CNBC

Shell, Total continue buyback bonanza after record profits

PUBLISHED THU, JUL 28 20222:11 AM EDT

KEY POINTS

• Europe’s oil giants Shell and TotalEnergies extended share buybacks after their second-quarter profits beat an already record-breaking previous quarter.

• The two companies combined are buying back $8 billion in shares in the third quarter.

• Benchmark Brent crude oil futures have risen more than 140% in the past twelve months, averaging around $114 a barrel in the quarter.

Europe’s biggest oil companies Shell and TotalEnergies extended share buybacks on Thursday after their second-quarter profits beat an already record-breaking previous quarter on the back of soaring crude, gas and oil product prices.

The two companies combined are buying back $8 billion in shares in the third quarter after recording their respective highest quarterly profits while keeping their dividends steady, which might disappoint some investors. read more

THE TIMES

Break up big oil, says former BP boss Lord Browne

Emily Gosden, Energy Editor: Thursday January 06 2022, 12.01am

Oil majors should break themselves up into separate fossil fuel and low-carbon businesses to accelerate investment in the energy transition, the former boss of BP has said.

The comments by Lord Browne of Madingley will fuel debate over the strategies of Britain’s oil giants with Shell already facing calls from Third Point, the US activist investor, to break itself up.

Both Shell and BP have thus far argued that they are better off remaining as single companies so they can use the proceeds of their oil businesses to fund green investments. read more

Forbes:

Want To Stop Climate Change?

Buy Big Oil Stock

Jeroen Kraaijenbrink: Contributor: Leadership Strategy: 3 JAN 2022

EXTRACTS

In an age in which stock trading is no longer reserved to Wall-Street and a climate crisis is becoming a reality, sustainability-driven shareholder activism was bound to happen. And we see it happening, with increasing impact—especially in Big Oil, responsible for the largest share of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions.

“Thanks to the votes of institutional investors for the Follow This climate resolutions, Shell, Equinor, BP, Phillips 66, and Chevron have reluctantly set climate ambitions covering Scope 3 already.” And, as Follow This announced in their recent investor briefing, they will file no less than eight climate resolutions in 2022, at Shell, BP, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, Occidental Petroleum, ExxonMobil, and Marathon Petroleum. read more

CNBC

Governments and Big Oil were first. The next wave of climate lawsuits will target banks and boards

GLASGOW, Scotland — Financial institutions and individual board members could be the next targets of climate litigation cases, according to the campaigners who helped to secure a landmark courtroom victory against oil giant Royal Dutch Shell.

It comes at a time when countries are scrambling to reach consensus in the final days of the COP26 climate summit. Negotiators from 197 countries are taking part in discussions with the goal of keeping the all-important global target of 1.5 degrees Celsius alive. read more

CNBC

Bill Gates predicts oil companies ‘will be worth very little’ in 30 years — here’s why

If you’re looking for an extremely long-term stock pick from billionaire Bill Gates, here it is: Avoid Big Oil.

As the world moves away from fossil fuels and adopts more clean and renewable energy sources, oil giants that have dominated markets for more than a century could be in trouble, the Microsoft co-founder said in a briefing at the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow, Scotland, on Thursday. read more

Britain’s fossil fuel dilemma in the spotlight as climate talks near

EXTRACTS

LONDON (Reuters) – Britain faces a fossil fuel dilemma: it can burnish its green credentials by halting new oil and gas development in the North Sea, yet doing so will leave it more reliant on imported fuel.

Britain’s Oil and Gas Authority said gas extracted from the British North Sea had an average emission intensity of 22 kg carbon dioxide equivalent per barrel of oil equivalent, while imported LNG had an average intensity of 59 kg. read more

CNBC

Democrats call on oil companies to testify on climate disinformation

• The committee called on top executives at ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell and lobbying groups American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to testify before Congress next month.
• The committee also requested documents on the reported role of the oil and gas industry in a long-term campaign to spread climate disinformation and undermine climate policy.

The House Oversight Committee on Thursday expanded its investigation into the fossil fuel industry’s involvement in spreading disinformation about the role fossil fuels play in causing climate change.

Committee Chairwoman Carolyn Maloney, D-N.Y., and Subcommittee on the Environment Chairman Ro Khanna, D-Calif., called on top executives at ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell and lobbying groups American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce to testify before Congress next month. read more

The New York Times

House Panel Expands Inquiry Into Climate Disinformation by Oil Giants

The Guardian:

Exxon helped cause the climate crisis. It’s time they owned up

Mark Hertsgaard: Thursday 16 Sept 2021

EXTRACTS

Royal Dutch Shell even anticipated the current wave of lawsuits: an internal study in 1998 forecast a scenario in which environmental groups would band together to file “a class action lawsuit on the grounds of neglecting what scientists, including [the industry’s] own, have been saying for years”.

