Oil giants desperately need new discoveries

According to today's oil prices on May 11, China Petrochemical News reported that 2020 is a watershed in the fossil fuel industry.

Even the big oil companies seem to have to accept their own destiny.

Ironically, however, the turn of fate may mean that, instead of burying huge oil and gas reserves underground, the world is likely to deplete these commodities in our lifetime.

Rystad Energy, a Norwegian-based energy consulting company, warned that in addition to many undiscovered oil resources, the proven reserves of large oil companies may be exhausted in less than 15 years, unless large oil companies can quickly discover more.

In 2020, the proven reserves of large oil companies have decreased by 13 billion barrels of oil equivalent, which is equivalent to 15% of their underground inventory levels.

The main reason is the rapid decline in investment in exploration.

Global oil and gas companies cut capital expenditures by a staggering 34% in 2020 in response to shrinking demand and investor concerns about the industry’s continued low returns.

After the Canadian oil sands and the U.

　　At the same time, Shell’s proven reserves fell 20% last year to 9 billion barrels; Chevron lost 2 billion barrels due to impairment expenditures, while BP lost 1 billion barrels of oil equivalent.

　　Climate action has also had a negative impact.

　　US policy changes and fanatical climate activism are likely to make it difficult for large oil companies to return to the era of passionate drilling.

　　In April, the US Online Virtual Climate Summit announced an ambitious 10-year climate plan, which plans to reduce US greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52% by 2030.

　　The United States proposes to impose a carbon tax, but this policy has not been determined.

　　Today, the company is launching climate action goals and hopes that the companies he invests in will disclose plans to achieve a net-zero economy.

　　In addition, climate activists including the Sierra Club have been calling and emailing BlackRock and Vanguard, urging them to vote against ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods (Darren Woods).

　　The business of oil and gas companies is abnormal.

　　In April, at the CERAWeek Energy Conference held by IHS Markit, large oil companies expressed that they did not want to focus too much on reducing oil and natural gas production, but wanted to reduce the impact of carbon emissions and greenhouse gas emissions.
Darren Woods and Vicky Hollub of Occidental Petroleum believe that reducing the carbon emissions of fossil fuels, rather than actually using fossil fuels, is the best way to deal with climate change.

　　Interestingly, both CEOs emphasized that the world still needs oil and gas, and the government needs to focus on slowing global warming, using technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), rather than attacking fossil fuels.
However, even the biggest hardliner ExxonMobil has clearly changed the tone of opinion a few years ago.

　　During the company's 2021 Investor Day, Darren Woods outlined the company's energy transition strategy, including cutting oil and gas production growth and increasing cash flow to support growing dividends.
Exxon Mobil revealed that it plans to maintain production at the level of 3.
7 million barrels per day from 2020 to 2025, a 26% decrease from the expected output of 5 million barrels per day in 2025 announced a year ago.

　　All in all, at present, despite the rebound in oil prices, it is still difficult for large oil companies to continue business as usual.

　　Wang Jiajing excerpted and translated from today's oil prices

　　The original text is as follows:

　　Big Oil Is In Desperate Need Of New Discoveries

　　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.
"

　　Yet, an ironic twist of fate might mean that rather than huge oil and gas reserves remaining buried deep in the ground, the world could very well run out those commodities in our lifetimes.

　　Norway-based energy consultancy Rystad Energy has warned that Big Oil could see its proven reserves run out in less than 15 years, thanks to produced volumes not being fully replaced with new discoveries.

　　According to Rystad, proven oil and gas reserves by the so-called Big Oil companies, namely ExxonMobil (NYSE:XOM), BP Plc.
, Shell, Chevron (NYSE:CVX), Total (NYSE:TOT), and Eni SpA are falling, as produced volumes are not being fully replaced with new discoveries.

　　Massive impairment charges saw Big Oil's proven reserves drop by 13 billion boe, good for ~15% of its stock levels in the ground, last year.
Rystad now says that the remaining reserves are set to run out in less than 15 years, unless Big Oil makes more commercial discoveries quickly.

