Chaired by Scottish Energy Forum Honorary Vice President Jon Fitzpatrick, top industry figures Martin Copeland, Serica Energy plc, Robert Gair, New European Offshore, Mark Wilson, Jefferies, and Callum Stewart, Stifel Financial Corp. took a deep dive into the challenges of securing equity in the oil and gas sector.
Edited by Neil Davidson and Martin Copeland
In a wide-ranging session, chaired by Scottish Energy Forum Honorary Vice President Jon Fitzpatrick, top industry figures Martin Copeland, Serica Energy plc, Robert Gair, New European Offshore, Mark Wilson, Jefferies, and Callum Stewart, Stifel Financial Corp. took a deep dive into the challenges of securing equity in the oil and gas sector.
On the downside, there was widespread recognition that it remains an ongoing challenge to secure equity investment in hydrocarbons in general, never mind in the UK, where a volatile and unsupportive policy environment makes investment near impossible, despite softening attitudes from investors more generally to ESG.
Change in the air
However, there is a sense of change in the air. Global volatility coupled with heightened security concerns have opened more constructive dialogue with government which could, in time, make existing North Sea E&P players look cheap and attract greater equity investor interest.
This theme was widened out to UK and global markets generally. Irrespective of sector, the UK market continues to struggle to attract capital, despite higher p/e ratios for US stocks, driven in no small part by the ‘Magnificent Seven’ tech giants.
But the advent of Trump has upended markets on both sides of the Atlantic and a huge correction on fundamentals is underway – which could have much further to go. As one panellist observed ‘equity is a flow – it keeps going up, until it doesn’t, and the trick is knowing when to jump…’.
This could offer a big opportunity for the UK, where a relatively small reallocation of assets by the mega allocators eg BlackRock could create a much needed paradigm shift this side of the pond.
Equity appetite
What this might mean for UK oil and gas is hard to tell. Equity investor appetite remains for companies that generate dividends and yield from cash flow generative businesses and there are still good returns to be found in production and development, so this could give existing players a bounce.
In contrast, there’s no new money for exploration or even development led stories – at least until there is a sea change in policy.
The extent of private equity capital interested in the space has also dwindled, in large part due to the anti oil & gas policies of the LP endowments that provide the funds. Active new investors in Europe are really limited to the likes of Carlyle today.
OEUK estimates there are 7-8bn barrels in the UKCS still to be discovered (NSTA says 4-5) – but if we take the former, this could represent £158 billion gross value add to UK economy.
At a time when big investment stories are hard to find, some regulatory change in the North Sea (although unlikely) would be very good news indeed.
Many thanks again to our panellist for steering such a thoughtful and timely discussion, and also thanks to the event’s sponsor Addleshaw Goddard and the team at Milton Gate for hosting.
Although this was equity focused, there were some tasters offered on the surprisingly robust debt capital interest in the space.
Since this event was a sell-out, if your appetite was whetted on this theme, sign up now for Part 2: Financing through Debt, at Wells Fargo, London, on 17th September 2025, 6:00pm.
Securing Capital for the Energy Sector Panel Series – Part 2