* OGCI members set target to cut carbon intensity
* Target already exceeded by some members
* GRAPHIC: European oil majors' spending tilts green https://tmsnrt.rs/3dWh9VV
* FACTBOX-Big Oil's varied climate targets
(Adds detail on Exxon 2019 emission data)
By Ron Bousso
LONDON, July 16 (Reuters) - A group of the world's top oil
companies, including Saudi Aramco, China's CNPC and Exxon Mobil,
have for the first time set goals to cut their greenhouse gas
emissions as a proportion of output, as pressure on the sector's
climate stance grows.
But the target, set by the 12 members of the Oil and Gas
Climate Initiative (OGCI), means absolute emissions can rise as
production increases.
It is eclipsed by more ambitious plans set individually by
the consortium's European members, including Royal Dutch Shell,
BP and Total.
"It is a significant milestone, it is not the end of the
work, it is a near term target ... and we'll keep calibrating as
we go forward," OGCI Chairman and former BP CEO Bob Dudley told
Reuters.
The OGCI members agreed to reduce the average carbon
intensity of their aggregated upstream oil and gas operations to
between 20 kg and 21 kg of CO2 equivalent per barrel of oil
equivalent (CO2e/boe) by 2025, from a collective baseline of 23
kg CO2e/boe in 2017, the OGCI said in a statement.
The OGCI includes BP, Chevron, CNPC, Eni
, Equinor, Exxon, Occidental Petroleum
, Petrobras, Repsol, Saudi Aramco
, Shell and Total, which together
account for over 30% of the world's oil and gas production.
The members agreed on a common methodology to calculate
carbon intensity and the targets could be extended to other
sectors, such as liquefied natural gas and refining in the
future, Dudley said.
London-based environmental thinktank Carbon Tracker
dismissed the OGCI's claim the targets were in line with the
2015 U.N.-backed Paris agreement to limit global warming by the
end of the century.
"Having some targets to reduce carbon pollution is better
than none," Carbon Tracker's head of oil, gas and coal Andrew
Grant said in a statement.
But "the (oil and gas) industry can never consider itself
'aligned' with the Paris goals when business plans assume steady
investment in fossil fuel production on a planet with absolute
limits".
The announcement marks an important change for Exxon, the
largest U.S. oil company, which has resisted investor pressure
to improve the disclosure of its environmental impact. It has
not yet reported its carbon emissions for 2019.
Exxon supports the OGCI targets to decrease the carbon
intensity of energy production and is "part of the industry's
efforts to take practical, meaningful steps to reduce
emissions," a spokesman said.
The targets set by different companies can vary widely in
scope and definition, making comparison difficult.
Some members of the OGCI already exceed or plan to overshoot
the joint target.
For example, Saudi Aramco, the world's top oil exporter, had
an upstream carbon intensity of 10.1kg CO2e/boe in 2019, its
annual report showed.
Norway's Equinor aims to reduce its CO2 intensity to below
8kg/boe by 2025. It has said the global industry average is 18
kg CO2e/boe.
OGCI said the group's collective carbon intensity would be
reported annually, with data reviewed by EY, as an independent
third party.
The target includes reductions in methane emissions, a
potent greenhouse gas, which the group had previously committed
to cut.
(Reporting by Ron Bousso; additional reporting by Shadia
Nasralla; Editing by Mark Potter and Barbara Lewis)
