In the nearly 40 years that I have worked in the energy sector, I have been through most of the oil and gas industry: Flopetrol-Schlumberger, Petrobras, IBP, Espírito Santo Development Department, Ministry of Mines and Energy, Pre-Salt Petróleo, ES Gás, ONIP …, but there was still the challenge of undertaking in this market, without a “safety net”.
Create yet another oil company? No, the idea was to develop an energy platform, a company dedicated to integrating ecosystems, uniting oil and gas with biofuels and the most diverse forms of energy, especially human energy. And so the EnP Energy Platform was launched in Rio de Janeiro on March 10, 2020, a week before Brazil plunged into the longest “curfew”.
In a few days, the economy plummeted and the world almost instantly left its analog mode and went digital in home-offices, lives, webinars and other forms of interaction. In Brazil, a very harsh statistic, 57 million people enrolled in the Federal Government's aid program. If each of them has one dependent on average, that involves more than 100 million people, almost half of our population. This scenario demanded a proactive attitude from us.
In this way, we adjusted the sails and kept moving forward, even during the pandemic, connecting, articulating and innovating, as the EnP slogan says. Thus, we have established important strategic alliances, in Brazil and abroad, such as Datagro – integration of oil and gas with biofuels and development of an investment fund in energy ecosystems; Oil Group – construction of a refinery and a lubricant plant in Espírito Santo; in addition to being registered as an operating company in the second round of the ANP's permanent offer of E&P areas.
The Brazilian land, on its surface, is a granary of food for the world. Already in its subsoil, an untapped potential of oil & gas and other treasures, all of them on offer, a unique opportunity in the world. A new equation needed to be proposed.
How to put this and other mineral wealth at the service of millions of people and in the simplest and most distributed way possible? How to motivate and occupy the thousands and thousands of young people, highly trained, with training in the areas of oil, gas, biofuels and related? How to take advantage of the generation that already has 30, 40 or 50 years of experience in these sectors?
The answer comes naturally. Bringing young and old together, accessing these riches, taking them from the bosom of the earth and putting them at the service of local, regional and national prosperity. Our equation is simple, it may seem very daring, but history should show that, in reality, it is very shy. Creating 1000 companies and, in 10 years, producing 1 million barrels of equivalent energy a day, composing an ecosystem with ethanol, biodiesel, biogas, aviation biokerosene and other energies, notably emanates from the brave Brazilian people a true energy syncretism.
From that point on, for those who still have doubts about what attitude to take, I share Johann Göethe's poem entitled Before the Commitment:
“Before commitment there is hesitation, the possibility of backing off and always ineffectiveness.
In relation to all acts of initiative and creation, there is an elementary truth whose ignorance destroys many splendid ideas and plans.
The moment we commit ourselves in fact, providence moves too. All sorts of things happen to help us, things that would never happen otherwise.
A whole flow of events springs from the decision, making all sorts of incidents, encounters and material assistance appear in our favor, which no one would have dreamed would come their way.
Whatever you want to do or dream you can, you can and should start.
Courage contains genius, power and self-fulfillment magic.
Start now!
Marcio Felix is an Electronic and Petroleum Engineer with an MBA in business management. A good part of his career, which spanned 4 decades in the oil, gas and energy sector, was built at Petrobras, where he remained for 36 years. Marcio was also director of the IBP, Secretary of Development of Espírito Santo and Executive Secretary at the Ministry of Mines and Energy. Today, he is dedicated to an innovative company in the energy sector, the EnP Energy Platform, where he is the current president.