‘Beginning of the end of oil and gas’ as BOGA initiative launches: Spearheaded by Costa Rica and Denmark, the world’s first diplomatic initiative focused on keeping fossil fuels in the ground launched at COP26. Joining as core members of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance (BOGA), and “working together to facilitate the managed phase-out of oil and gas production”, are France, Greenland, Ireland, Sweden, Wales, and Quebec. California, Portugal, and New Zealand have signed on as associate members, and Italy expressed its interest by becoming a ‘friend of BOGA’. While the UK hosts of the climate summit declined to participate, Scotland has entered into discussions which should see it also assuming ‘friend of BOGA’ status shortly. Welcoming the initiative, Oil Change International called on BOGA members and all countries to commit to “ending all new oil and gas projects, including in already licensed areas”. (Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance, Desmog, Oil Change International, Press Association, Reuters)

Online database to end oil and gas expansion goes live: German NGO urgewald has published the Global Oil and Gas Exit List (GOGEL), a free database which provides information on 887 global companies planning expansion across the upstream and midstream oil and gas sectors. GOGEL’s company scope covers almost 95% of global oil and gas production, as well as information on the companies behind both the development of over 200,000 kilometres of not yet commissioned oil and gas pipelines and plans to double the world’s LNG terminal capacity. GOGEL builds on urgewald’s Global Coal Exit List which, since 2017, has been instrumental in providing investors and financiers with the data to develop and implement progressively stronger coal policies, resulting in a major squeeze on financing for the world’s top corporate coal plant developers. (urgewald, GOGEL)

Scottish government comes off the fence to increase pressure on Cambo: Three days after the conclusion of COP26, First Minister of Scotland Nicola Sturgeon told the Scottish parliament that the Cambo oilfield in the North Sea “should not get the green light” after previously giving mixed signals about the project. The decision on whether Cambo gets the go-ahead, potentially as early as next year, is reserved to the UK government. A review of Cambo by the Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide has warned that the project’s proposed seabed gas pipelines “could jeopardise hundreds of species over several decades, as well as livelihoods”. According to the UK government, an environmental impact assessment will be carried out before any final decision on the project. (BBC, BBC)

Global Methane Pledge launched: Over 100 countries and the European Commission have signed on to the Global Methane Pledge (GMP), a voluntary initiative being driven by the EU and the US which instructs rather than compels signatories to cut their methane emissions 30 percent by 2030, based on 2020 levels. According to EU estimates, such cuts could reduce projected warming by 0.2°C by 2050. The countries signed on to GMP so far are responsible for almost half of methane emissions created by human activity, though a host of major methane emitters have so far declined to join, including Russia, China, India, Australia, and Qatar. (European Commission, The Observer)

Public subsidies for new gas projects okayed by European Commission: Thirty major gas infrastructure projects, with an estimated price tag of €13 billion (US$14.7 billion), have gained the consent of the European Commission and are now in line to receive hundreds of millions of euros in EU public funding as well as fast-track permitting privileges, subject to approval from the European Parliament early next year. Commission officials have pushed back on immediate criticism from some members of the European Parliament (MEPs) and NGOs by saying that the so-called 5th list of ‘Projects of Common Interest’ (PCI) contains no new oil and gas projects, but merely leftover projects from previous PCI lists. Controversial projects such as the EastMed pipeline, the Baltic Pipe, and the Cyprus LNG terminal have been given the nod. Amidst concerns that the proposed 5th PCI list is too gas-intensive, and therefore misaligned with EU climate targets, the European Greens are calling on MEPs to vote down the list. (EurActiv, European Greens) 

Gas and nuclear may be marked ‘green’ under EU sustainable finance rules: A carve-up principally instigated by pro-nuclear France and pro-nuclear and pro-gas eastern European member states is piling pressure on the European Commission to award both energy forms a ‘green’ label under the EU’s long-awaited sustainable finance taxonomy. Negotiations over the taxonomy – a key set of rules which is intended to provide investors with a common definition of what is green and what is not in order to channel more finance into sustainable businesses across the EU – are now expected to feature gas and nuclear energy when the Commission introduces a second delegated act under the taxonomy regulation before the end of the year. The UN’s Net-Zero Asset Owner Alliance, comprised of investors holding roughly €9 trillion in assets, has voiced its opposition to the potential inclusion of gas and nuclear, and urged the Commission and member states to come with a final finance rulebook which is “science and evidence-based”. (Bloomberg, Reclaim Finance)

Belgium: Due to be decided this month, a government proposal to shut down the country’s nuclear reactor fleet by 2025 requiries the construction of new gas-fired plants before Belgium is able to rely fully on renewables.

