Oil and gas majors to spend $1bn on low emissions tech

A group of large oil and gas companies, under the banner of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), have announced that they will investment $1bn over the next ten years to develop and commercialise low emissions technologies.

Led by executives from ten oil and gas companies (BP, CNPC, Eni, Pemex, Reliance Industries, Repsol, Saudi Aramco, Shell, Statoil and Total), OGCI’s membership represents one fifth of the world’s oil and gas production. OGCI plans to spend the money on accelerating the deployment of carbon capture and storage and reducing methane emissions from upstream gas operations. It also plans to help improve energy efficiency standards in both industry and the transport sector. 

OGCI says it plans to deploy successful technologies among its member companies and work with stakeholder groups to reduce emissions in the energy industry and help fight climate change. 

However, the $1bn pledge has been met with criticism from climate change campaigners who have accused oil companies of not meeting global warming with strong enough action, noting that investment in renewable energy, smart grids or storage are not covered by OGCI’s fund. 

It has also been pointed out that with the fund being spread out over a period of a decade, the $100mn annual investment represents just 0.1% of the companies’ combined level of yearly expenditure.