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£2bn lost to UK local authority pensions due to oil investments

This analysis, commissioned by Platform London, shows that UK local authority pension funds that are not divesting from fossil fuel companies could have lost at least £1.75 billion in value over the past three years as a result of investments into just nine oil & gas companies.

56 pension funds were identified as holding direct investments into oil companies and not having made public commitments to reduce direct fossil fuel holdings. These funds’ combined direct investments into nine oil companies were valued at £3.6 bn in spring 2017, and would have dropped to £1.8 bn by November 2020.

The three funds losing the most value have all publicly opposed divesting direct holdings. 

  • Greater Manchester Pension Fund was the most exposed, potentially losing £375 million in value, or 2.2% of its total holdings. This is equivalent to £1,000 per pension member. 
  • West Yorkshire Pension Fund was second most exposed in terms of total value, losing £211 million in value. This is equivalent to £740 per pension member. 
  • Nottinghamshire was third with £81 million, equivalent to £1,070 per pension member.

In early 2020, Reuters reported Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire funds as claiming they would have lost £400m and £160m respectively over 3 years to 2019, if they had divested from fossil fuels. The losses by 2020 on only the nine top oil companies almost entirely eradicate this gain.
Share values are volatile, and regularly rise and fall. However, repeated Financial Times reporting on the falling asset values and impairments amongst big oil companies describes this not as a temporary downturn, but as “the direction of travel” . Despite the expected continued use of fossil fuels in some industries for many years, the push to net zero will hit the underlying business model of large oil & gas companies significantly – especially those that rely on high oil prices to turn profits.