Big Oil hit by record losses from pandemic and clean fuel

Big Oil hit by record losses from pandemic and clean fuel

The pandemic's devastating impact on Big Oil was illustrated on Tuesday when some of the world's biggest energy groups reported record annual losses, marking a brutal 12 months for an industry under mounting pressure to speed up a transition to cleaner fuels.

ExxonMobil, the US's biggest oil producer, racked up losses of more than $20bn last year “” the first annual loss in its history. It capped a year of crisis for the company in which it was also stripped of its place in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and shed more than 40 per cent of its market value.

"The past year presented the most challenging market conditions ExxonMobil has ever experienced,“ said Darren Woods, chief executive.

Across the Atlantic, UK energy group BP announced its first annual loss since the Deepwater Horizon disaster more than a decade ago after fourth-quarter profits plunged 96 per cent.

It was a "tough quarter at the end of a tough year“, said Bernard Looney, chief executive. BP's full-year losses reached $5.7bn, down from a $10bn profit in 2019.

Crude markets crashed in March last year as a Saudi-Russia oil-supply war erupted just as governments imposed lockdowns and travel bans to stop the spread of coronavirus, crippling global