about the terrific time he had on a visit to the New York stock exchange. The welcome was “exemplary”, he enthused, and the locals even flew the Shell flag next to their own. “They said we continue to value a company that provides us the energy we desperately need,” he continued, adding that he wouldn’t rule out moving Shell’s stock market listing to the US in time, an inflammatory suggestion given the general angst over the state of the London market.
This is starting to sound like a campaign to create an air of inevitability around a switch to the US. Or, if it isn’t that, Shell’s top operatives seem transfixed by the notion that a relisting will cure all their troubles. It’s their job to fret about the share price, but it’s hard to overstate how detrimental this is for the. The biggest company on the market is openly threatening to leave. That is a different order of seriousness than seeing Flutter, Ferguson and CRH flee to the US.
The real explanation, perhaps, is that the stock market is deeply sceptical about the pace of energy transition and the returns on capital in renewables. Thus, the most oily firms, such the two US titans, are prized over those with a sideline in renewables, such as Shell, which in turn is valued more highly than those with a slightly greener hue, such as BP.