Oil Search under pressure from green investors to change name
Oil Search is facing pressure to change its name, with its fossil fuel moniker seen out of step with a global push on climate change.
Oil Search is facing pressure from investors to change its name, with its fossil fuel moniker seen out of step with a global push to accelerate efforts on climate change.
The Sydney-based company was created nearly a century ago to explore for oil and gas in Papua New Guinea. It’s been exporting gas from the nation’s giant PNG LNG export plant since 2014 and is developing a big oil project in Alaska’s North Slope.
Even so, pressure is growing for energy companies like Oil Search to promote their green credentials and consider whether their branding fits with a corporate rush to cut carbon exposure and embrace net zero emission targets.
Institutional shareholders told The Australian the future of Oil Search’s name had been raised in investor briefings as part of broader discussions over environmental, social and governance issues. Oil Search declined to comment.
If the 92-year-old oil and gas producer does consider a name change, it can look to several high profile international rebrands among its peers.
The most recent in February was French oil giant Total’s rebrand to TotalEnergies, a hat tip to its growing renewable energy ambitions.
Before that was Norway’s Statoil — well known in Australia for a now aborted plan to drill for oil in the Great Australian Bight — which became Equinor as part of a shift from a focused oil and gas company to a broader energy operator.
And two decades ago BP ditched its British Petroleum name for Beyond Petroleum, reflecting at the time its greater reliance on gas rather than oil.
The implications of the global name shift for Australian producers Oil Search, Woodside Petroleum and Santos — short for South Australia Northern Territory Oil Search — has been pondered by Credit Suisse analyst Saul Kavonic.
“What’s in a green name?,” Mr Kavonic wrote in a note to clients in February.
“How about Greenside, South Australia Northern Territory Energy Search (Santes) and Renewable Search. Beach Energy sounds green enough as it is we suppose.”
Oil Search is among oil and gas producers in the sights of the powerful Climate Action 100+ initiative which controls $US54 trillion in global funds and includes local investors AustralianSuper, AMP Capital, Cbus, IFM Investors, QSuper and BT Financial as members.
It targeted Australia’s biggest carbon polluters in September over their move to net zero emissions amid efforts to benchmark companies over their commitment to tackle climate change.
Oil Search was only recently added to the green group’s focus list and will be assessed in Climate Action’s next review round.
The company is also among Australian producers that will hand investors a non-binding advisory vote on its climate change report at its annual general meeting on April 30.
Hedge fund billionaire and climate activist Chris Hohn, founder of the $US30bn The Children’s Investment Fund Management, is pressuring companies to properly divulge their carbon exposure and give shareholders a vote on their climate plans through his Say On Climate pledge.
Oil Search was one of the first ASX companies to align reporting on the Taskforce on Climate Related Financial Disclosures or TCFD and has set a target of net zero emissions by 2050.
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