If big oil is not willing to invest even in countries that don't have a strict ESG policy, then they are implicitly saying their industry is a dying one and all their complaints about ESG is BS. I'm not sure I understand your argument? ESG policy is/will have an impact on the overall demand/market/price for oil, even if they invest in other countries that don't have ESG policy. While the oil companies may realize that eventually there will be superior forms of energy, their point is that the free market is not what is currently determining this, and that these policies are having a big impact on their investment decisions and the resulting market. This administration has been very blunt about their intent to handicap this industry and incentivize alternatives. Do you think that's false, and do you blame them for pointing that out? I guess I don't see the BS here.
That's like saying if policies were put in place here in the US to discourage private car ownership and incentivize mass transit, that Hyundai (for example) would be full of BS saying those policies were keeping them from investing in new factories outside the US. This is simply an acknowledgement of world demand, and ROI impact from those policies. They would have a huge overcapacity, and would leg it out as long as their existing factories could continue to meet the decreased world demand and it made economic sense.
And just as with ESG, who's to say that if the US decided the world would be better off without cars (an extreme ESG argument that could be made, btw, regardless of fuel source), that other countries wouldn't eventually follow suit? Yes, it's an implicit admission that their industry would be dying, but the ESG policies played a determining factor in that. They would be foolish not to consider and point this out as an impact, and I can't fault them for that.
I imagine a lot of this is waiting for the clouds to clear. They're reluctant to make investments until they have a clearer picture of what the future holds for them. Right now, there's a lot of dark skies and threatening storms they see (ESG policies being among them), so they're legging it out until there's a clear investment case for them. We've been through these cycles before, even if for different reasons. Right now, EVs are being pushed heavily, but they're not totally ESG-friendly either, but no one's focused on that. There's still a lot to shake out in the intermediate/long term. |
