Your traditional energy ETFs are under pressure

Article Excerpt

Oil producers and providers of services to the oil industry, are increasingly under pressure to reduce carbon emissions. Many of the integrated oil producers have already established extensive renewable energy operations that will grow and replace some of their oil production over time. Overall, oil and gas companies spent 1.3% of their 2018 budgets on initiatives such as wind and solar power, battery storage or carbon capture. Total, Shell, and Eni rank highest for leading the low-carbon transition while China’s CNOOC, Russia’s Rosneft and U.S.’s Marathon Oil lag further behind. Royal Dutch Shell plans to spend between $2 billion and $3 billion every year on renewable energy between 2021 to 2025. This is still well below its annual spending on the development of conventional energy sources such as oil and gas. The integrated oil majors may eventually have little choice but to embrace a transition to a lower-carbon environment. However, as we discuss in the Supplement, this will take decades while oil and gas will…