«Problems of economics and management of oil and gas complex»

Electricity in Shell company strategy: economic aspects

UDC: 339.92
DOI: 10.33285/1999-6942-2023-2(218)-70-77

Authors:

¹ Primakov National Research Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences, Moscow, Russia

Keywords: Shell, electricity, wholesale and retail electricity trade, charging networks, energy storage systems

Annotation:

The article analyzes Shell's policy for the development of the electric power industry. Under the pressure of decarbonization imperatives, the company has declaratively set the goal of making electricity the fourth pillar of its business, along with oil, natural gas and chemicals. The analysis allows to conclude that, from an economic point of view, Shell is developing the electricity business very carefully, trying to reduce market risk, avoid significant irreversible investments in physical assets and achieve a fairly high profitability of projects. Shell focuses primarily on demand-side, promoting electricity as a service. The company offers a wide range of products to various categories of electricity consumers. At the same time, Shell's electricity trading business remains unprofitable, and losses increase from year to year. Shell example shows, that the question of the possibility of effective integration of the electric power business into the business model of a large vertically integrated oil and gas company remains open. The company is trying to find an answer to this question in the course of a natural experiment, unfolding in the real-time regime.

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