　　The main culprit: Rapidly shrinking exploration investments.

　　Global oil and gas companies cut their capex by a staggering 34% in 2020 in response to shrinking demand and investors growing wary of persistently poor returns by the sector.

　　The trend shows no signs of moderating: First quarter discoveries totaled 1.
2 billion boe, the lowest in 7 years with successful wildcats only yielding modest-sized finds as per Rystad.

　　ExxonMobil, whose proven reserves shrank by 7 billion boe in 2020, or 30%, from 2019 levels, was worst hit after major reductions in Canadian oil sands and US shale gas properties.

　　Shell, meanwhile, saw its proven reserves fall by 20% to 9 billion boe last year; Chevron lost 2 billion boe of proven reserves due to impairment charges while BP lost 1 boe.
Only Total and Eni have avoided reductions in proven reserves over the past decade.

　　Climate activism

　　Yet, policy changes by Biden's administration, as well as fever-pitch climate activism, are likely to make it really hard for Big Oil to go back to its trigger-happy drilling days.

　　In his first three months in office, Joe Biden has rejoined the Paris climate agreement, scuppered a controversial oil pipeline, suspended fossil fuel leases on public land, proposed unprecedented investment in clean energy, and started to reverse many of his predecessor's regulatory rollbacks.

　　In a virtual climate summit with 41 world leaders last month, President Joe Biden unveiled an ambitious 10-year Climate Plan that has proposed cutting US greenhouse gas emissions by 50-52% by 2030.
That represents a near-doubling of the US commitment of a 26-28% cut under the Obama administration following the Paris Agreement of 2015.

　　Biden had even proposed a carbon tax, though it was conspicuously absent in his latest climate policy.

　　Meanwhile, the world's biggest asset manager BlackRock, has been doubling down on oil and gas divestitures.

　　Back in 2019, BlackRock declared its intention to increase its ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance) investments more than tenfold from $90 billion to a trillion dollars in the space of a decade.

　　But now the firm is pushing out the goalposts on climate action and wants companies that he invests in to disclose how they plan to achieve a net-zero economy, which he has defined as eliminating net greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
BlackRock plans to put oil and gas companies under the clamps by creating a "temperature alignment metric" for both its public equity and bond funds with explicit temperature alignment goals, including products aligned to a net-zero pathway.

　　Climate activists, including the Sierra Club, have been bombarding BlackRock and Vanguard with calls and emails urging them to vote against Exxon Mobil's CEO Darren Woods, saying Exxon's board "needs an overhaul" to better manage climate risks and guide the company to a low carbon future.

　　Business unusual

　　During last month's CERAWeek by IHS Markit energy conference, it became abundantly clear that Big Oil wants to focus not so much on curtailing oil and gas production but rather on mitigating the impact of its carbon and greenhouse gas emissions.

　　According to Exxon Mobil CEO Darren Woods and Occidental Petroleum's (NYSE:OXY) Vicky Hollub, reducing carbon emissions from fossil fuels and not the actual use of fossil fuels, offers the best way to combat climate change.

　　Interestingly, both CEOs have stressed that the world still needs oil and gas, and governments need to focus on mitigating global warming using technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS) instead of attacking fossil fuels.

　　Nevertheless, even the biggest hardliner of them all, Exxon Mobil, has markedly changed its tune from just a few years back.

　　During the company's 2021 Investor Day, CEO Darren Woods outlined the company's energy transition strategy, including plans to trim production growth and boost cash flows in a bid to support a growing dividend.
Exxon revealed that it plans to hold production flat from 2020 levels through 2025 at 3.
7M boe/day, good for a 26% cut from the 5M boe/day estimate for 2025 it released just a year ago.

　　In other words, it's going to be really hard for Big Oil to continue with business as usual despite an oil price recovery.