Economic Watch: Western oil giants look at new strategy amid global energy transition

　　by Nie Shangyou

　　HOUSTON, March 19 (Xinhua) -- At the top-level global energy forum CERAWeek that kicked off here on Monday, oil giants across the Atlantic are fine-tuning their investment strategies in view of multiple challenges arising from geopolitical tensions, climate change and rapid growth of renewable energy.

　　Investment opportunities created by favorable government policies, such as the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) passed by the Biden administration, have also led to directional change in capital investment, local analysts said.

　　TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne said at the forum that the French oil major previously regarded the United States as an unfavorable investment location but is now investing heavily in gas, Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and power projects in Texas.

　　"We appointed a new country chair to coordinate TotalEnergies' growing investment in the United States," he said.

　　TotalEnergies, with a significant amount of investment in Russia, is also trying to diversify into other regions, including Brazil and Suriname in South America and Namibia in Africa, the top executive said.

　　ExxonMobil CEO Darren Woods said on Monday that the U.S. oil giant has decided to invest in a major way in carbon capture and sequestration as the view on climate change is "evolving."

　　Historically, ExxonMobil and other oil companies used CO2 capture technology for enhanced oil recovery. This time around, its CCUS (carbon capture, utilization and storage) project along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico is for CO2 capture and sequestration including those from third parties, he noted.

　　Woods admitted that IRA financial incentives are enabling CCUS projects to be economically viable, but said: "I am not a big fan of government subsidies" as they tend not to be sustainable in the long run.

　　ExxonMobil has also started to look into extracting lithium from brine, as its technical team has found a potentially economically viable level of lithium in the produced water in its operations, Woods said. He also claimed that ExxonMobil's operations in the Permian Basin are "well on its way to achieving net-zero emissions by 2030."

　　Shell CEO Wael Sawan said the British energy giant is trying to further play its role in gas and global LNG, as Europe is reducing its dependence on Russian pipeline gas.

　　Shell is trying to "stabilize oil production" and streamlining its investment in renewable energy, Sawan added, stressing the firm's strength in energy integration as an efficient producer of renewable energy.

　　CERAWeek, known as the Super Bowl in the global energy industry, draws over 9,000 government, industry and academic leaders from more than 80 countries and regions this year, according to the organizer S&P Global. It will run till Friday. ■