The bull market in fossil fuels remains intact – here’s how to invest

The bull market in fossil fuels and wider commodities has paused. But there is still plenty of scope for investors to profit, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

Oilrig worker
Oil stocks are at very attractive prices
(Image credit: © Simon Dawson/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

If you have been paying any attention to the energy markets in recent years, stories of the riches made by other people in the fossil fuel market will irritate you, largely because, like most of us, you would prefer the renewables revolution to be pushing the prices of the likes of thermal coal and oil to nothing, as we smoothly move to net zero.

So the sharp rises in fossil fuel prices – and the implication that there is nothing smooth about the path to net zero – is not welcome.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.