Oil isn't going anywhere in the short term, but I'm not so convinced that longer term the economics of the industry might not be completely different.
Fuel for cars and trucks account for between 50-60% of global oil consumption and as such widespread electrification of motor vehicles could have a profound impact on global oil demand. In that sense, renewables could eventually become a meaningful substitute for oil in this use segment if renewables are a meaningful contributor to grid power (or more likely, nat gas will take up the additional capacity). As a hypothetical, if half of all cars and trucks on the road were suddenly electric, that would conceptually decrease oil demand by 26M barrels.
That is obviously an extreme hyperbole, but that is massive.
Policy makers in Europe are giving serious consideration to banning the sale of internal combustion engines by 2025, by 2030, etc etc. The probability is that it won't happen, but it's possible. VW is making a huge push into the EV space along with other manufacturers.
Sometimes I think that in 50 years as demand for oil continues to shrink, and global demand is less than 50M b/d, we'll look back on this period of time and think "wow, I can't believe we didn't see this coming. It was so obvious." Other times I think that this is all just another flare-up of greenwashing, and that in 50 years we'll look at it as such, and the global economy continues to have increasing thirst for oil.
As always, it's impossible to predict. I try to think about it in probabilities and possibilities.
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