Rosneft To Cooperate In Carbon Management With Exxon and Equinor
Russia’s oil and gas company Rosneft has entered into agreements on carbon management collaboration with Norwegian giant Equinor and US supermajor ExxonMobil.
ExxonMobil and Rosneft signed a Memorandum of Understanding to cooperate on the assessment of lower-carbon technologies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from their operations.
The companies decided to consider the prospects of new projects initially focused on carbon capture and storage (CCS) and the development of lower-carbon fuels, such as hydrogen and ammonia.
The MoU continues the cooperation between the two companies and signals their intent to jointly develop and implement lower-carbon projects, as well as exchange their respective experience and technological solutions in promising areas.
ExxonMobil has an equity share in about one-fifth of global CO2 capture capacity and has captured approximately 40 percent of all the captured anthropogenic CO2 in the world.
Earlier this year, ExxonMobil established its Low Carbon Solutions business and is currently evaluating multiple new CCS opportunities around the world that have the potential to be commercially viable with supportive policies.
In a separate statement from earlier in the week, Equinor and Rosneft also signed an agreement which builds on the two companies’ strategic partnership in Russia. Drawing on this longstanding cooperation and aiming to support the goals of the Paris Agreement, Equinor and Rosneft will join forces to develop low-carbon solutions and reduce the carbon footprint from joint projects.
“Equinor aims to proactively support emissions reductions wherever we invest based on our decades of experience from Norway. We are happy to work together with Rosneft and share best practices to address climate change,” executive vice president for international exploration and production at Equinor Al Cook said.
Under the agreement, the companies will share experience and explore opportunities within such areas as a reduction in flaring and methane emissions, energy efficiency, and reporting of greenhouse gas emissions.
Equinor and Rosneft will also evaluate potential cooperation envisaging opportunities for the use of renewables, carbon capture, utilisation, and storage (CCUS), and low-carbon hydrogen solutions.
The agreement aims to identify low carbon solutions in the companies’ joint upstream projects in Russia, as well as engage in joint activities in the area of sustainability based on the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and recognised environmental, social, and governance (ESG) frameworks.
As for CCUS, it is the process of capturing CO2 from industrial activity which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere and injecting it into deep underground geologic formations for safe, secure, and permanent storage.
The IEA projects CCUS could mitigate up to 15 percent of global emissions by 2040, and the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates global decarbonisation efforts could be twice as costly without wide-scale deployment of CCUS.
Source: Rigzone