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(Corrects Sept. 23 story to change title for Matthew Stevenson
from CEO to VP Finance at Inventys)
* Oil chiefs grapple with growing demand for climate action
* Group aims to double carbon dioxide stored globally by
2030
By Jessica Resnick-Ault
NEW YORK, Sept 23 (Reuters) - A group of 13 major oil
companies charted out a plan on Monday to promote investments in
carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS), ahead of a gathering in
New York.
Oil chiefs grappling with growing demand for action to fight
climate change have looked to invest in carbon-capture and
sequestration techniques that some executives, including
Occidental Petroleum Corp CEO Vicki Hollub, say could
make drilling carbon neutral.
With fossil fuel development growing worldwide, the oil and
gas industry faces growing criticism from activists concerned
about accelerating climate impacts from melting ice caps to
sea-level rise and extreme weather. Scientists say the world
needs to halve greenhouse gas emissions over the next decade to
avoid catastrophic warming.
Carbon dioxide emissions hit a record 37 billion tonnes in
2018, with emissions from oil and gas reaching 12.8 billion
tonnes that year, according to a United Nations Science Advisory
Panel released Sunday.
Carbon sequestration technology traps carbon in caverns or
porous spaces underground. A number of oil and gas CEOs say the
technology will be crucial to meeting goals set in the 2016
Paris agreement on climate change to reduce global emissions.
"A lot of people don't even know what CCUS is. I think the
world is going to hear more and more and more about it," BP plc
CEO Bob Dudley said. "I don't think we can meet the Paris
goals without CCUS."
The group, known as the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative
(OGCI), said it aims to double the amount of carbon dioxide
stored globally by 2030. The group is also taking steps to
reduce methane emissions and increase energy efficiency.
The group formed in 2014 to support efforts to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions. Its gathering will be held on the
sidelines of a climate summit, where United Nations
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says he is banking on new
pledges from governments and businesses to abandon fossil fuels.
Last Friday, millions of young people flooded the streets of
cities around the world to demand urgent steps to stop climate
change. Many, including 16-year-old Swedish activist Greta
Thunberg, have criticized governments and industries for not
doing enough.
The OGCI group said in a statement that carbon-capture
technologies could be expanded to more efficiently trap large
amounts of carbon released by facilities such as power plants,
which could then be used in oil recovery and, ultimately stored
- thus, removing it from the atmosphere.
The group plans to work with others to put carbon-capture
techniques into operation in the United States, United Kingdom,
Norway, the Netherlands, and China. On Monday afternoon in New
York, it will sign a declaration of collaboration with certain
energy ministers and other stakeholders, to commit to efforts to
expand carbon storage.
"High capital cost is currently a barrier to widespread
deployment of carbon capture," said Matthew Stevenson, Vice
President of finance and corporate strategy at Inventys, a
company developing a lower-cost carbon capture technology. The
company is among those that has received an investment from the
OGCI's investment arm.
The OGCI companies, which include Exxon Mobil Corp,
Chevron Corp and BP PLC, account for 32% of
global oil and gas production. They have agreed to cooperate to
accelerate reduction of greenhouse gas emissions.
Separately, almost 90 big companies in sectors from food to
cement to telecommunications are pledging to slash greenhouse
gas emissions, organizers said.
(Reporting By Jessica Resnick-Ault, Editing by Sherry
Jacob-Phillips and David Gregorio)
