Facing demand changes, volatile price signals, geopolitical turmoil, and sharper investor scrutiny, energy and natural resources companies remain focused on competitiveness, affordability, and investment returns. They’re not giving up on renewable energy investments. They’re not seeing AI enhance competitiveness—yet. And they don’t expect the industry’s robust M&A activity and portfolio restructuring to subside any time soon; in fact, it’ll likely increase.

Those are the headline takeaways from Bain’s annual survey of more than 800 executives globally across oil and gas, utilities, chemicals, mining, and agribusiness. The survey was conducted from December 2025 through January 2026, before the outbreak of hostilities in the Middle East. But it underscores the critical industry dynamics and long-term trends that executives are contending with.

The survey results track with Bain’s consistent message of the past few years that any energy transition—and the broader reshaping of the industry—would ultimately be driven by the economics. (For more, read our articles about the surveys in 2024 and 2025.)

Simply put, capital flows to projects with clear and credible paths to investment returns. That’s nothing new, but it helps explain continued capital investments in fossil fuel technologies as most executives anticipate global oil demand to keep rising for at least the next decade. It also helps explain executives’ views about which transition-oriented technologies have the strongest business case prospects over the next decade—namely, energy storage, transition materials, and advanced nuclear technology. They’re less bullish on low-carbon hydrogen, synthetic fuels, and direct air capture, according to our survey (see Figure 1).

Figure 1

Securing competitive advantage and access to affordable, reliable clean energy rank among industry executives’ top three priorities, alongside reducing carbon emissions. But the paths for transition-oriented businesses are diverging. Companies that were already investing significant capital in these areas remain committed and tend to have a positive view of the business case for core technologies in their markets, such as circularity and transition materials among mining executives or energy storage for utilities. Those that were allocating less are pulling back (see Figure 2). Regional dynamics play a big role here. More than half of companies in Europe allocate a significant amount (defined as more than 20% of total capital) to transition-related investments, whereas it’s only a quarter of companies in North America and most other regions. This signals that the companies that have invested in new growth areas in stable policy environments stay the course while more opportunistic bets are pared back.

Figure 2

All of that sits atop one reality: Executives still expect the global economy to rely heavily on hydrocarbons for at least the next decade. A growing share of oil and gas leaders expect the world will reach peak oil demand in 2035 or later, though the outlook varies by region, reflecting differences in natural assets, energy security, and geopolitics. Half of European oil and gas executives think demand could peak before 2035, while 41% of North American executives don’t see it happening until after 2050. Projections from other regions, including the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, are somewhere in the middle. (It’s worth noting that oil demand will more likely plateau rather than peak and immediately begin declining.)

However, there’s a stronger consensus forming around when the world will most likely reach net-zero emissions: 2070 or later. That was the most common response in each of the past two surveys, with a 44% and 42% share, respectively—a marked shift from previous years when 45% (2023 survey) and 38% (2024 survey) of respondents said 2050 or earlier (then the most common projection). The reversal reflects the complexity of the energy transition and the fact that the necessary policy support that many advocates hoped for hasn’t come to fruition. Progress will continue to be slow absent policies to change market incentives and accelerate clean technologies.

With that backdrop, four trends are top of mind for energy and natural resources executives in 2026:

• Geopolitical swings are reshaping investments in real time.
• More restructuring is coming.
• AI experiments have proliferated, but ROI is scarce.
• AI’s surging power demand is pushing utilities toward the most bankable options.

Geopolitical swings are reshaping investments in real time

The clearest signal is a shift in regional attractiveness for transition-oriented investments. Local is now the best bet: Across the map, executives rate their own region as the most attractive. North America remains the most favored destination overall, but the gap has closed. The share of executives who rate it as attractive for transition investments fell from 68% to 46% year over year. Among executives in Europe and Asia, North America has fallen to the middle of the pack, trailing the Middle East and several parts of Asia that are rising in appeal (see Figure 3).

Figure 3

These dynamics likely reflect maturation of the opportunity map as well as the effects of localization and policy volatility (e.g., tariff uncertainty). Among executives who consider North America unattractive for transition-related investments, 75% say that reducing policy uncertainty would have a very significant effect on their company’s ability to scale up the deployment of capital into that market.

More restructuring is coming

Portfolio restructuring has been reshaping the landscape across energy and natural resources sectors, and executives are bracing for more change. Two-thirds expect an increase in portfolio restructuring in their industry (divestments, consolidation, and closures) over the next two years (see Figure 4).

