Repsol, the international oil company headquartered in Spain, announced at 18.00 on 2nd December that it would target zero net emissions from its operations and from the burning of its fuels by 2050. It was the first large oil company to do this.

How did the stock market react? I looked at its share performance in the following four days and compared it to the nine other oil and gas companies that it measures itself against. (See https://www.repsol.com/en/shareholders-and-investors/repsol-on-the-stock-exchange/share-price/index.cshtml)

In the four days after the announcement, Repsol’s share price gained 3.5%. The best other performance was a rise of 2.2% for Italy’s ENI. The average for all the other nine companies was a rise of 0.3%. BP and Shell lost more than 1% each.

This seems to me to be an extremely powerful signal that investors are happy with Repsol’s new stance. And since all quoted companies seek to improve their share price, we are now entitled to ask why the rest of the oil majors do not follow Repsol’s new strategy.