By Carl Meyer | News, Energy, Politics | March 4th 2020

A disputed environmental claim publicized by the fossil fuel firms backing a $40-billion liquefied natural gas project in B.C. can be traced back to a lifelong industry insider, who cautioned in interviews that his underlying calculations are “theoretical.”

Rob Seeley has been held up as an independent consultant who has demonstrated the green bona fides of natural gas coming from the proposed B.C. project, LNG Canada. The Coastal GasLink pipeline being built through unceded Wet’suwet’en Nation territory is meant to transport fracked gas to this terminal, where it would be liquefied, loaded onto ships and exported to Asia. read more

By Sarah McFarlane: Updated Feb. 24, 2020 10:33 am ET

Major oil companies are working hard to articulate a vision for their future, but the energy sector’s poor performance shows that many investors aren’t buying it.

Companies including Royal Dutch Shell PLC, BP PLC and Total SA have launched plans to turn themselves into lower-carbon businesses. But with low oil prices pressuring the industry’s economics and many investors saying it is too early to know whether the intended transformations will generate significant returns, there is growing skepticism on Wall Street over the… read more

Shell doesn’t intend to “get into an arms race” with peer supermajor BP over goals to reduce its carbon footprint, Maarten Wetselaar, Shell’s Integrated Gas & New Energies Director, told The Times a week after BP joined the pack of oil majors that have set carbon-reducing goals.

In December 2018, in an industry first, Shell said that it plans to set short-term targets for reducing the net carbon footprint of the energy products it sells, and to link those targets with executive remuneration. read more

Friday February 21, 2020

Royal Dutch Shell will not “get into an arms race” with BP over carbon targets, a senior executive has said, in a sign that Europe’s biggest oil group will not rush to match its rival’s “net zero” pledge.

The Anglo-Dutch group was the first oil major to set long-term ambitions related to emissions from customers using its products, pledging in 2017 to halve the intensity of its carbon footprint by 2050.

BP had been seen as a laggard on climate targets but last week Bernard Looney, its new chief executive, leapfrogged rivals with an ambition to eliminate the carbon footprint of all the oil and gas it produces by 2050. read more

By Sam Morgan | EURACTIV.com

Oil and gas giant Shell has plans for a 100-megawatt grid storage battery in the west of England. It is slated to be the biggest battery in Europe once it is completed later this year and will be crucial to the UK’s quest to remain the continent’s top wind power player.

The battery project in the county of Wiltshire aims to store renewable power in two 50MW cells and then sell it to consumers when demand and prices are high.

“Projects like this will be vital for balancing the UK’s electricity demand and supply as wind and solar power play bigger roles in powering our lives,” said Shell Energy Europe vice president David Wells. read more

BP’s new boss set out the boldest climate goal of any major oil company, pledging Wednesday to eliminate almost all of the carbon emissions from BP operations and the fuel it sells to customers.

Bernard Looney, who has been the company’s chief executive for just a week, set an ambitious agenda for what’s becoming an existential challenge for the oil industry. While peers such as Royal Dutch Shell, Total and Equinor have responded to investor pressure by adopting targets for emissions curbs, none has promised to zero out all emissions from the fossil fuels they pump from the ground. read more

By JANE DENTON FOR THISISMONEY: PUBLISHED: 10:43, 30 January 2020 | UPDATED: 10:58, 30 January 2020

A global slump in oil prices and ‘challenging’ economic conditions have led to a slump in Royal Dutch Shell’s profits during the final quarter of last year.

The Anglo-Dutch group, which is aiming to halve is carbon emissions by 2050, saw its final quarter profits nearly slashed in half, prompting it to slow down, but not axe, its bumper $25billion share buyback scheme. read more

Jim Waterson Media editor: Wed 29 Jan 2020 12.08 GMT

The Guardian will no longer accept advertising from oil and gas companies, becoming the first major global news organisation to institute an outright ban on taking money from companies that extract fossil fuels.

The move, which follows efforts to reduce the company’s carbon footprint and increase reporting on the climate emergency, was announced on Wednesday and will be implemented with immediate effect. The ban will apply to any business primarily involved in extracting fossil fuels, including many of the world’s largest polluters. read more

Yannic Rack: 27 Jan 2020: S&P Global Market Intelligence

During the annual Oil & Money conference in London in October 2019, Ben van Beurden, who has been CEO of Royal Dutch Shell PLC since 2014, urged the oil and gas industry to step up and tackle climate change head-on. Shell and other oil and gas companies, van Beurden said, would need to help the transition to a lower-carbon world both to stay profitable and maintain their societal license to operate in the long run.

