Big Oil's Secret World of Trading Fuels Profits as Climate Change Worries Rise

There's a lot in this article, but one of the key points is that in addition to their upstream and downstream competencies, the largest oil companies (excepting Exxon and Chevron) are also extremely successful at trading commodities, including oil, natural gas, and more importantly biofuels and electricity. As these companies attempt to manage the energy transition, they see trading as a way to juice the profitability of renewable projects.

> As BP shifts its investments from fossil fuels to renewable energy, its traders will help it juice the relatively low returns on those investments, Bernard Looney, who last year succeeded Dudley as CEO, said in a presentation to investors in 2020. Renewable energy projects typically generate returns of 5% to 6%, he said, but the company’s expert traders can add about 2 percentage points to that.