What does energy resilience mean for transitioning oil majors: A study of the impact of energy governance on energy resilience

Abstract

How oil majors respond to climate change mitigation in times of crisis significantly impacts the success of the ongoing low-carbon energy transition, especially amid the recent COVID-19 and Russia-Ukraine conflict turbulences. The study employs thematic content analysis using the software of MAXQDA on the disclosed information of China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC) and Equinor, representatives of national oil companies (NOCs) in state-centric and market-centric governance, ranging from 2019 to 2022, to compare energy resilience of different energy governance. It is found that NOCs in state-centric governance exhibit stronger coping capacity in crisis yet need to catch up regarding adaptive and transformative capacity compared with NOCs in market-centric governance. The research findings provide lessons for policymakers on state intervention in the petroleum industry. States can oppose short-term trends and offer stimuli in times of crisis. However, in the long run, state dominance would severely hinder the energy transition of NOCs.

Keywords

• Energy resilience
• Energy governance
• State-centric
• Market-centric
• National oil companies