A study of oil and gascompanies and theirstrategies regarding energy transition

Abstract

The following master thesis explored energy transition and its impact on oil and gas companies’ strategies and activities. Existing literature, in the light of the internalisation theory, has investigated the evolutions of firm-specific advantages (FSAs) and country-specific advantages (CSAs) regarding energy transition and the oil and gas industry. However, little research has focused on the changes of these advantages by looking at oil and gas companies in the energy transition and how it affects their businesses and makes them shift their strategies or recombine their activities. Hence, by using a framework based on the existing literature, this paper analysed, in a two-case study on oil and gas companies Equinor and TotalEnergies, how these firms have changed over time and which factors are keys in their strategies’ evolution. The data analysis highlighted the five main factors influencing the ways oil and gas companies are shifting their strategies and activities toward energy transition by recombining in novel ways: reputational, structural, expertise, capital, and incentives factors. While this study showed us that Equinor and TotalEnergies have aligned in their evolutions and strategies for energy transition thanks to similar FSAs and CSAs, it also showed that some different FSAs and CSAs are highly influencing the direction that they are taken to deal with climate change and energy transition. This paper also emphasises the importance of the intertwinement of FSAs and CSAs, showing that they are not independently affecting companies’ strategies. Keywords: oil and gas, energy transition, internalisation theory, FSAs, CSAs