BP and Shell will keep (some of) it in the ground
BP and Shell, two of the biggest fossil fuel companies in the world, indicated they plan to lower the official value of their assets by several billion dollars due to declining oil and gas prices. That means these companies are looking at their reserves, looking at the price of oil and the state of the world, and saying, this is not worth nearly as much as it was before. And the economics of digging it up are changing.
BP was the first, announcing in mid-June that it expects to write down up to $17.5 billion of its oil and gas holdings in its next quarterly report, a 12 percent drop from the previous valuation.
Shell joined the club on Tuesday, saying it would write down between $15 billion and $22 billion of its assets next quarter.