Bulgaria: A 20-metre section of gas pipeline in a northeastern Bulgarian village exploded in early November, causing temporary supply outages to Hungary, Romania, and Serbia. 

Bulgaria/Greece: A pipeline project, the Greece-Bulgaria Interconnector, to bring one billion cubic metres of Azerbaijani gas per year via the Trans Adriatic Pipeline to Bulgaria, is facing delays due to a shortage of construction materials from China. 

Germany: Statements by chancellor-in-waiting Olaf Scholz of the Social Democratic Party that Germany will have to build new gas power plants have not been contradicted by likely coalition partner the Green Party, which acknowledges that Germany “may need some additional gas turbines” in the transition to renewable energy.

Norway: Polish state-owned PGNiG and partners have commissioned [Polish] the final two gas wells in the Aerfugl field in the Norwegian Sea.

Poland: PGE has started [Polish] the construction of a gas-fired cogeneration unit to replace the ​​Siechnice coal power plant near Wroclaw. Commissioning of the new unit is scheduled for the first half of 2024.

Romania: The Romanian units of Engie and E.ON, and two other firms, have been fined by the national energy watchdog for increasing the price of gas delivered to households under fixed-rate contracts.

Romania: Romgaz and ExxonMobil have reached an agreement for the Romanian state-run gas producer to buy all of the US company’s shares for exploration and production in the long-delayed Neptun Deep field in the Black Sea for a price of US$1 billion.

Russia: International banks ING, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and UniCredit have provided a US$110 million loan to Sovcomflot for the financing of two new ice-class tankers to serve the ExxonMobil and Neftegas-operated Sakhalin-1 oil and gas project.

Russia: Rosneft has announced the discovery [Russian] by Ermak Neftegaz, a joint venture between Rosneft (51%) and BP (49%), of a gas field in the Taimyr Peninsula with reserves of 384 billion cubic metres.

UK: A Financial Times report on how the UK has asked Qatar to become its “supplier of last resort” to ensure LNG deliveries has been denied by the UK government.

Engie’s secretive deal to buy US LNG: It has emerged that the major French utility Engie quietly signed an agreement in June this year with Cheniere Energy to take between 0.4 and 1.2 million tons per year of LNG – over 11 years – from the Corpus Christi LNG terminal in Texas. The US Department of Energy disclosed the agreement five months after its signing. In 2020, the French government expressed concerns about methane leakage and the high overall life cycle emissions from US LNG, so that importing US LNG would not be in line with French and European climate targets. In November last year it was subsequently announced that Engie had decided against a 20-year contract to import 2 million tons per year of LNG from the Rio Grande LNG terminal in Texas. (S&P Global, LNG Journal)

World’s fifth largest pension fund divests from fossil fuels: Dutch pension fund giant ABP has announced it will phase out all investments, valued at €15 billion euros (US$17.5 billion), in fossil fuel producers by the beginning of 2023. The fund’s divestment criteria are strenuous, covering companies which derive more than one percent of their revenues from activities in the coal, oil and gas sectors. Explaining the decision, ABP’s Chairman Corien Wortmann notably pointed out that “We see insufficient opportunity for us as a shareholder to push for the necessary significant acceleration of the energy transition at these companies.” (ABP [Pdf], Reuters]