“We can, and must, evolve,” van Beurden said. At the same time, however, he emphasized another point dear to his heart — and one frequently echoed by executives at BP PLC, Total SA and other integrated majors. read more

HOUSTON — (Dec. 9, 2019) — Rice University has launched Carbon Hub, a major research initiative to create a zero-emissions future in which oil and natural gas provide both clean energy and advanced materials that help house, move, clothe and feed people.

Inaugurated by Shell with a $10 million commitment, Carbon Hub will partner with companies to fundamentally change how the world uses hydrocarbons. Instead of burning them as fuel and releasing carbon dioxide, hydrocarbons will be split to make clean-burning hydrogen fuel and solid carbon materials that can be used to make buildings, cars, clothing and more. read more

The oil company is posing as a climate champion, but critics call it greenwashing.

BY CHRISTINE MACDONALD

MADRID—A few dozen activists had packed a cramped meeting room at the UN climate negotiations, where executives from Shell Oil, Chevron and BP were to speak about their plans to tackle carbon emissions. Just as Shell executive Duncan van Bergen took the mic, the activists stood up solemnly and put their hands over their ears, slowly filing out of the room in protest of what they saw as false solutions.

Van Bergen was talking about the company’s high-profile but controversial new initiatives to invest in natural ecosystems to help reduce its own carbon footprint and that of its customers. The company has also signed on to a new “markets for natural climate solutions,” spearheaded by the International Emissions Trading Association (IETA), a trade association representing many of the world’s biggest polluters (including the three aforementioned oil giants). read more

“Cambridge University should not welcome Shell to do research, buy influence, and greenwash their reputation. Shell should be in the International Court of Justice, pledging to rectify the human and environmental damage that they have brought to Ogoniland. They should not be on campus at the University of Cambridge”.

by Zac Ntim: Tuesday November 5 2019, 3:09pm

The donation, which was not mentioned in Cambridge’s annual disclosures of its financial sources, will fund research into oil and gas extraction

Cambridge University has accepted a £6m donation from multinational oil and gas company Royal Dutch Shell in March, The Guardian has revealed today.

The donation will fund research into oil extraction technology by a Cambridge University research group. This comes amid continued protests by students and staff calling on Cambridge to cut all investment and sponsorship relationships with fossil fuels companies.

Shell’s donation was approved by the University in March, however details were not included among other financial disclosures in July, when donations are typically announced. read more

Shell has given £6m to fund the work of the university’s magnetic resonance research group amid a concerted campaign by students and staff to persuade the university to sever its links with extractive industries.

Cambridge University has accepted a multimillion-pound donation from Shell to fund a team researching oil extraction technology, even as it publicly positions itself as part of the transition to a sustainable future.

Shell has given £6m to fund the work of the university’s magnetic resonance research group amid a concerted campaign by students and staff to persuade the university to sever its links with extractive industries.

Sinead Lynch, the chair of Shell UK, has been invited to join the panel at a policy-making workshop on Monday. Environmental campaigners at Cambridge have raised questions about potential links between the donation and the invitation. read more

Financial Times: Energy majors eye swifter shift to green

David Sheppard, Energy Editor

Extracts

This week brings quarterly results from the world’s biggest energy companies. Some will beat expectations, some will miss, and after a brief flurry of algo-driven share price adjustment your average investor will carry on hating oil stocks, regardless.

John Browne, the former BP chief, said last week that it felt like the energy transition was “collapsing in time”, with changes towards cleaner energy that were once expected to take decades now being demanded by the public — and increasingly investors — within years. read more

Harry Dempsey in London

Shareholder initiatives, climate protests and government net zero targets are all piling pressure on Big Oil to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by shifting towards renewable energy. Critics have condemned the industry’s response as insufficient, with even the most progressive oil majors devoting only a fraction of their research and development expenditure to low carbon tech. Royal Dutch Shell, for example, has said it is investing about 10 per cent of its $1bn annual R&D budget on renewables and less than a quarter on what it defines as low-carbon initiatives such as hydrogen, and biofuels. read more