Which fossil-fuel companies will gain the most from investments into replacement energy sources?


12-figure market cap energy companies aren't in business to go out of business, and it's been observed that the biggest companies implicated in global warming and energy price gouging are not shy about investing in renewables and green technology knowing that even they can't dig up more than what nature created hundreds of millions of years ago.

So the question is, which are going to do the best at it? Are there any that are indeed going to die on the greasy, sooty, toxic, burning hill of extracted fossil resources? Who would you invest in now to ensure you will excel in the mega-cap energy sector over the next 3 decades?

I've done a little digging and these are some of the interesting things I found.

Reference links will be added in a comment.

Forbes wrings out some economics:

Maersk is ordering eight new vessels that will use only carbon-neutral fuels — demanded by such customers as Amazon, Disney, and Microsoft Corp.

renewable energy should be scaled up to 40% across all economic sectors by 2030. That will require an investment of $5.7 trillion a year. Right now, green energy makes up 14% of the global energy portfolio.

85 million new jobs expected to be created vs 12 million old jobs ended

Investopedia lists alternative-energy stocks, i.e., companies that big fossil-fuel conglomerates might be interested in acquiring. And points out that

The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed by President Biden on Nov. 15, 2021, allocates $65 billion to improving America's power infrastructure, which includes the single largest investment in clean energy transmission in the history of the U.S.

Fleet Europe asks about Big Oil's strategies all the way to 2050, listing current and planning details for Shell, BP, Total, and ExxonMobil.

This last one prompted me to look for the top energy companies' own strategy revelations:

  • Saudi Aramco faces an existential crisis for an entire nation as their oil resources are pumped dry just as their underground water has been, but they don't talk much themselves about the things they are actually doing about it, so we have to read about it from Reuters. There is a big caveat here in that alternative-energy development by the sovereign funds of Saudi Arabia may not be incorporated under Aramco, which may take it out of the paradigm of investing in oil-company-reinvention; that is, Aramco may not benefit and it could be a mistake to even include it here.
  • Exxon-Mobil describes why they're investing in a lower-carbon future
  • Chevron talks about sustainability and renewables and energy storage
  • Shell is diversifying in wind, hydrogen, solar, and EV charging
  • I'm skipping PetroChina because Chinese companies are not trustworthy investments
  • Conoco Phillips talks in generalities, and indeed I can't find any information stating that they've done or initiated anything concrete.
  • Total Energies talks a good game and brings the receipts
  • Equinor (Norway) is of course making an example of itself, but again data on concrete investments it is making are hard to find, though Renewables Now gives us hints that they're big into offshore wind

After that, energy companies drop into fiddling small change (under $100B market cap) and those deserve to be examined on another day.


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