ExxonMobil has said global oil demand will remain virtually unchanged by 2050 and warned that any move to curtail investment in fossil fuels would trigger a new energy price shock.
In a forecast released on Monday, the US supermajor said oil demand would stay above 100mn barrels a day over the next 25 years — a forecast that assumes an energy transition will fail to curb the world’s thirst for fossil fuels.
Exxon has long argued the world will need more of its oil to lift billions of people in the developing world out of poverty. But it faces lawsuits from environmentalists and policymakers in California, who argue Exxon deceived the public for decades about how the burning of fossil fuels was warming the planet.
This year Exxon sued activist investors who filed shareholder proposals demanding it to do more to tackle climate change.
In June the Paris-based IEA, which represents rich-world consumers, warned the world faced a “staggering” surplus of oil by the end of the decade if producers kept raising output as the world turned away from fossil fuels.