Letter from London: A tale of two sectors

Africa’s upstream is heavily populated by companies headquartered in London, where an increasingly positive environment for independents contrasts with the public pressure on the majors

Climate change protesters recently targeted an African oil and gas conference in London, with one of the participating groups—Extinction Rebellion—specifically citing Shell and TotalEnergies in its complaints and issuing a press release condemning the East African Crude Oil Pipeline, which the French major is developing alongside China’s Cnooc as part of the Lake Albert project. Shell and BP have long been bogeymen for British environmental groups, perhaps partially out of name recognition value, if nothing else. And now the UK popular press—itself often at odds with environmental protesters—is also keen to blame the current inflationary crisis and high petrol-pump prices on the oil majors.