Abstract
Investment in renewable energy resources and technologies from the oil and gas sector has increased consistently in the past two decades, turning the industry into one of the primary sources of capital for these newer energy sources, despite the potential that renewables possess to replace oil and gas since 1859. Renewables can be considered complementary, or competitors to oil and gas resources. Market forces respond differently to investments in renewables and the dynamics that these transfers of capital trigger in the general environment. For example, in Southern California and Oman, renewables are used to improve and decarbonize various oil and gas production processes. Meanwhile, alternative energy sources have displaced significant market oil and gas shares in other parts of the world, significantly altering supply and demand dynamics. Part strategy, part environmental commitment, the oil and gas sector has invested increasingly more capital in renewables in the past few decades. Despite the seemingly competing nature of its relationship with alternative energy sources, markets have adapted to work under a more collaborative approach, at least in the medium term.
The literature has covered the advent of renewables in detail, but it has focused less on the response from the oil and gas markets after the changes brought about by this arrival. We bridge that gap while exploring the advantages and challenges of maintaining a complementary relationship and how a strong investment in renewables can be the way forward for the oil and gas sector. This paper explores the dynamics between renewable energies and the oil and gas industry, both as complementary sources also as competing resources, that exacerbate or retreat depending on factors like geography, regulations, or market forces.