Why do oil fields still get built? Harry Benham is joined by Guy Prince, head of Carbon Tracker's oil and gas team, to follow the long road from discovery to development – and look at why so many discoveries never make it.

They discuss why "a billion barrels" is never quite what it sounds like, how $100 oil turned deepwater, oil sands and shale into household names, what a breakeven price really tells you, and why a perfectly profitable field can still lose the competition for capital.

The episode ends in the North Sea, where Harry and Guy look at the investment case for Rosebank, before turning to the question at the centre of the next episode: when an oil field shuts down, who pays?

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In episode six of Capital in Transition, Harry Benham and Mark Campanale look back across the series and trace the thread running through every conversation: capital, and where it is flowing.

Two divides are reshaping the energy landscape: within oil and gas, listed majors have become capital-return businesses, prioritising dividends and share buybacks, as their reserve lives shrink. National oil companies, by contrast, now account for around 60% of fossil fuel investment and some 55% of production. And beyond oil and gas, the manufactured energy economy of solar, batteries, EVs and grids now attracts $2.2 trillion in investment each year. That’s twice the amount flowing into fossil fuels, yet listed oil and gas companies barely feature in this new system.

They also discuss why shrinking reserve lives matter to bondholders, what the latest Statistical Review of World Energy reveals about renewables and demand growth, and whether energy could follow mobile telephony towards deflation and abundance.

Send comments and questions at capitalintransition@carbontracker.org. If you have enjoyed the series, please subscribe and leave a review.

Why do investors who clearly understand climate risk so often struggle to act on it?

In Episode 5 of Capital in Transition, Harry Benham is joined by Carbon Tracker's Amy Owens to find out. Drawing on her report Ambition Under Pressure, Amy examines NBIM – manager of Norway's $2 trillion sovereign wealth fund and one of the world's most sophisticated investors – and finds a striking gap between what its climate analysis reveals and how it actually invests.

She calls it "strategic hesitation": not denial, but the drag of mandates, benchmarks and governance built for an older energy system. A sharp look at why capital moves slowly – and why that delay is becoming a risk in itself.

Linked report: https://carbontracker.org/reports/ambition-under-pressure-analytical-leadership-vs-strategic-hesitation/

Inquiries: capitalintransition@carbontracker.org