The CEOs of 10 major international oil and gas companies are pledging a $1 billion investment campaign over 10 years to prepare and deploy low-emissions technologies.
“The creation of OGCI Climate Investments shows our collective determination to deliver technology on a large-scale that will create a step change to help tackle the climate challenge,” according to a statement from the participating companies in the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI). “We are personally committed to ensuring that by working with others our companies play a key role in reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases, while still providing the energy the world needs.”
The contributing companies are: BP, CNPC, Eni, Pemex, Reliance Industries, Repsol, Royal Dutch Shell, Saudi Aramco, Statoil, and Total.
The OGCI Climate Investments program, to start, will focus on fielding carbon capture, use, and storage systems; and on curbing methane emissions from oil and gas companies worldwide.
The intent is to develop technologies that can be used by both the 10 companies that make up OGCI and others. “It will also identify ways to cut the energy intensity of both transport and industry,” the press release says. “Working in partnership with like-minded initiatives across all stakeholder groups and sectors, the OGCI CI believes its emission reduction impact can be multiplied across industries.”
One analyst noted that the total funding amounts to just $10 million per year per company, “a drop in the ocean” relative to the energy companies’ profits, the London Independent reported Friday.
“Again, for comparison the Breakthrough Energy Coalition, comprised of philanthropists, has pledged double the oil companies’ planned clean energy investment. Bill Gates’ contribution alone matches that of the OGCI,” said Jonathan Marshall, an energy analyst at the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit.