Petersburg Pilot -

The world will continue to need liquid fuels refined from crude oil for decades. But it likely will need less in the decades ahead as it transitions to renewable energy sources in hopes of stemming the damages caused by a warming planet. Which means oil companies generally are looking for the least risky projects, the environmentally smartest ones, the ones with the quickest payback to recover their investment.

No producer wants to sink billions into a new development, only to find that delays, cost overruns and political or permitting problems turn the good prospect into a bad investment j...