Majors re-evaluate their businesses post-2020

摘要

The impact of the energy transition and the Covid-driven drop in fuel demand on the majors’ investment and divestment plans will be in focus when they report their fourth-quarter earnings in early February. Benchmark Brent crude averaged around $44/bl in the fourth quarter, little changed from the previous quarter but still almost $20/bl down on the year. BP’s global refning marker margin remained at around the $6/bl it has been stuck at since the pandemic hit oil markets last spring — half of what it was in the fnal three months of 2019. Yet there should be a quarter-on-quarter rise in natural gas prices and chemicals margins for October-December 2020 — ExxonMobil expects a gas boost of as much as $600mn to its upstream proft.