French bank to quit oil and gas entirely, Belgian bank clamps down on extraction: French bank La Banque Postale, the eleventh largest bank in the Eurozone, has become the world’s first significant commercial bank to commit to fully ending financial services to the oil and gas industry by 2030. The comprehensive policy decision, covering projects, companies, and infrastructure in the sector, includes an immediate ​​suspension of financial services to companies engaged in oil and gas expansion. Finance watchdog Reclaim Finance awarded the policy a ten out of ten score on its Fossil Finance Scanner. KBC, Belgium’s second biggest bank, also announced an immediate end to its financing of oil and gas extraction, though stopped some way short of a complete phase out from the sector. (La Banque Postale [Pdf], Reuters, Reclaim Finance [French], KBC) 

Oil and gas lobbying in Brussels catalogued: Research from Corporate Europe Observatory, Food and Water Action Europe, and Friends of the Earth Europe has shown that since 2015 major oil and gas interests have held 568 meetings with top officials at the European Commission. Drawing on information contained in publicly available documents, the groups calculated that lobbyists representing Shell, Total, BP, Equinor, Eni, Galp, and five fossil fuel trade associations met with EU officials every five days over the last seven years. (Corporate Europe Observatory, Food and Water Action Europe, Friends of the Earth Europe [Pdf], The Guardian) 

Ukraine’s Naftogaz talks up US$20 billion gas expansion plans: State-owned Naftogaz has signed memoranda of understanding with oil and gas companies from Azerbaijan, the United Arab Emirates, and the US to expand gas drilling in Ukraine’s Black Sea waters and develop onshore tight gas deposits. The company’s executive chairman Yuriy Vitrenko described the deals to be part of US$20 billion efforts to boost Naftogaz’s current annual gas production of 14 billion cubic metres (bcm) to 24 bcm by 2030, and increase its reserves to 600 bcm. (Naftogaz, Upstream)

Gas growth set to undermine Shell’s emission reduction goals: Analysis by Global Climate Insights (GCI) has found that Shell’s new focus on LNG and gas-based hydrogen production is likely to result in a 66% rise in greenhouse gas emissions from the company’s integrated gas business in the next ten years. This will play a role in jeopardising not only Shell’s own emission reduction goals, according to GCI researchers, but also its ability to comply with the 45% emissions reduction target by 2030 mandated by a Dutch court in May. (Global Climate Insights [Pdf], Bloomberg)

Insurance industry support for oil and gas undermining climate targets: The fifth annual scorecard on top insurers’ climate policies published by the Insure Our Future campaign has revealed that only three of the world’s 30 biggest insurance companies – France’s AXA, Italy’s Generali, and Australia’s Suncorp – have adopted policies to stop insuring new oil and gas production projects. Despite this limited progress, accompanied by much more ambitious action taken by the industry to exit the coal sector, Insure Our Future awarded none of the 30 firms a score higher than five out of ten for actions taken to phase out fossil fuel insurance. Major insurers in the US, Bermuda, and China bring up the rear in the group’s assessment. (Insure Our Future, The Ferret) 

Put Gas on Standby, Carbon Tracker Initiative, October 2021. (Pdf)
 
This 78-page report shows that, even before the impacts of rocketing fuel prices have fully played out, more than a fifth of European gas-fired power plants are already loss-making. Going forward, most new build gas capacity planned will be unable to recover initial investment costs and should therefore be cancelled.
 
Past Last Call: G20 public finance institutions are still bankrolling fossil fuels, Friends of the Earth US and Oil Change International, October 2021. (Pdf)

The latest in a series of reports which have been integral in instigating a momentous shift in international fossil fuel financing (see Campaigns above), this 36-page report identifies the US$63 billion in public financing for oil, gas, and coal projects provided by G20 countries and multilateral development banks in the 2018-2020 period. 

Analysis of 2022 Ten-Year Network Development Plan Draft Scenarios, Ember, November 2021.

Developed by Europe’s transmission system operators, the Ten-Year Network Development Plan (TYNDP) is a key tool used by EU decision-makers for long-term electricity and gas infrastructure planning. This slide-deck analysis of the draft TYNDP scenarios shows the Paris-aligned pathways presented by industry breaking through the carbon budget ceiling as early as 2028, and only a marginal drop in the use of gas for power generation by 2040 as laid out in national energy plans.