Figure 4

Why? Energy and natural resources executives tell us their companies are contending with market volatility, rising costs, and heightened competition, which continue to pressure margins and complicate long-term planning. And in a world of uncertain demand and policies, sustainability expectations and regulatory compliance make investment decisions even more complex.

Sector-specific dynamics are also increasing the likelihood of M&A and asset changes. In our survey, chemicals executives cited petrochemicals overcapacity in China and Chinese self-sufficiency as a key issue for the industry. Meanwhile, utilities executives note that the combination of new power generation, large loads (such as data centers), and organic growth will challenge the industry’s balance of investments and timing of assets. In most cases, significant transmission build-outs will be required.

AI experiments have proliferated, but ROI is scarce

Similar to many industries, enthusiasm for AI is high, but the technology has yet to deliver meaningful value for most energy and natural resources companies. About two-thirds of industry executives say their company is either experimenting with AI or running pilots without seeing aspired outcomes, but only a quarter have progressed to scaling up AI applications and reimagining functions with measurable impact. Less than 10% are executing a companywide AI transformation.

Nearly half of executives say the biggest impediment to AI achieving the desired outcomes is that the outcomes are unclear or have no link to business value. Shortages of technical expertise and poor data availability and governance are also frequently cited roadblocks.

There are pockets of meaningful progress. The most mature applications are in customer service, R&D, and operations/maintenance; for each, more than 10% of respondents say that AI is scaling up or fully transforming the function (see Figure 5). The least mature areas include capital projects management and several corporate functions such as strategy, safety, and compliance.

Figure 5

AI’s surging power demand is pushing utilities toward the most bankable options

Utilities executives continue to broadly view meeting load growth from data centers and AI as difficult but doable if all goes well. They’re prioritizing the fastest, most bankable levers. Energy storage leads the list—63% say they’re looking at it to meet demand growth—followed by extending the life of existing assets and stepping up investment in transmission and distribution. Adding natural gas and onshore renewables assets round out the top five levers worldwide. (It’s worth calling out that natural gas ranks second in North America while in Europe the second-highest lever is onshore renewables.)

Who pays for all of this? Utilities aren’t waiting for policy intervention. As customer affordability pressures intensify, there’s a growing expectation that the biggest new loads will help fund grid build-outs. This is a positive sign for all energy and natural resources sectors given that access to affordable, reliable clean energy is near the top of the agenda. Executives globally are now more focused on coinvesting with tech companies to help fund these investments rather than relying on government support—a reversal from last year’s survey (see Figure 6).

Figure 6

Regional approaches once again vary. While most executives in Asia-Pacific and the Middle East plan to coinvest with tech partners, North American executives are more likely to rely on higher prices for large-demand customers; European leaders lean toward recycling capital.

The upshot: This part of the sector is still in a “pre-coordination” moment, where the data center and grid relationship is still being improvised in real time. Executives shared early thinking about data centers as a baseload grid asset and even a stabilizer of utilities’ investments in power generation, transmission, and distribution. Whether that evolves into effective and efficient coordination between the data center and energy value chains will be a key storyline to watch.

The 2026 playbook

As energy and natural resources executives look to turn these industry signals into action, here are the most important areas to focus on this year.

• Address reality and returns in capital project delivery. Inflation pressure may be easing, but projects still face high costs and delays. Winning companies won’t just approve capital; they’ll build advantages in the execution of their highest-priority investments.
• Build a portfolio that can realistically win. The most successful companies anchor it in the competitive advantages that they can actually deliver. With restructuring coming, now is the moment to decide what to scale, what to partner on, and what to exit.
• Know your markets. Track where opportunities and challenges are sharpening. Executives continue to point to policy as a major swing factor, and it’s reshaping regional attractiveness and the bankability of whole business models. The most effective companies will seek to understand how government leaders in their priority markets think.
• Implement flexible plans. Companies that stress-test policy scenarios, build flexible partnerships, and design projects to withstand volatility will be best positioned—especially as executives continue to point to reducing policy uncertainty as the most important step governments can take to enable faster scaling.
• Be ruthless with AI investments. Winning companies will focus now on scaling what has a clear path to value over the next two years (vs. more pilot proliferation). They’ll get specific on outcomes, data, and talent so that they can move from “AI activity” to “AI advantage.”