Oil investors look for one last super-cycle

As the pandemic starts to ease, fund managers focused on the oil and gas sector predict a price recovery but still value the protection of strong balance sheets

Amid the doom and gloom of lower prices and the energy transition, investment funds that focus entirely on oil and gas are looking beyond what may be a negative overreaction in stock prices. While the sector has certainly undergone a difficult period, severely lower stock prices may offer opportunities.  Working against them, the stock ‘universe’ for funds that focus on oil and gas has contracted in recent years. This is reflected in the total assets managed by global energy  sector equity funds—those that invest in coal exploration, oil and gas, pipelines, natural gas services and refineries—which have almost halved since 2017, to $64.4bn, according to research platform Morningstar Direct’s