Euro majors alongside their US counterparts see 2021 as a year of constrained spending as they pay down debt (MEES, 12 February). But moving forward their spending priorities are markedly different.

When revenues allow it, the US firms’ key investment priorities remain in upstream oil and gas, and in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico in particular (MEES, 5 February). But for BP, Total and Shell their upstream oil and gas assets are increasingly a means to an end, and that end is positioning themselves for the energy transition. (CONTINUED - 1328 WORDS)