On October 21, 2021 CGI Russia held the online conference “Russia’s Oil and Gas: the Decarbonization Journey” organized under the support of Deloitte, CIS.
Creating a low carbon economy over the next 30 years will be one of the most significant challenges ever faced by the human race. We will not succeed unless there is total and complete commitment to decarbonization across all sectors. Yet, for the Oil&Gas industry, the decarbonization path might prove to be a more challenging journey than for other sectors.
At the CGI Russia online conference, moderated by Olga Pascault, co-founder and Chair of Board, CGI Russia, and Elena Haykin Sapozhnikova, co-founder and Board Member, CGI Russia, the leading companies in the Oil & Gas sector discussed the challenges and opportunities they see in developing their climate strategies, and shared their expectations from the upcoming COP26 conference.
Francois Borgida, Vice-President Country Delegate Russia North Sea & Russia – New Business Division, TotalEnergies, reported on the company’s plans to become a leader in the energy transition and diversifying the supply and sales mix to include low-carbon electricity and green gases including hydrogen: “ TotalEnergies is a front-runner of the energy transition and this was exemplified by the recent name change which was approved by 92% of our shareholders, demonstrating a strong support of the Company’s strategy to grow energy production with less emissions. This will be built around an increase in gas production including LNG and gases such as hydrogen and biogas as well as a growth of our low carbon electricity capacity, mostly coming from renewable resources. At the same time, we will increase carbon sinks capacity and continuously improve our energy efficiency and methane leak reduction. Russia fits well in this strategy as a country of strong growth for our LNG production and opportunities around Blue hydrogen/ammonia and carbon capture and storage (CCS)”, – highlighted Mr. Borgida.
Tatyana Mitrova, Independent Director at Schlumberger and NOVATEK, Head of Research at SKOLKOVO Energy Centre: “The oil and gas sector accounts for 12% of all greenhouse gas emissions, which exceeds the emissions of the entire industrial sector. Therefore, we need to engage all three technology archetypes currently available for the transition to a low carbon economy, including the electric, hydrogen and CO2 utilization models”.
Konstantin Romanov, General Director of Gazprom Hydrogen and Division Head at Gazprom: “Gazprom pays great attention to its climate responsibility and we managed to reduce GHG emissions by 12% for a period of 2018 – 2020. Now “Gazprom” has set a goal to achieve in a year 2031 a reduction in carbon intensity by 11.2% in gas business and by 10.5% in power generation”.
Mikhail Yulkin, Founder and CEO, CarbonLab LLC: “The oil and gas sector accounts for 42% of global GHG emissions. This includes both direct and indirect emissions. To reduce the industry contribution, such measures as the transition to electric energy sources in production and equipment, prevention of fugitive emissions of methane and other gases, CO2 sequestration and utilization and rebalancing of the energy portfolio are needed ”.Dan Gardiner, Climate Transition Plan Specialist, Institutional Investors Group on climate Change (IIGCC): ““The Net Zero Standard for Oil and Gas enables investors to assess the full range of companies’ decarbonization strategies and distinguish those that are taking actions consistent with a scenario of maintaining global warming within 1.5℃”.