Tristan R. Brown: 14 August 2017
Summary
- This summer has seen the governments of several of the world’s major economies propose to eliminate internal combustion engine vehicles over the next 10-30 years.
- At the same time, Royal Dutch Shell announced several major clean energy investments over the summer in anticipation of a drop-off in petroleum demand.
- This article looks at how Shell’s clean energy investments fit into its energy profile forecasts compared to its peers.
This summer has been filled with the sort of headlines that can give strategic planners in the petroleum & gas sector heartburn. One-upping Germany’s earlier non-binding pledge to ban new internal combustion engine [ICE] vehicles by 2030, the government of France’s new centrist president Emmanuel Macron announced in early July that the country will end sales of ICE vehicles by 2040. This move, which is part of that country’s efforts to comply with its greenhouse gas emission reduction target under 2015’s Paris Climate Agreement, would eliminate gasoline- and diesel-only engines and is aimed at reducing the country’s air pollution as it is at mitigating climate change. Britain intends to do the same by 2050. Even China and India, which have long been posited as important future sources of petroleum demand, are moving to electrify their vehicle fleets: China recently announced that it wants 25% of the country’s vehicles to be “alternative fuel” by 2025, while India is drafting plans to electrify all of its vehicles by 2030.