Paul graduated from Oxford University with an MA in Chemistry in 1980. Later that year, he joined Dresdner Bank (then Grieveson Grant) analysing the financial performance of UK oil companies quoted on the London Stock Exchange. In 2005, he moved to HSBC, where he was Global Co-Head of Oil And Gas Research.

He was one of the first “conventional” oil analysts to publish research in to the potential cost of carbon for oil companies with two reports in 2008 and 2013, both called “Oil & Carbon.  He retired from HSBC in 2013, after 33 years as a financial analyst. He is now Research Advisor to Carbon Tracker.