Because Eni, BP, Shell and Total will focus on electricity and gas
All the developments towards electricity and gas by BP and Shell, Total and Eni in an in-depth study by the New York Times
There is a slow but inexorable transformation of the world's oil and gas companies. This transformation, pushed by governments and investors to tackle the problems of climate change, is leading them to face the energy transition and "to resemble" more and more "electricity companies". This is what the New York Times writes in an extensive article by Stanley Reed on the transformation of oil companies "especially the European oil giants" for which "it could be the right year" to accompany the change.
THE EXAMPLES OF SHELL AND TOTAL
The New York Times accompanies its statement with some examples starting from Royal Dutch Shell: "At the end of last month it won an agreement to build a large wind farm off the Dutch coast". So did the French at Total , which owns a battery manufacturer, and “has agreed to make several large investments in solar energy in Spain and in a wind farm off the coast of Scotland. Total has also bought an electric and natural gas company in Spain and is joining Shell and BP in expanding its electric vehicle charging business, ”writes the NYT adding that at the same time, these companies are abandoning their plans. to drill other wells.
"Shell recently said it wanted to delay the opening of new fields in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea, while BP promised not to hunt for oil in any new country."
PANDEMIC AND CRASH IN TURNOVER A WARNING TO CHANGE
The reason for this change, which for now is manifesting itself above all among the European majors, is very simple, explains the NYT : "Driven by governments and investors to tackle the problems of climate change on their products, European oil companies are accelerating producing cleaner energy – usually electricity, sometimes hydrogen – and promoting natural gas, which they believe can be a cleaner transition fuel from coal and oil to renewable energy. For some executives – the American newspaper continues – the sudden collapse in oil demand caused by the pandemic – and the consequent slump in earnings – is another warning that, if they do not change the composition of their activities, they risk being dinosaurs. at risk of extinction ".
FOR DESCALZI (ENI) BUSINESS MORE AND MORE LINKED TO GREEN ENERGY
And this is not an isolated case. According to the NYT, this evolving view is even more surprising when you consider that it is shared by many longtime veterans of the oil industry. “'Over the past six years we have had extreme volatility in petroleum raw materials,' said Claudio Descalzi, Eni's CEO . Descalzi said he wanted to build a business increasingly based on green energy rather than oil. 'We want to stay away from volatility and uncertainty', added ”the CEO of Eni according to the American daily.
Same goes for BP veteran Bernard Looney, 29, who became CEO in February, recently told reporters: "What the world wants from energy is changing, and so we need to change what we offer to the world."
THE BET IS ELECTRICITY
“The bet is that electricity will be the first means of providing cleaner energy in the future and, therefore, it will grow rapidly. American giants like Exxon Mobil and Chevron have been slower than their European counterparts in striving to achieve climate-related goals that are so far away, analysts say, in part because they face less pressure from government and investors. (although the American financial community is making itself heard more and more lately) (…) Companies like Shell and BP are looking to position themselves towards an era where they will rely much less on extracting natural resources from the earth than on providing energy as a service tailored to customer needs – more like electric utilities than to oil drillers ”, we read again in the NYT .
“They hope to leverage the thousands of engineers on their payroll to manage the construction of new types of power plants; their extensive networks of retail stations to provide services such as electric vehicle charging; and their commercial channels, which typically purchase and cover a wide variety of energy futures, to organize low-carbon energy supplies for cities or large corporations ”.
“Electricity is the key to most of these strategies. Even hydrogen, a clean-burning gas that can store energy and generate electricity for vehicles, plays an increasingly important role ”, closed the newspaper.
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/energia/perche-eni-bp-shell-e-total-punteranno-sullelettrico/ on Sun, 23 Aug 2020 07:10:12 +0000.