Screen emerging low-carbon opportunities against the company's capital, technical and commercial capabilities to shortlist ventures worth pursuing.
Oil, Gas & Energy
Launching Low-Carbon Ventures inside Incumbent Oil and Gas Companies
Learn to screen, structure and govern low-carbon ventures inside an oil and gas company, from business case and operating model choice through stage-gate funding to scale-up or exit decisions.
🗓️Duration5 training days
📚Content4 modules · 8 sessions
🎓On completionAccredited attendance certificate
About the programme
Course Overview
Incumbent oil and gas companies increasingly need to build genuinely new low-carbon businesses — hydrogen, carbon capture, power, low-carbon fuels — without forcing them through capital processes designed for mature core assets. This course works through the full venture-building sequence: screening opportunities against real strategic fit, building a venture-specific business case separated from core business economics, choosing an operating model from internal business unit to joint venture or ring-fenced subsidiary, and designing a stage-gate process that lets a venture move at start-up speed while satisfying corporate governance. Participants also work through funding structures that blend corporate capital, project finance and external investors, and portfolio management methods that judge a basket of ventures on optionality rather than near-term free cash flow. Delivered through a running case venture that participants develop across the course, from opportunity screening to a funding and governance recommendation, the course ends with criteria for scaling, exiting or winding down a venture rather than letting sunk cost drive the decision.
Expected Learning Outcomes
Build a venture business case that separates the low-carbon opportunity from the economics of the legacy core business.
Choose an operating model for a new venture, from internal business unit to joint venture or ring-fenced subsidiary, based on capital and talent needs.
Design a stage-gate process that lets a venture move faster than the core business while still meeting corporate governance requirements.
Structure funding for a venture using a mix of corporate capital, project finance and external partners at each stage of maturity.
Set portfolio-level metrics that track a basket of ventures for optionality rather than judging each one against near-term core business returns.
Plan an exit, scale-up or wind-down decision point for a venture using pre-agreed criteria rather than sunk-cost momentum.
Who Should Attend
Strategy and business development managers tasked with building new low-carbon business lines.
New energy or ventures team leaders reporting into an oil and gas corporate parent.
Finance and investment professionals who appraise venture business cases alongside traditional project economics.
Corporate development staff structuring joint ventures, minority stakes or spin-outs for low-carbon assets.
Innovation and technology scouting teams identifying partners and acquisition targets in adjacent energy markets.
Senior executives sponsoring a venture portfolio who need a shared framework for governance and funding decisions.
Course Modules
Select any module to see its sessions and points.
01Opportunity Screening and Strategic Fit
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Mapping the Low-Carbon Opportunity Space
- Segment emerging low-carbon markets such as hydrogen, carbon capture, biofuels and power into opportunities with different maturity and capital profiles.
- Score opportunities against the company's existing subsurface, engineering, trading or infrastructure capabilities to find genuine right-to-play.
- Assess policy and regulatory exposure, including subsidy design and carbon pricing, that shapes the economics of each opportunity.
- Shortlist ventures using criteria that combine strategic fit, market size and the company's ability to move before competitors.
Session 2Building the Strategic Rationale
- Write a strategic rationale that links a proposed venture to the parent company's stated transition targets and capital allocation priorities.
- Identify the capabilities a venture must borrow from the core business, such as project delivery or commercial trading skills.
- Anticipate internal resistance from business units that may see a venture as competing for capital or talent.
- Position the venture relative to competitor moves and potential partners already active in the same opportunity space.
02Business Case and Operating Model Design
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Constructing the Venture Business Case
- Build a venture-specific business case with its own revenue drivers, cost structure and capital plan separate from core business economics.
- Model scenarios across policy, technology cost and offtake price assumptions to test the venture's resilience before committing capital.
- Define the minimum viable scale at which a venture becomes commercially credible, distinct from the pilot or demonstration phase.
- Set milestone-based funding tranches that release capital as the venture proves technical and commercial assumptions.
Session 2Choosing the Right Operating Model
- Compare internal business unit, ring-fenced subsidiary and joint venture structures against the venture's need for speed, capital and talent.
- Design governance arrangements that give a venture decision-making autonomy while keeping it accountable to corporate risk appetite.
- Structure joint venture or partnership agreements that align incentives between the incumbent and specialist partners.
- Decide which functions, such as HSE, finance or legal, a venture shares with the parent and which it builds independently.
03Funding, Governance and Stage-Gating
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Designing a Venture Stage-Gate Process
- Define stage-gate criteria that let a venture progress from concept to scale-up faster than a standard capital project gate process.
- Set decision rights at each gate so venture teams can make day-to-day calls without escalating every choice to the parent board.
- Build kill criteria that trigger an honest stop decision when a venture's core assumptions no longer hold.
- Align stage-gate reporting with corporate risk and audit requirements without slowing the venture to core-business pace.
Session 2Funding the Venture Portfolio
- Blend corporate balance sheet capital, project finance and external investors to fund a venture at each stage of its life cycle.
- Use corporate venture capital or minority investment to access technology and market access without full acquisition risk.
- Negotiate offtake, tolling or capacity agreements that de-risk a venture's revenue before it reaches project finance.
- Manage dilution and control trade-offs when bringing in external capital to accelerate a venture's growth.
04Portfolio Management and Scaling Decisions
2 sessions · 8 points
Session 1Managing a Portfolio of Ventures for Optionality
- Track a portfolio of ventures using metrics suited to optionality and learning, rather than judging each one on near-term free cash flow.
- Rebalance the venture portfolio as policy, technology cost curves or competitor activity change the relative attractiveness of options.
- Report portfolio performance to the board in a way that separates venture-stage risk from core business performance.
- Allocate scarce technical and commercial talent across ventures based on stage of maturity and strategic priority.
Session 2Scaling, Exiting or Winding Down a Venture
- Apply pre-agreed scale-up criteria to decide when a venture is ready to move from pilot funding to full capital commitment.
- Evaluate trade sale, IPO or full integration into the core business as exit routes once a venture matures.
- Design an orderly wind-down process for ventures that fail to meet gate criteria, protecting people, partners and reputation.
- Capture lessons from both successful and failed ventures in a form the next venture team can actually use.
What the participant receives
4 course modules
A structured syllabus
8 training sessions
across 5 days
32 detailed points
Applied, detailed content
Accredited attendance certificate
On completing the programme
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