The clock is now ticking to reach the target of Net Zero by 2050 in the UK (2045 in Scotland). The oil and gas industry is a critical part of this transition to net zero and has the potential to be the leader in developing the solutions which will unlock a new, low carbon economy. This pivotal role of the oil and gas industry was clearly recognised recently by the Scottish Government with the £62 million Energy Transition Fund to support net zero projects.
It is no accident that those traditional oil and gas companies which shifted investment and skills towards the renewable energy market are the same firms now celebrating big offshore wind contracts.
Don’t know about you but my patience with certain politicians, the oil and gas industry and indeed a few entire countries is running just a tad thin nowadays. Why? Because I am not seeing the progress in dealing with climate change that I should be seeing.
By Paul Wheelhouse, Scottish Minister for Energy, Connectivity and the Islands
As years go, 2019 was a particularly significant one for Scotland’s energy sector, most notably with the Scottish Government declaring a climate emergency, and outlining our commitment to become a net-zero emissions economy and society by 2045.
The North Sea oil industry has been in transition for some years following the collapse of oil prices in late 2014. Large cost reductions have been painfully achieved. Production has increased due to a combination of new fields coming on stream plus a substantial increase in production efficiency to around 75%. But new field investment expenditure has fallen dramatically since 2015 and exploration remains at a relatively low level reflecting principally the maturity of the province as well as oil and gas prices far below their pre-2015 levels.
A host of firms including Ineos, Total and ExxonMobil are collaborating on plans for a carbon capture, use and storage (CCUS) site at the Port of Antwerp.
Scottish researchers working in the Carbon Capture Usage and Storage (CCUS) sector have scooped more than £12 million from a European Union funding pot.
A “ground-breaking” agreement on carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) has been reached today between a group North Sea oil industry backers and the Scottish Government.
By Mike Tholen, upstream policy director at Oil and Gas UK
If necessity is the mother of invention, the Committee on Climate Change’s “Net Zero – The UK’s contribution to stopping global warming” report should spur a jump-start for the carbon capture, usage and storage (CCUS) industry in the UK.
Energy giant Shell is getting “actively” involved in a north-east carbon capture project again – less than five years after its plans for a similar scheme were derailed.
I was interested to read your recent article “CCUS is a stopgap to a big hydrogen world” which called CCUS a “blunt, end of pipe, short term solution” to tackling climate change. Instead, Tom Baxter argues, we should bypass CCUS and focus our ambition and investment on delivering green hydrogen.
Scottish and Mexican scientists are working together to help support Mexico's efforts to develop carbon capture utilisation and storage (CCUS) capacity.
