While European oil supermajors are yielding to investor pressure to set emission reduction targets and announcing investments in renewables and EV charging networks, U.S. majors ExxonMobil and Chevron are doubling down on oil production on their home turf, turning the ‘shale game’ into a ‘scale game’, as Chevron’s CEO Michael Wirth has recently said. The two biggest U.S. oil firms aim to boost significantly their respective production from the most prolific U.S. basin, the Permian, which now pumps more than 4 million bpd of crude oil. Both Exxon and Chevron hold vast acreage positions in the basin, and both have the financial resources to invest in ramping up shale production even through various oil price cycles, even at oil prices at which smaller independent drillers struggle to break even and scale back drilling and capital spending. The shorter-cycle shale production yields returns in two-three years, compared to many years […]