Oil firms ready to pick up the infrastructure divestment pace

Pipelines, storage facilities and processing plants could replace non-advantaged production as prime candidates

Oil and gas producing firms create the most value by exploring for, developing and producing hydrocarbons. Internal rates of return (IRRs) far in excess of 20pc are the norm for successful upstream ­projects. Indeed, one of the challenges of the pivot to renewables and the lower-carbon future has been that these sort of investments do not generate anywhere near the same sort of returns—leading firms such as BP, Total and Norway’s Equinor to pioneer models where their spend is almost seed money to attract other investors and leverage their initial outlay to a higher IRR. So, it is not surprising that infrastructure assets in the portfolios of producers, both IOCs and NOCs, are now coming unde