After three decades inside Mobil, Castrol, and BP, Marcel Kooter didn’t exactly take the easy road into retirement. Instead, he pivoted from selling fossil molecules to evangelizing green ones — co-founding the Holland Hydrogen Hub to connect the Middle East’s solar-rich deserts with Europe’s industrial heartland.
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Kooter’s career arc embodies the contradictions of the energy transition: oil companies have the technical expertise to scale hydrogen, but also the baggage of half-measures and decades of delayed urgency. “You don’t have to unlearn much,” Kooter insists, noting that moving hydrogen is, in many ways, not too different from moving gas. That familiarity is precisely why oil majors — Aramco, OQ, ADNOC — are now positioning themselves as hydrogen champions.
But scaling hydrogen isn’t just about molecules; it’s about money. The cost gap remains stark: $5–8 per kilo for green hydrogen versus far cheaper gray alternatives. Kooter argues that economies of scale, cheap solar from the Gulf (as low as 2 cents per kWh), and global trade corridors will eventually close that gap. Yet he concedes the sector “got ahead of itself” — with $75 billion of hydrogen projects announced in 2024, many now paused. “We need to learn to walk before we start running,” he says, warning against betting $8 billion projects (like NEOM) on technologies still proving themselves.
What sets Kooter apart from hydrogen hype merchants is his blunt realism. He calls hydrogen cars “unlikely to win” against EVs, but sees the molecule as indispensable for industry, steel, shipping, and grid balancing. “Seventy percent of energy demand globally is still in molecules,” he reminds. “Electricity alone won’t cut it.”
The Holland Hydrogen Hub is his test case — not just infrastructure, but “energy diplomacy,” building import corridors and aligning 45+ private sector partners across the value chain. From desalination start-ups to Rotterdam’s storage giants, he’s orchestrating a coalition that looks more like trade diplomacy than tech innovation.
For all the enthusiasm, Kooter offers a sobering caveat: hydrogen won’t save the climate if left to subsidies and slogans. It needs patient capital, smaller-scale learnings, and above all, the discipline to resist hype. After all, if even a BP veteran says we’ve been here before, perhaps the transition is less about revolution — and more about proving we can finally follow through.
