“If They Thought This Was Going To Be An Easy Conversation, They’re Wrong” Featuring Lucas Arangüena, Santander

Today we had the pleasure of hosting Lucas Arangüena, Global Head of Sustainable Tech and Group Head of Green Finance at Santander. Headquartered in Madrid, Santander is one of the leading European banks and the largest bank in Latin America. They are also the top financier of renewables globally and a leading advisor overall for M&A across renewables, hydrogen, battery tech, EV charging and energy storage, CCUS & ClimateTech, Biofuels, and AgriTech. Lucas joined Santander in 2010 and is responsible for advising clients globally in their energy transition as well as providing corporate finance advice across clean technologies. We were very interested to visit with Lucas and hear his perspective. As you will hear, the command Lucas has of so many of the technical features of today’s energy world is very impressive.

To start the discussion, Lucas first shares the four themes that are his current top areas of focus including the technology paradigm change taking place with the energy transition, electrification of everything and how to add capacity and storage facilities, advising clients on circular economies, and decarbonizing food, particularly protein, which Lucas cites as being responsible for more than 20% of global GHG emissions. His themes segued into a robust conversation on the future of hydrogen demand in Europe, Latin America’s potential and opportunity to help developed economies decarbonize, and Chile’s (solar and wind) and Brazil’s (hydro power) particular promise. We also discuss Santander’s depth and breath in the energy transition markets, touch on some of the projects they’ve financed in the US, Lucas’s and his group’s passion for technology, and the future of infrastructure and industry in Europe. We continued the conversation with the importance of having an orderly and fair transition, Santander’s decarbonization targets for energy, steel and aviation, the Net Zero Industrial Act compared to the IRA, the odd dynamics of Chinese and Korean battery companies benefiting from IRA tax credits, and Lucas’s perspective on the two greatest opportunities for decarbonization by 2030. We ended with the future of public and private debt with as countries continue to provide subsidies for the transition, developments in carbon capture, and the importance of taking action now to achieve decarbonization goals.

The Veriten team kicked off the show: Mike Bradley shared his observations on the surprise OPEC cut, noting it’s impact on pushing crude oil prices higher and how the last surprise cut in October 2022 also spiked prices over the ensuing weeks. He highlights several reasons why OPEC might have chosen to cut production and then discussed Ovintiv’s recent Permian shale acquisition. He wrapped up by noting that Glencore PLC launched an unsolicited bid for Teck Resources and concluded that both these recent deals, as well as a handful of deals announced last week, demonstrate that we’re still in the early innings of energy and mining consolidation and that the amount and size of future deals could be healthy. Jeff Tillery shared his thoughts around Q2 earnings with an emphasis on sustainable returns.

It was our pleasure to host Lucas and we want to thank him for sharing his perspective. We are excited to spend more time with him in the future.

Thanks to you all for your support and friendship!