Can Big Oil Reinvent Itself? One Giant Will Soon Find Out
- Co. to spend around $2 billion a year on new energies business
- Investors worry spending outside core areas is a waste
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When a few hundred Royal Dutch Shell Plc shareholders piled into a Methodist church in Westminster for their 2018 annual meeting, they got a lot more than the usual free sandwiches and PowerPoint slides.
As half a dozen pensioner activists hogged the microphones to warn of the dangers of fossil fuels and the merits of renewables, Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden gave them a lesson on the risks of Big Oil embracing clean energy.