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Fossil Fuels Aren’t Dying, They’re Shifting To National And State Backed Companies
Fossil Fuels Aren’t Dying, They’re Shifting To National And State Backed Companies
Despite the activist shareholder battles, calls for ESG changes and just outright negative press about fossil fuels, it looks like rumors of oil’s death have been greatly exaggerated. Fossil fuels aren’t dying – rather, their output is just being shifted to national and state owned companies.
Even as the supermajor oil companies shrink in size and adhere to incessant criticism, fossil-fuel demand holds strong, according to Yahoo Finance. Activists have been the busiest they have been in years…
Recent weeks saw Exxon and Chevron rebuked by their own shareholders over climate concerns, while Shell lost a lawsuit in the Hague over the pace of its shift away from oil and gas.
…and this has been a tailwind for national oil companies (NOCs) and state owned players who aren’t under the same pressure to play ball with activists. The report notes that “Saudi Aramco and Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. are spending billions to boost their respective output capacities”, as is Qatar Petroleum.
NOC’s share of global oil output is expected to rise to 65%, from about 50% today, by 2050. Companies like Exxon and Chevron are keeping output at lows and curtailing future investment in traditional oil and gas infrastructure.
Patrick Heller, an adviser at the Natural Resource Governance Institute, told Yahoo Finance: “We hear government officials and NOC officials say, ‘We look at the divestment of international oil companies from some projects as an opportunity for us to grow. And I do think that’s potentially really risky.”
Jason Bordoff, director of the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs, thinks that the shift to government owners could wind up doing just the opposite of what activists are intending on doing.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
These Secretive Oil Companies Control $3 Trillion In Wealth
These Secretive Oil Companies Control $3 Trillion In Wealth
They control the vast majority of the world’s oil and gas assets, yet the average person has never even heard of them, outside of those that are famous for things like getting attacked by missiles or becoming embroiled in a high-profile corruption scandal.
State-owned oil and gas companies (aka, the national oil companies, or NOCs) control at least US$3 trillion in oil and gas assets, compared to around $2.5 trillion as of 2017, and hold an estimated 90% of all known reserves–considerably more than publicly listed companies such as BP, ExxonMobil and Shell. Meanwhile, Saudi Aramco leads the pack as the world’s most profitable company.
That means that NOCs control about as much wealth as all U.S. billionaires or roughly twice the assets of global multilateral development banks.
If we go by annual revenue alone, China’s state-run Sinopec—explorer, producer, refiner, marketer and distributor—was the biggest oil and gas company in the world at the end of 2018. By net income, that title goes to Saudi Aramco, which reported net income in 2018 of $111.1 billion, compared to Sinopec’s $9.1 billion.
These numbers may seem a bit wild, but no one really ever knows where they come from or how they are derived.
By annual revenue metrics, by year-end 2018, four of the top 10 oil and gas companies in the world were state-owned: Sinopec, Aramco, China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) and Russian Gazprom. The other six Top 10 titles went to Shell (4th), BP (5th), Exxon (6th), Total (7Th) Valero (8th) and Phillips 66 (10th). Related: The Best And Worst Oil Majors Of 2019
Despite their economic importance, most of these 71 NOCs are notoriously secretive–Norway’s Equinor being one of the few exceptions. For the remainder of the NOCs, their opacity poses a significant fiscal and governance risk, especially when they carry huge debts.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
