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May I translate your editorial “Big Oil should play its part in the energy transition” (FT View, April 27) into simple English?
You advocate putting the fox in charge of the hen house. I did get that right, didn’t I?
You write that the companies that are reaping billions in profits by raising prices on, and limiting the production of, an inelastic product in wartime should want to encourage the faster introduction of a replacement product that will eventually put them out of their lucrative business. Is that it?
You say they should hasten the demise of a product with high margins in order to invest in a product with low margins, a product for which they bring little to the table except money (which is available from other sources).
If I were an oil company executive, I sure would not follow your advice. I’d limit my investments to short-term oil projects, charge high prices and get the money into the hands of shareholders as quickly as possible, to get it out of reach of the lawyers who will troll through enough corporate emails to make the case that oil companies have misrepresented financial risks and damaged the environmental and economic wellbeing of numerous sea-level states.
Let the oil company shareholders invest the cash they receive in the new energy technologies if they want, and let the oil companies fade away.
Leonard Hyman
Author: ‘America’s Electric Utilities: Past, Present and Future’
Sleepy Hollow, NY, US
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