Indeed, last May the Netherlands branch of the advocacy group Friends of the Earth won a landmark case against Shell. A Dutch court ordered Shell to bring its global operations in line with the Paris agreement goal of limiting temperature rise to 1.5C above pre-industrial levels. This will require Shell to reduce both its own and its customers’ emissions by a staggering 45% from 2019 levels by 2030. Shell is appealing the ruling. read more

CNBC

Big Oil’s bid to lure back investors with cash could ultimately fail

… a ‘death knell’ for fossil fuels

Sam Meredith: PUBLISHED WED, AUG 18 2021 1:23 AM EDT

LONDON — The world’s largest oil and gas majors are seeking to lure back investors by returning more cash to shareholders. Market participants, particularly those looking to the long term, remain highly skeptical.

It comes at a time when oil and gas companies are raking in their highest profits since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic amid a sustained period of stronger commodity prices. read more

REUTERS

Analysis: Benchmark of Big Oil on methane emissions shows ‘significant gap’ between reality and reporting

By Terry Slavin – Editor, Reuters Professional: AUGUST 14, 2021 

Geofinancial Analytics’s MethaneScan® benchmark scores the oil and gas producers based on observed methane emissions in the year to this July.

This first snapshot, of the top 15 producers, finds that oil super-majors Royal Dutch Shell and Chevron are the worst performers, followed by ConocoPhillips, Marathon Oil and ExxonMobil. read more

The Guardian

How a powerful US lobby group helps big oil to block climate action

Chris McGreal: Mon 19 Jul 2021 11.00 BST

When Royal Dutch Shell published its annual environmental report in April, it boasted that it was investing heavily in renewable energy. The oil giant committed to installing hundreds of thousands of charging stations for electric vehicles around the world to help offset the harm caused by burning fossil fuels.

On the same day, Shell issued a separate report revealing that its single largest donation to political lobby groups last year was made to the American Petroleum Institute, one of the US’s most powerful trade organizations, which drives the oil industry’s relationship with Congress. read more

The Guardian

Big oil and gas kept a dirty secret for decades. Now they may pay the price

Chris McGreal: Wed 30 Jun 2021 08.00 BST

The environmentalist Bill McKibben once characterized the fossil fuel industry’s behavior as “the most consequential cover-up in US history”. And now for the first time in decades, the lawsuits chart a path toward public accountability that climate activists say has the potential to rival big tobacco’s downfall after it concealed the real dangers of smoking.

“We are at an inflection point,” said Daniel Farber, a law professor at the University of California, Berkeley and director of the Center for Law, Energy, and the Environment. read more

CNBC

Big Oil’s increasing number of climate lawsuits draws parallels to Big Tobacco

PUBLISHED FRI, JUN 25 20211:12 AM EDT: Sam Meredith
@SMEREDITH19

• The prospect of a rising tide of climate litigation cases against heavy emitting businesses comes shortly after a landmark courtroom defeat for Royal Dutch Shell.
• Since the turn of the century, more than 2,000 climate litigation cases were found to have been filed in a trend that is widely expected to have global implications for carbon-intensive companies.
• Analysts believe this is merely scratching the surface of what is to be expected in the future — drawing parallels to the so-called tobacco trials of the 1950s and 1960s.

LONDON — Big Oil is likely to face an exponential increase in climate lawsuits over the coming years, a trend that analysts say is reminiscent of activists turning to the courts to take on the tobacco industry.

The prospect of a rising tide of climate litigation cases against heavy emitting businesses comes shortly after a landmark courtroom defeat for Royal Dutch Shell. read more

OilPrice.com

Nigeria Inks Massive Oil Deal With Supermajors

Editor OilPrice.com: Wed, May 26, 2021, 5:00 PM

Nigeria’s National Petroleum Corporation this week signed a deal with Shell, Exxon, Total, and Eni to develop an offshore oil block that includes the deepwater Bonga field, the NNPC said in a series of tweets.

The NNPC noted the deal marks a historic moment as it settles long-running disputes between the Nigerian government and international oil companies.

According to the company, the deal could unlock up to $10 billion in new investments in Nigeria’s oil industry. It could also add 150,000 bpd to the country’s oil production, bringing the total output from the block—Oil Mining Lease 118—to 350,000 bpd, Bloomberg reports. read more

Big Oil Is In Desperate Need Of New Discoveries

By Alex Kimani – May 10, 2021, 2:00 PM CDT

The year 2020 was a watershed moment for the fossil fuel sector. Faced with a global pandemic, severe demand shocks and a shift towards renewable energy, experts warned that nearly $900 billion worth of reserves–or about one-third of the value of big oil and gas companies–were at risk of becoming worthless.

Even Big Oil mostly appeared resigned to its fate, with Royal Dutch Shell (NYSE:RDS.A) CEO Ben van Beurden declaring that we had already hit peak oil demand while BP Plc. (NYSE:BP)—a company that doubled down on its aggressive drilling right after the historic 2015 UN Climate Change Agreement--finally gave in saying “..concerns about carbon emissions and climate change mean that it is increasingly unlikely that the world’s reserves of oil will ever be exhausted.” BP went on to announce one of the largest asset writedowns of any oil major after slashing up to $17.5 billion off the value of its assets and conceded that it “expects the pandemic to hasten the shift away from fossil fuels.” read more