nightpool:

Just finished watching a really great Wendover Productions video where he makes the case that the pandemic has caused a fundamental shift in the priorities of the oil and gas industry, with high prices ultimately representing the shutdown of the oil and gas industry as investors no longer believe in a long term future for carbon extraction, and shift to focus on long-term investment in renewables.

It’s a long video, so here’s the money quote:

U.S. shale oil producer’s reinvestment rates—that is, the share of cash flow going back into the business rather than out to investors—is at an all-time low. Whereas last time oil prices sat at a comparable level the reinvestment rate was quite literally off the chart, today, less than half of their money is being put back into the business. This [capex] investment is typically what would go into developing new rigs—but today it’s just getting paid out as profit.

Companies have the ability to produce more—the US Bureau of Land Management has exactly 9,000 approved-but-unused drilling permits on record—but companies just don’t have the appetite to drill. Industry-wide, it’s the same situation. Exxon-Mobil, Shell, Chevron and BP’s capital expenditures are each at or near all-time lows. Simply put, oil companies aren’t investing in the future anymore. They’re investing in now.

This is not a misinformed strategy. Out of the S&P 500 index’s 11 distinct sectors, the energy sector (made up almost exclusively of oil and gas companies) has been by far the lowest performer since 2007. The sector only gained 41.7% in value across that era, which means it was actually flat with inflation. The oil and gas industry simply is not a good investment anymore, and so it’s no surprise that it’s not getting investment from outside or in.

While it’s up to debate whether we’ve reached “peak oil”, it’d be much easier to argue that we’ve reached peak oil investment. Because of the temporary, finite nature of any oil supply, a relatively high level of investment is needed just to keep production capacity stable. When the world looked like this [rising demand from 1997-2020]—when climbing oil demand was all we knew—the logic behind investing 5.5 billion dollars in a single pipeline was sound.

But now with the world looking like *this*—with the future of demand looking less confident than ever—even investing a couple tens of millions in a single fracking rig is risky.

Oil going negative appeared to spur a fundamental mindset change among oil executives and investors. After having spent the past decades watching both the power of scarcity and the ruin of abundance supplies become the enemy, oil’s under more pressure than ever to deliver profits now—because confidence in the future has been lost. Exxon-Mobil, Shell, Chevron and BP each successfully posted record profits in 2021, and this can continue.

The end of oil is near. The momentum is already too strong. Renewables are taking over. But the orchestra can keep playing as the ship goes down—in an era where there is no future industry growth to capture, scarcity is the name of the game. If oil companies keep supply tight, they’ll keep prices high and capture consistent profits even as they *add* to the incentives of renewables.

This appears to be the dominant strategy. The alternative would be to keep prices low to slow down the switch, but considering the driving force behind the transition is the prevention of the destruction of the planet, rather than the search for a more cost effective source of energy, the profit-focused approach appears the most intuitive.

Astonishingly, this means that the oil industry is ceding the market. They’ve lost. They’re shepherding in renewables, but they’re not going down without a fight. Moving to a carbon-less world will take time and the oil industry can shrink faster than renewables can grow. Therefore—short of a fundamental strategy shift by one of the world’s largest industries—the era of high fuel prices is here to stay. For those unable or unwilling to transition early, the weight will cost them. For those who held onto ownership in the sector, they’re starting to experience one last great rally. Because the oil industry’s party at the end of the world just started.

I dunno! it’s a neat video! It does make me want to increase oil regulation by just staggering amounts though. They’ve already lost the fight, so who cares? Nationalize the oil supply to ensure an orderly transition.