatile the environment gets, the more value I see in clarifying the industry's narrative to the world.

If it is still about "sustainable energy for the future", then let’s be clearer about what that means and how that promise is delivered, to the customers, investors, regulators, and also to the public. Because, it is the public that elects the governments that set policy and regulation, and the groups in the public that also join and fund the organisations campaigning against the industry.

Does it ever matter for the bottom line?

The questions I have had to answer most often this year are what the value of investing in proactive communication strategy is, and why bother developing more nuanced public messaging in a commodity business that does not sell directly to consumers and is already pre-judged by so many as the bad guy.

These questions are especially pertinent when every dollar/euro/riyal/yen that goes to communications is one that doesn't go to the main operation, so to earn its line in the budget, it needs to really matter for the bottom line and can't just be a nice-to-have.

This is a business where reputation is perhaps the highest currency. Strategic communication investments earn their keep by giving that reputation a shape, supporting business development, expediting the regulatory journey, and lowering project risk.

Responsive positioning, messaging, and outreach are expensive when the public story has been shaped by others and reactive regulations are choking off revenue or adding compliance expenses that could have been avoided or minimised with proactive strategies.

On the human side, a claim about sustainable energy for the future has to resonate with the generation whose future is in question.

The wrap

I truly believe that the opportunity to clarify the narrative and differentiate in brand stories is massive and largely undervalued by the oil and gas businesses.

There is also great value in articulating a clear vision in a world that looks lost, which matches the practical opportunity of telling a compelling brand story in a time where the public trusts business more than it does NGOs, governments, or the media (according to the 2026 Edelman Trust Barometer).

I would love to hear what you think!

Since I sadly had to miss the Gas Vegas this year, I look forward to catching up with colleagues who went and asking what they made of the stories being told, both on and off the messaged displays.

Thanks for reading and to all those in Thailand, have a great and productive conference!

If you are looking to go deeper and determine your positioning, engagement, or develop communication in any of these moving topics, let's chat. Book a free call below, or send us an email.

Gas Vegas Special: Out of the grey. The gas industry's brand story to the world.

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Returning from Gastech in Milan last year, for the first time as an industry representative turned observer, I shared a pretty critical review of how the gas industry's brand and marketing messaging were coming across through the exhibition displays as a whole. As the gas industry's main event of the year kicks off again, this time in Bangkok, it's timely to revisit those observations after a year working on the issue with operators, communicators, and clients.

I am sharing this at the start of the conference to prompt those of you on the floor in Bangkok to pay attention to the messaging. I am curious to learn what your take will be, and feel free to send me the taglines that stood out most to you to compare notes.

The thing that struck me most last year in Milan was what I didn't see. Namely, the words "gas", "natural gas", or even the word "LNG" were missing in action. I found it so interesting that I started collecting the taglines to create the word cloud visualisation you see below. The size of each word reflects how often it appeared.

This brand messaging suggests the gas industry's story to the world is that it delivers sustainable energy for the future, with various shades of reliability, security, prosperity, and so on, without naming the product it sells.

The industry that finds, extracts, purifies, processes, delivers, and distributes natural gas, one of the world's most important energy sources, fuelling about a quarter of the world's total energy supply (today, and probably for many decades into the future), opted to brand itself into an indistinguishable "grey zone".

I am of course generalising, and the mould won't fit all companies, but many might well recognise this trend in their company displays this week.