Unfolding low-carbon reorientation in a declining industry: A contextual analysis of changing company strategies in UK oil refining (1990–2023)

Abstract

The oil refining decarbonisation literature makes important analyses of technical and economic dimensions of low-carbon transition pathways but pays less attention to the contexts and strategic considerations that shape the practical implementation of low-carbon technologies by refineries, including investment decisions. To address this understudied issue, this paper makes a longitudinal analysis of changing external pressures and company response strategies in the UK's refining industry from 1990, when climate change rose on socio-political agendas, to 2023. We apply the Triple Embeddedness Framework, a five-phase model of industry reorientation, to analyse the unfolding low-carbon transition process over five successive periods (1990–2000, 2000–2008, 2008–2015, 2015–2019, 2019–2023). Using information from policy documents, reports by industry associations, company annual reports (including financial reporting), academic and practitioner publications, and 24 interviews with academics and industry experts, our analysis finds that the UK's refining industry moved from inaction and incremental change in the first period, to some exploration of alternatives in the second period, and back to incremental change in the third period (after the 2008 financial crisis). In the fourth period, refineries more seriously started to explore low-carbon technologies, which they began to deploy in the fifth period, notably carbon capture and storage (CCS) and low-carbon hydrogen. The paper analyses and explains this non-linear reorientation trajectory and elucidates why refineries have embarked on significant low-carbon reorientation despite long-term decline in the wider industry.