When Rystad Energy analysts last November told Bloomberg that Big Oil investors were in for a windfall of dividends and share buybacks as the companies shifted into renewables, they couldn’t have known that just four moths later oil prices would dive to lows unseen for years and that the prospects of an improvement will be bleak. But this is where we are now: with Saudi Arabia effectively declaring a price war on Russia—and U.S. shale by extension—Brent crude is trading at below $40 and WTI is getting increasingly closer to $30. Will shareholders say, “That’s all right, you can suspend dividends?” Not a chance. The latest oil price crash, just four years after the last one that mobilized OPEC into acting together with other producers, has starkly highlighted an already existing problem. Big Oil does not have the cash to cover all its ambitious dividend and stock buyback plans. […]