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May 26, 2021: A Day That May Live In Infamy For Big Oil
David Blackmon: Senior Contributor: Energy:
Wednesday was a quite an epic day for a trio of the world’s largest oil and gas corporations, and not in a positive way for their management teams. The C-suites at both ExxonMobil XOM -0.6% and Chevron CVX -1% suffered defeats at the hands of activist shareholders, while Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell was handed a major adverse decision from the Dutch courts. It’s hard to know which event will have the biggest impact on the respective companies – and potentially the industry as a whole – in the long-term, but in the short-term each presented a shock to the oil and gas system.
The adverse event of the day with the most obvious potential bite may well be the Dutch court’s decision ordering Shell to dramatically expand its plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions. Already one of the more aggressive major oil companies in this arena, Shell had earlier this year adopted targeted cuts of at least 6% by 2023, 20% by 2030, 45% by 2035 and by 100% by 2050 from its 2016 levels. But, as reported by Reuters, the court found that Shell’s plan was “not concrete and is full of conditions…that’s not enough.”