The battle for the petrol station forecourt and what it means for investors

Disruptive force

As the world's energy mix begins to decarbonise, traditional energy producers face a number of challenges, writes Alex Cobbold, thematic equity analyst at Sarasin & Partners.

But while it is the anticipated pace and scale of crude demand decline which garners the most headlines, in reality the disruption to how and where we buy our transport fuel (whatever that may be) is more imminent. Is there a long-term, thematic investment opportunity here? Pre-empting, and even enabling, this evolution is critical for the world's major oil companies. For many, this has been an area of significant capital investment; our readers may be surprised to learn that the operators of some of the world's largest retail networks are oil companies. Shell, for example, has mor...