Exxon Mobil, Royal Dutch Shell, BP and more of the world’s largest energy companies are pledging to reduce their methane emissions, acknowledging publicly that global warming is a major problem worldwide.
The companies said Wednesday they’re coming together to address climate change so they can continue to provide more efficient natural gas power to the world. However, they’re not adopting any specific numeric goals to reduce methane emissions. Instead, they’re adopting what they call “guiding principles.”
Methane is the primary component of natural gas, and the surging gas production from the shale boom has given rise to increasing methane emissions throughout much of the past 15 years. The energy sector – including oil and gas production and coal mining – is the largest source of U.S. methane emissions, which are a major contributor to the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions, according to the U.S. Energy Department.
The participating companies are Texas’ Exxon Mobil, the Netherlands’ Shell, United Kingdom-based BP, Norway’s Statoil, France-based Total, Spain’s Repsol, Italy’s Eni, and Germany’s Wintershall, which is a subsidiary of the world’s largest chemical company, BASF.
Several of these companies have shifted toward greater natural gas production over oil in recent years, seeing gas a cleaner-burning bridge fuel to help power the world. However, the methane emissions threaten to soil natural gas’ reputation for cleaner energy.
“Since natural gas consists mainly of methane, a potent greenhouse gas, its part in the transition to a low-carbon future will be influenced by the extent to which the oil and gas industry reduces its methane emissions,” the companies said in a joint statement.
The five “guiding principles” the companies pledge to follow are to continually reduce methane emissions through a variety of means; to push for improvements through the sector, including pipelines and power plants; to improve the accuracy of emissions data; to push for sound policies and regulations that reduce emissions without eliminating gas production; and to increase public transparency.
This first appeared on the Houston Chronicle – an Energy Voice content partner. For more click here.
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