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S&P Global Ratings warned this week it could very soon downgrade the ratings on some of the world’s biggest oil firms, citing increased risks coming from the energy transition, price volatility, and weaker profitability. S&P Global Ratings placed the ratings on nine oil and gas majors and their subsidiaries on CreditWatch with negative implications, expecting to resolve the CreditWatch placements within a few weeks. The companies under CreditWatch negative include Exxon, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Shell, Total, Canadian Natural Resources, and China Petroleum & Chemical Corp. S&P also revised its outlooks on BP and Suncor Energy to ‘negative’ from ‘stable’. The credit rating agency has revised its industry risk assessment to ‘moderately high risk’ from ‘intermediate risk’, due to the challenges the energy transition poses to those companies, the pressure on the firms’ return on capital, and the volatility in oil and gas prices. “We see these factors as more material for ratings now than they were previously,” S&P Global Ratings said in its note. The higher risk for the industry is not expected to result, in most cases, in a more than a one-notch downgrade. “This said, we cannot exclude a combination of the industry risk revision and other material […]
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