Strategic external intelligence for energy & heavy industry

Strategic external intelligence is the continuous measurement of the outside-world risks that affect an energy business, including sanctions, trade disruption, transition policy, permitting, community opposition and shareholder activism, scored so they can be prioritised and tracked. Polecat provides this for oil and gas, utilities, renewables developers and heavy industry, scoring each risk out of 100 with a timeline and a probability, benchmarked against sector peers and projected three to six months forward. How Polecat works

Polecat scores geopolitical events, sanctions designations, tariffs and trade disputes for their likely effect on fuel, raw material and critical equipment supply, and flags escalation while there is still time to re-route or re-contract. Coverage draws on government and regulatory sources, trade bodies, energy and shipping press, think tanks and NGOs across 195 countries. Each exposure is attached to the supplier, route or market it affects, so procurement and operations teams see named risk rather than general commentary.

Yes. Polecat follows carbon pricing, permitting, grid connection and subsidy policy from early consultation through to enforcement or reversal, in each jurisdiction where a client operates or invests. Policy movement is scored for direction and velocity, so a consultation that is gathering support is distinguished from one that is stalling. For renewables pipelines, this provides a measured view of connection and permitting risk by project and by region before it reaches the construction schedule.

Polecat scores local opposition, activist campaigns and labour disputes around specific projects and sites for prominence, rate of change and the authority of the voices involved, so a project team can see whether opposition is building or fading. Sources include local press, NGO and campaign publications, planning and regulatory records, academic commentary and stakeholder statements. The result is early warning on offshore, onshore and transmission projects while there is still time to engage, rather than a count of mentions.

Yes. Polecat tracks activist investor campaigns, resolutions, litigation and NGO legal action against energy companies and their peers, scoring each for severity, velocity and reach. Because the archive holds two decades of resolved risk events, a new campaign can be compared with how similar actions against comparable companies developed and resolved. Boards and investor relations teams use this to prepare for annual meetings, results and disclosure cycles with a quantified view of exposure. The reputation and communications view

Yes. Polecat scores plants, sites, suppliers, contractors and joint venture partners as named entities, each for safety, environmental, integrity and reputational risk. Escalation at any one of them is flagged before it reaches production or the group’s own reputation. This gives operations, HSE and procurement teams a single comparable view across an asset base and a supply chain, with each score traceable to the evidence behind it.

A consultancy provides periodic expert opinion; a news service provides volume. Polecat provides continuous, quantified measurement: every event is scored on six factors, weighted against two decades of comparable events, benchmarked against peers and projected forward, with the evidence trail attached. Polecat’s sector analysts interpret the output, so clients receive both the measurement and the judgement. Most energy clients use Polecat as the quantified layer that their advisers and internal teams work from. How Polecat works

The sector reading is Polecat’s live external risk index for energy and utilities, scored out of 100 and refreshed twice daily from external evidence across news, regulators, NGOs, academia and stakeholder commentary. The 30-day change shows direction and pace; the drivers listed are the themes currently moving the score most. A client’s own reading is calibrated to its assets, markets and risk taxonomy, so it will differ from the sector index.

Yes. Polecat delivers scored external risk through an API into GRC and integrated risk management platforms, through MCP into AI assistants such as Microsoft Copilot, and as briefings, alerts and live dashboards. Scores are formatted to a client’s own taxonomy and thresholds, so they drop into an existing risk register alongside internal controls data. Direct platform access through RepVault and PolecatX is also available for teams that want to work in the source data. The risk and compliance view

No. A general-purpose AI tool can search the web and summarise what has already been reported. Polecat combines two decades of scored historical data, machine learning models and AI trained by energy sector specialists to measure where a risk is now and project where it is heading, with each score traceable to its sources. Clients who want to query Polecat intelligence inside their own AI assistant can do so through Polecat’s MCP connection, which puts the quantified data behind the conversation.