The focus of this study is the development and application of quantitative methods to the examination of past and present strategic adaptation of firms in the energy industry with a particular focus on the International Oil Companies (IOCs). The extent of adaptability of these organisations, given the challenges and opportunities presented by the energy transition is of great interest, given the substantial reserve of expertise and capital they represent. Complementing a literature which is generally qualitative, this study examines IOCs’ behaviours in the face of decarbonisation using methodologies which are quantitative and aim to be non-directed in order to examine whether the firms’ current expenditure on low carbon assets is consistent with their historical narrative behaviours and whether it is consistent with the energy sector as whole. The historical perspective is based on a non-directed quantitative textual analysis of a fifty-year long history of corporate reports which demonstrates that change has occurred and is anticipated by changes in corporate narrative. To study the value being currently attributed to innovation as against consolidation, a novel approach using twenty years of data on mergers and acquisitions is developed based on a seller-led model of transaction choice that incorporates explicit endogenous measures of corporate difference and heterogeneous sources of value. These two perspectives conclude that today, unlike the past, the IOCs as group are no longer consistent in how their public narratives and actual investment are related; nor is their acquisition investment behaviour consistent with the energy sector taken as a whole. The study concludes by suggesting that these inconsistences have arisen because the IOCs are today faced with the irreconcilable pressures from shareholders for income, from a future of decarbonisation and from a paucity, today, of low carbon investment opportunities that suit their skills and risk appetite.