Profile

Dr Robert Skinner is an independent strategy adviser and energy market commentator in Calgary. His career in Energy spans five decades in government, industry and academia. Among other current projects he is Energy Research Adviser to the VP of Research and Executive Fellow, School of Public Policy, University of Calgary.

His career in government began with Canada's Energy ministry as a research geologist and senior roles dealing with environment, oil price administration, imports, natural gas and ultimately as Assistant Deputy Minister of Energy Commodities in 1985.

From 1989 to 1995 he was Director of the Long Term Office of the International Energy Agency, Paris, where he led the IEA's work on energy and climate policies, and in the wake of the end of the Soviet Union, led the first energy policy reviews of (then, 1992) Czechoslovakia, South Africa and Ukraine.

He joined Total's gas and power group in Paris in 1996, and transferred to Calgary, Canada in 1998 to establish the company's oil sands business. In 2002 he served briefly as the Administrator, Northern Pipeline Agency to advise the government on the legal and regulatory implications for the possible pipeline transit for Alaskan gas across Canada.

He was Director of the Oxford Institute of Energy Studies in Oxford, England from 2003 to 2006.

In 2006 he advised Statoil (Equinor) in gaining entry to the Canadian oil sands. He retired in 2011 as Senior Vice President of strategy, government relations, economic analysis and lands and minerals.

In November 2018, he was appointed as an envoy for the Premier of Alberta to advise on the government's response to the extreme oil price differentials for Alberta crude oil, and the consequent production curtailment program.

He is a former Director of The Canadian Energy and Climate Nexus (CECN).

Bob is a frequent media commentator on oil markets, geopolitics, the energy transition and energy policy. He is the author of numerous papers, articles and lectures, contributor to books and studies on energy, geopolitics and policy and adviser to governments in Latin America, Europe and Asia. Dr Skinner has advanced degrees in geology from Queen's University (BSc, 1968) and the University of Washington, Seattle (PhD, 1971).