Robin is an expert on Middle East energy strategy. He is the author of two books, The Myth of the Oil Crisis and Capturing Carbon, columnist on energy and environmental issues for Bloomberg and The National, and comments widely on energy issues in the media, including the Financial Times, Foreign Policy, Atlantic, CNN, BBC, Sky News and others.

For Shell (1997-2005), he advanced business development efforts in Iraq, the rest of the Middle East and Russia, then for Dubai Holding and the Emirates National Oil Company. He founded Qamar Energy to deliver unique regionally-based Middle East energy insight and business opportunities for the international oil and gas industry. Key areas of focus include the MENA and East Mediterranean gas market, Iraqi and Kurdish energy, MENA renewables, and carbon capture and storage.

He was awarded the Global Energy Prize ‘Energy of Words’ in St Petersburg, Russia, 2016. He is a Fellow at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy, Non-Resident Fellow with the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington, and Senior Fellow with the Iraq Energy Institute and former Non-Resident Fellow at the Brookings Institution. He holds a first-class degree in Geology from the University of Cambridge, and speaks five languages including Arabic and Farsi.