Big Oil fends off shareholder climate votes amid energy crunch

Big Oil fends off shareholder climate votes amid energy crunch

Two things to start:

Crude prices jumped again yesterday, with both Brent and US oil topping $114 a barrel. Yet fears of a looming economic contraction are also sharpening.

Lloyd Blankfein, former head of Goldman Sachs, said over the weekend there was a “very, very high risk” that the US was headed into a recession. In China, president Xi Jinping’s zero-Covid policy, which has put hundreds of millions of people under full or partial lockdown, is posing “the most significant challenge to its growth prospects” in years, my colleagues in Hong Kong report. Europe’s growth is also in doubt as soaring energy prices fuel inflation.

Betting on higher oil prices has rarely been a winner as economies slow. But the potential for steeper losses of Russian crude supply, and extremely tight fuel markets, are keeping prices high for now. The big question for oil markets now is if that will last in the face of a growing recession threat.

On to today’s newsletter — Big Oil is prevailing in the highest-profile shareholder climate votes, in a big turnround from last year. BP is joining the rush in Texas to develop new projects that would stuff carbon back into the ground. And in Data Drill,