Equinor buffeted by transition winds

The re-branded Norwegian state-owned firm needs to convince that its renewables sector can one day compete with its fossil-fuel based upstream revenues

Equinor had the luxury of learning from other majors' rebranding strategies before finally making a name change from Statoil last year. But the relaunching at a later stage of the energy market's evolution has attracted investor scrutiny over the long-term economic realities of recalibrating towards renewables. As the upstream-focused firm reported quarterly and annual earnings at a capital markets day in January, its leadership said new oil and gas extraction technologies and tougher spending discipline had improved its resilience to price volatility. The share price briefly dipped, but then recovered to over NOK200 ($23.19) after it announced earnings of $4.4bn in the fourth quarter. But t