I am interested in opinions on Royal Dutch Shell and Exxon Mobil Corporation as an investment over the next 5 to 8 years?
I guess the question begs what exactly are you looking for in an investment? If you're looking for income, I think XOM offers a very safe income play. It has a great yield that is easily covered. It's relatively cheap historically speaking, and I see no danger of the dividend being cut any time soon (at least in the next 5 years). So, if you're looking to park some cash and get 5-6%, well, you could do a lot worse, imho.
That said, growth prospects in oil and gas are not looking pretty. Between ESG, electric vehicles and the massive increase in domestic production available here, well, big oil is going to need to find ways to cut costs to remain highly profitable.
I don't directly own any oil and gas companies any longer, the last one I held was OXY whom I'm much more familiar with then the major oil producers, however, I do own a few dividend index funds which do have big stakes in oil/gas - and for now that's all I'm comfortable holding.
Personally, I feel there are a few big tailwinds that very likely are going to help oil in the future so I keep an eye out for buying opportunities. First and foremost is OPEC is not pleased with the low price of oil and they can very easily tighten the screws. And even with the US pumping like crazy, there is still massive demand abroad to be met and this can drive prices higher quickly with production cuts. The other one is the stock market is pretty frothy right now, so most investors are not concerned at all by yield if they can get growth easily outpacing 8% historic averages. And I'm not saying a precipitous decline is coming any time soon, but, I do think that expectations are unreasonably high right now. Bad news will come. Markets will drop. There are a lot of baby boomers out there relying on income plays for day to day money and there will be a big flight from risk into the safe havens of dividend payers.
One other headwind I failed to mention, and I don't have my notes in front of me as I'm typing from work, but there is some massive debt in oil companies right now, some crazy number like 4x the yearly revenue in all oil is indebted. So you need to look for who owes what, because if/when rates rise, these companies are in big big trouble.