Outlook 2022: Independents tap into the transition

Large-cap companies may be keen to decarbonise their portfolios, but shedding non-core assets presents a golden opportunity for smaller upstream E&Ps

Societal pressure is leading oil majors to pivot their strategies towards renewables and net-zero targets, creating a brief window of opportunity for independents to snap up non-core assets, build scale and deliver value to shareholders. Assets changing hands between majors and smaller independents is certainly not new. A similar transition took place in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea in recent memory. A review of the operating landscape of the North Sea today would show a very different list of operators from the 1990s and 2000s. The drivers of that particular transition were different in terms of majors high-grading and rationalising their portfolios, but the principles were largely