Sultan al-Jaber is in the middle of an M&A splurge. The chief executive of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) is readying $40 billion of European deals in the field of gas-guzzling petrochemicals, less than two months after overseeing a global deal to transition away from fossil fuels as head of the COP28 climate negotiations in Dubai.The former offers a promising hedge against the successful delivery of the latter.
One of the key uncertainties surrounding both private oil majors like Exxon Mobil (XOM.N), opens new tab and Shell (SHEL.L), opens new tab, and national oil companies like Saudi Aramco (2222.SE), opens new tab and ADNOC, is what their businesses are going to look like in 2050. To keep global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial times, daily oil demand needs to fall from 100 million barrels to around 25 million barrels by mid-century, the International Energy Agency reckons. If anything like that transpires, lots of oil companies are going to need a Plan B.
Read more