“Any decision to increase, support or add-in new fossil projects today could see returns risk within a few years,” said Banco Santander SA analyst Jason Kenney. Climate change, technology developments like electric cars and rapidly evolving government policy on emissions are major risks today when deciding whether to invest billions in a new project, he said.
Against that backdrop, investment in the upstream oil and gas sector slumped 30% in 2020, while last year’s spend of $341 billion was 23% below pre-pandemic levels, the International Energy Forum wrote in a report.
“Two years in a row of large and abrupt underinvestment in oil and gas development is a recipe for higher prices and volatility later this decade,” warned Joseph McMonigle, Secretary General of the IEF.
That message has not gone down well with consumers around the globe. From Pakistan to Paris, billions of people are suffering a cost-of-living crisis fueled in large part by high energy costs. In the U.S., President Joe Biden has implored oil companies to reinvest profits from surging oil prices into more production to help ease the shortages caused by Russia’s war against Ukraine. Some U.S. and European politicians have called for a windfall tax on companies’ profits to help ease the burden on consumers.
To be fair, that doesn’t mean companies aren’t investing in growth at all. But they will “focus only on low risk, high return assets” such as shale or expanding offshore fields near existing operations, according to Kenney.
Exxon and Chevron, for instance, are spending aggressively to grow production in the U.S.’s Permian Basin, the world largest shale oil region, with planned growth rates of 25% and 15%, respectively. BP is boosting investment in U.S. shale, but the company won’t be able to ramp up Permian production until it finishes building two large gathering systems at the end of the year.
However, most Permian growth will largely offset declines from elsewhere in the U.S. supermajors’ global portfolio, rather than adding to total barrels. Exxon’s first quarter production of 3.7 million barrels per day was the lowest since its merger with Mobil in the late 1990s. Together Exxon and Chevron plan to spend more on buybacks and dividends this year than they do on production.
“For so long the industry has been told by investors and politicians we need less oil and executives remember that,” said Barrett of Janus Henderson. “If the world needs an extra million barrels a day to ease prices, I’m not sure where it will come from.”
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.