Exxon, Chevron, Occidental Join Oil And Gas Climate Initiative

ExxonMobil, Chevron, and Occidental Petroleum are joining the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), becoming the first U.S. companies in the CEO-led voluntary alliance of some of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies that aims to step up initiatives to mitigate climate change.

The two U.S. supermajors and Occidental will become official members of the initiative on September 24, in one of the strongest signs yet that investor pressure over Big Oil to set carbon emission goals and curb their own greenhouse gas emissions has reached the likes of Exxon and Chevron.

With the addition of the three U.S. companies, OGCI’s 13 members now represent around 30 percent of the world’s oil and gas production and supply nearly 20 percent of primary energy consumption in the world.

“The new OGCI members are aligned with the OGCI collective goals, including recognition and support of the Paris Agreement and collective reporting; they will also reinforce the capacity of OGCI’s work programs. In addition, each will commit $100 million dollars to the OGCI Climate Investments fund,” OGCI said in a statement on Thursday.

“It will take the collective efforts of many in the energy industry and society to develop scalable, affordable solutions that will be needed to address the risks of climate change,” said Darren Woods, chairman and chief executive officer of ExxonMobil.

Exxon announced earlier this year initiatives to lower greenhouse gas emissions associated with its operations by 2020, including reducing methane emissions 15 percent and flaring by 25 percent.

The OGCI initiative is now made up of BP, Chevron, CNPC, Eni, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Occidental, Pemex, Petrobras, Repsol, Saudi Aramco, Shell, and Total.

Earlier this year, large global investors—representing a combined US$10.4 trillion worth of assets under management—urged oil and gas companies to start acting responsibly by tackling climate change.

“Investors are embracing their responsibility for supporting the Paris agreement. It is time for the entire oil and gas industry to do the same,” sixty large investors wrote in May in an open letter to the Financial Times.

By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com