Many conflate the end of fossil fuels with the end of oil. Instead, oil companies are playing a central role in the development of renewable energy technologies in the energy transition. This thesis attempts to understand how the petrochemical industry has become central as the proprietor of materials in technological design, through a case study of Formosa Plastics Group and the petrochemical industry in Taiwan. Petrochemical companies serve as purveyors of plastic products that have become essential tools that society relies on, but the continued relationship between society and petromateriality affixes a specific configuration of centralized oil production and consumption. Through review of Formosa Plastic’s ventures into renewable energy technology, my findings show how the history of oil based industrialization has led to an oil industry that focuses on oil’s material properties. Petromaterials have become entwined into the basis of commodity production, but the problems posed by plastic’s materiality and the centralization of petrochemical production, as well as a lack of a large-scale material substitute, pose existential difficulties for decentralized or degrowth visions of societal organization. This is especially clear in the relationship between petrochemical companies and renewable energy technology, as even the solutions to the environmental crisis of global climate change are seemingly forcibly constrained to the materiality of oil.