David Fickling, Columnist

The Biggest Bull on a Gasoline-Powered Future Is… 7-Eleven?

Making a bet on the future of fuel retail seemed like a mistake even before the coronavirus.

August 3, 2020 at 4:54 AM UTC

David Fickling is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change and energy. Previously, he worked for Bloomberg News, the Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times.

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Photographer: Toru Hanai/Bloomberg

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You might think that 2020 was the year everyone gave up on petroleum-powered transport. Royal Dutch Shell Plc Chief Executive Officer Ben van Beurden has expressed doubts about whether oil demand will ever return to pre-Covid levels. The world’s largest carmaker Volkswagen AG pledged that more than a fifth of its vehicles will be battery-driven by 2025.

The International Energy Agency is pushing for 30% of vehicle sales to be electric by 2030 and expects gasoline demand to peak late this decade even under current policies. Major oil refineries are switching to manufacture raw materials for plastics and jet fuel on the expectation that consumption in their core market of powering road transportation is in decline.