While oil companies continue to extract petroleum from the ground, taking a step back, the health of the carbon extraction industry is not particularly strong. Since 2021, the 5 largest independent oil majors (Exxon, Chevron, Shell, BP and Total) have been in the habit of sending more money back to shareholders than they are developing new business. This is a sign that the corporate brass is less interested in the long-term future of the firm than in extracting value from the present. Even more interesting is the oil majors’ reserves, which in many cases are depleting to less than 10 years: BP has 7.2 years of reserves left, while Chevron has 8.03 and Shell has 9.27 years. Exxon Mobil (12.4 years) and Total (12.6 years) are the only firms that have more than a decade’s worth of juice in the ground, which implies that the business is a sunset industry.
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