What does the future hold for the fossil fuel industry?

The COVID-19 pandemic represents an inevitable turn in the energy sector globally, and should be seen as a good opportunity to turn to greener energy alternatives. Demand for oil has plummeted during the coronavirus pandemic, with planes on runways, cars in driveways and people locked at home, leading to the historic event of US oil markets going negative as the price of oil briefly became lower than the cost of shipping it. For an industry that is so dependent on investment these will have serious long-term consequences as oil investment prospects will continue to be increasingly risky, posing a high risk and low return for this sector. Sustainable energy technologies such as solar on the other hand are in no way as completely dependent on investment to keep functioning. Its time for the end of fossil fuels, we should be using this as an opportunity to build renewable infrastructure; unsustainable is at the end of the day unsustainable, and has to end.

theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/01/the-fossil-fuel-industry-is-broken-will-a-cleaner-climate-be-the-result ft.com/content/a5292644-958d-4065-92e8-ace55d766654 npr.org/2020/03/20/818457109/were-barreling-toward-an-epic-glut-of-oil

Oil prices have been low before, as both supply shocks and demand shocks have threatened the industry, but oil has always bounced back as most industries rely on oil in some way and some countries are nearly entirely dependent on it. This downturn will cause damage to the oil industry as cuts to production will cause share prices to fall, workers to be laid off, and possibly bankruptcy for smaller companies, but we can already see countries like Saudi Arabia and the United States attempt to help the industry survive the COVID shock through loans and federal oil buyouts. However with oil prices so low it might actually make efforts to use the pandemic as a transition to renewable energy even more difficult, as the lowest oil prices for almost two decades will inevitably cause a demand spike after the pandemic lockdown comes to an end.

ourenergypolicy.org/a-pandemic-a-price-war-and-the-future-of-americas-oil-industry macrotrends.net/1369/crude-oil-price-history-chart weforum.org/agenda/2016/05/which-economies-are-most-reliant-on-oil nasdaq.com/articles/saudi-aramco-picks-hsbc-japans-smbc-for-%2410-billion-loan-sources-2020-04-22