Peter Clark, CEO at Bentley Reid looks at oil stocks vs clean energy stocks on a rebased basis since February 2026 and shares his thoughts on the situation.
The recent Middle East unrest has exposed the fragility of global fossil fuel supply chains. This means the energy transition is increasingly being driven by geopolitics, not just climate change targets.
Historically, the primary justification for renewables was decarbonisation. But Governments across the world are becoming more focused on energy independence and strategic resilience.
This helps to explain why, surprisingly, the “clean energy” names (red line) have outperformed the oil stocks (blue line) since the war began in late February, despite a near-doubling of Brent crude prices.
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