Small oil companies would see their financial risk profiles deteriorate to a degree that would potentially lead to negative outlook revisions and then credit rating downgrades over 2014 to 2017, a study has found.
What A Carbon-Constrained Future Could Mean For Oil Companies’ Creditworthiness was undertaken by Standard & Poors in conjunction with Carbon Tracker.
The study’s aim was to integrate climate change risk and credit analysis and assess the implications on moderately sized, independent, unconventional oil companies and major oil and gas producers.
It found the effect on major oil companies would be “more muted, and we project that they would likely remain consistent with metrics we consider commensurate with their respective ratings until 2016-2017”.
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