Questões

TEXT III

How energy companies can adjust their business models to a period of recovery

The character of Chuck Noland, played by Tom Hanks, says near the end of the film Cast Away, “...because tomorrow the sun will rise. Who knows what the tide could bring?” He makes this observation after having survived on a desert island for four years before being rescued and returned to civilization. If you’re a top executive in an oil and gas company, more than likely you’re feeling the same way right about now — optimistic but extremely cautious.

Much of the oil and gas industry has survived an especially tough few years with weak demand and low prices. It has been difficult to make strategic decisions and plan for the future. Only now is the sector beginning to emerge from its upheaval. If there is hope on the horizon, we must, like Noland in Cast Away, remain mindful of the risk. […]

So if you are an oil and gas executive peering out over 2017 and beyond, you will face structural and cultural issues internally; many companies do not have the talent, organizational framework, systems, processes, or attitudes to be sufficiently flexible and innovative in an evolving and uncertain marketplace. You should be prepared to pursue new drilling and extraction technologies and to increase your research into sustainability and clean energy. To start planning for the future, oil and gas leaders in all segments might consider some fundamental questions: Do I have the right business models in place? How can my company develop new capabilities and in what areas? How should asset portfolios evolve? What type of technology plays should I invest in?

As companies address these challenges, we see a number of business models and strategic responses emerging between now and 2020.

(From https://www.strategyand.pwc.com/trend/2017-oil-and-gas-trends. Accessed July 19th, 2017)

TEXT I

Breaking the habit: From oiloholics to e-totallers

What changes in driving habits and improved batteries might do to oil demand

It has been a bad couple of years for those hoping for the death of driving. In America, where cars are an important part of the national psyche, a decade ago people had suddenly started to drive less, which had not happened since the oil shocks of the 1970s. Academics started to talk excitedly about “peak driving”, offering explanations such as urbanisation, ageing baby-boomers, car-shy millennials, ride-sharing apps such as Uber and even the distraction of Facebook.

Yet the causes may have been more prosaic: a combination of higher petrol prices and lower incomes in the wake of the 2008-09 financial crisis. Since the drop in oil prices in 2014, and a recovery in employment, the number of vehicle-miles travelled has rebounded, and sales of trucks and SUVs, which are less fuel-efficient than cars, have hit record highs.

This sensitivity to prices and incomes is important for global oil demand. More than half the world’s oil is used for transport, and of that, 46% goes into passenger cars. But the response to lower prices has been partially offset by dramatic improvements in fuel efficiency in America and elsewhere, thanks to standards like America’s Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE), the EU’s rules on CO₂ emissions and those in place in China since 2012.

The IEA says that such measures cut oil consumption in 2015 by a whopping 2.3m b/d. This is particularly impressive because interest in fuel efficiency usually wanes when prices are low. If best practice were applied to all the world’s vehicles, the savings would be 4.3m b/d, roughly equivalent to the crude output of Canada. This helps explain why some forecasters think demand for petrol may peak within the next 10-15 years even if the world’s vehicle fleet keeps growing.

Occo Roelofsen of McKinsey, a consultancy, goes further. He reckons that thanks to the decline in the use of oil in light vehicles, total consumption of liquid fuels will begin to fall within a decade, and that in the next few decades driving will be shaken up by electric vehicles (EVs), self-driving cars and car-sharing. […]

(Dated Nov 24th, 2016. From https://www.economist.com/news/specialreport/21710635-what-changes-driving-habits-and-improved-batteries-might-dooil-demand-coming. Accessed July 18th, 2017)