Who buys the dirty energy assets public companies no longer want?

THE FIRST law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created or destroyed, just transferred from one place to another. The same seems to apply to the energy industry itself. Pressed by investors, activists and governments, the West’s six biggest oil companies have shed $44bn of mostly fossil-fuel assets since the start of 2018. The industry is eyeing total disposals worth $128bn in the coming years, says Wood Mackenzie, a consultancy. Last month ExxonMobil said it would divest its Canadian shale business; Shell put its remaining Nigerian oilfields on the block. But much of the time these outmoded units are not being closed down. Instead they are moving from the floodlit world of listed markets to shadier surroundings.