By Barney Smith In the event it was a very bad week for Big Oil, especially for Exxon Mobil and Chevron who faced a shareholder revolt on the same day. Exxon Mobil discovered that in spite of their corporate opposition, two nominees of activist Hedge Fund Engine No 1 were voted onto the Board because [...]

By Barney Smith Interestingly, Exxon Mobil is not the only oil major to have an AGM this week. (See Greenbarrel of 20 May) Total, the French major, also has its AGM this week, on Friday 28 May, to be precise. Total, like Shell and BP, its larger European competitors, is pledged to be carbon neutral [...]

By Barney Smith Exxon Mobil (American) is arguably the largest publicly traded Western international Oil and Gas company. It is also perhaps equally well known for being resistant to any dramatic policy movement because of a perceived change in the earth’s climate.  But some see this year’s AGM, on 26 May, as an opportunity to [...]

By Barney Smith BP’s AGM this year is on 12 May only a couple of days before the Shell AGM , so comparisons are inevitable. But they are also perhaps instructive. The Shell document (See Greenbarrel of 28 April) looks too similar to those produced by the company in recent years. But the BP Annual [...]

By Barney Smith Shell’s AGM this year is on 18 May. The” Powering Progress” document distributed to shareholders contains the following two key passages on page 19: “Achieving net-zero emissions: Tackling climate change is an urgent challenge. That is why we have set a target to become a net-zero emissions energy business by 2050, in [...]

By Julian Singer In an on-line event arranged by the Oxford Martin School on 1 March three experts explained how captured carbon could be stored underground and how much storage would be needed. Carbon capture usage and storage (CCUS) is a part of all four IPCC[1]scenarios for reaching net zero CO2 emissions in 2050, and [...]

By Barney Smith Big Oil is under unprecedented pressure. Accelerating global action on climate change is forcing powerful companies to move into new and unfamiliar energy markets. In addition, the Covid pandemic has hammered oil prices and catalysed the move towards renewable energy in many parts of the world. Greenbarrel has outlined the rather different [...]

By Barney Smith For BP, as for Shell, the objective is to gradually move to become a different sort of energy company while preserving the more immediate returns from oil and gas which will still be needed by consumers for years, if not decades, to come. But BP, unlike Shell, has so far received a [...]

By Barney Smith Last year was a tough year for all oil companies as is testified by the rash of results just issued. Shell, BP (and Exxon Mobil) have each admitted losses of around US$20 billion, caused directly, or indirectly, by Covid and the collapse of the oil price. They all know that the good [...]

By Julian Singer Which was the first European oil company to invest in renewable energy? In 2002 under John Browne, BP famously re-named itself Beyond Petroleum but abandoned this vision after his departure and following the Macondo disaster in 2010. DONG Energy (Danish Oil and Gas) sold its oil and gas business to INEOS in [...]