Inland tanker Hillegersberg sails on the Rhine River past Mainz, Germany on July 14 2022. Picture: Alex Kraus/Bloomberg
Internal deliberations such as these have happened before without resulting in any deals, largely because the potential targets have been so expensive. But the surge in oil majors’ profits in the last six months could mean a major takeover is now within reach, the people said, asking not to be named because the information is private.
That means the cash will continue to roll in. Analysts expect Shell to post even higher second-quarter profits than the record $9.13bn it earned in the first three months of the year. TotalEnergies and BP are also expected to benefit from high refining margins as well as oil and gas prices. At the height of the coronavirus pandemic, the market capitalization of Iberdrola, a Spanish utility with a heavy focus on renewable energy, overtook BP and TotalEnergies. This year, the petroleum giants are back on top after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine drove a stunning rally in oil and gas prices. Meanwhile, actions by central banks to counter that inflationary surge are making life harder for renewables developers.
Fossil industry is cannibalising the green industry and only to be nationalised once oil profits dry up after the war in Ukraine. That’s capitalism at its worst