Petrofac made admission as part of deal to end four-year corruption investigation by Serious Fraud Office
A multinational oil firm, which was led by a major Conservative donor, has admitted that its employees paid bribes to land contracts, as it struck a deal to end a corruption investigation into the company.
The admission was announced by the firm, Petrofac, on Friday to settle a four-year corruption and money laundering investigation by the Serious Fraud Office.
Continue reading...No cause for alarm now, says Kwasi Kwarteng as energy discussions are likened to early Covid crisis talks
The government was scrambling on Saturday night to reassure Britons that rising gas prices would not plunge the country into an energy crisis, as ministers held a series of emergency meetings with energy companies and regulators to establish whether the nation could keep the lights and central heating on this winter.
A senior industry insider likened the meetings held between the business secretary, Kwasi Kwarteng, and energy industry leaders to the early crisis talks held following the outbreak of Covid-19.
Continue reading...Coal plants being warmed up as market prices surge to £2,500 per MWh from a norm of £40
A major fire has forced the shutdown of one of Britain’s most important power cables importing electricity from France as the UK faces a supply crunch and record high market prices.
National Grid was forced to evacuate staff from the site of the IFA high-voltage power cable, which brings electricity from France to a converter station in Kent, where 12 fire engines attended the blaze in the early hours of Wednesday morning.
Continue reading...Government expects to redirect €2.6bn from firms to consumers in next six months, with average monthly bill falling by 22%
Spain’s government has passed emergency measures to reduce sky-high energy bills by redirecting billions of euros in extraordinary profits from energy companies to consumers and capping increases in gas prices.
In the first such broad response in Europe, where wholesale prices have doubled in a year, Spain plans to limit the profits that energy companies using hydropower and other renewable power generators can make from surging electricity prices.
Continue reading...Labour’s Jonas Gahr Støre on course to be prime minister after Conservative incumbent concedes defeat but faces hard choices on picking allies
Norway’s Conservative prime minister Erna Solberg has conceded defeat to the left-leaning opposition after a general election campaign dominated by questions about the future of the key oil industry in western Europe’s largest producer.
“The Conservative government’s work is finished for this time around,” Solberg told supporters on Monday. “I want to congratulate Jonas Gahr Støre, who now seems to have a clear majority for a change of government.”
Continue reading...The Scandinavian country faces a crisis of conscience on the eve of elections
Norway goes to the polls on Monday in parliamentary elections that are forcing western Europe’s largest oil and gas producer to confront its environmental contradictions.
Climate issues have dominated the campaigning since August, when the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its starkest warning yet that global heating is dangerously close to spiralling out of control.
Continue reading...Motion will be seen as rebuke to party leader Nicola Sturgeon, who pledged to establish national firm in 2017
Scottish National party members backed a call for a state-run energy company to be set up on the second day of their autumn conference, four years after leader Nicola Sturgeon first pledged one. The move will be seen as a direct rebuke to the leadership’s failure to make good on the promise.
On Saturday activists overwhelmingly supported a motion demanding the creation of a Scottish national energy company, which first minister Nicola Sturgeon first promised in October 2017 at a previous conference.
Continue reading...Since the pandemic hit, the world’s altered attitude to fossil fuels is throwing doubt over the industry’s future
The UK’s North Sea oil industry may have survived one of the darkest market downturns in history during the Covid-19 pandemic, but the deepest gloom lies over the future of the fossil-fuel industry.
Companies are braced for this week’s annual economic report from industry body Oil and Gas UK (OGUK). It is expected to lay bare the full toll of the pandemic on the ageing oil and gas basin last year.
Continue reading...Researchers suggest net increase would mostly occur in renewables sector, with decline in fossil fuels
If some politicians are to be believed, taking sweeping action to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement would be calamitous for energy sector jobs. But a study suggests that honouring the global climate target would, in fact, increase net jobs by about 8 million by 2050.
The study – in which researchers created a global dataset of the footprint of energy jobs in 50 countries including major fossil fuel-producing economies – found that currently an estimated 18 million people work in the energy industries, which is likely to increase to 26 million if climate targets are met.
Continue reading...Projects that could produce more than 1.7bn barrels will not have to go through the government’s ‘checkpoint’, data reveals
Prospective oil projects in the North Sea with the capacity to produce more than a billion barrels will avoid a new test designed to assess their impact on the climate crisis, the Observer has learned.
In a development that has angered environmental campaigners, it has emerged that proposed new developments representing some 1.7bn barrels of oil will not have to undergo the forthcoming “climate compatibility checkpoint”, designed to determine whether they are consistent with the government’s climate commitments.
Continue reading...Tiny hedge fund Engine No 1 says a strong climate strategy simply makes good business sense
The activist hedge fund behind ExxonMobil’s boardroom coup last week has claimed another seat from the oil giant’s board, to take the number of new directors who will push for climate action from within the company to three.
The result of last week’s shareholder vote has installed the hedge fund, named Engine No 1 after a San Francisco fire station, as a reluctant hero of the climate movement.
Continue reading...Court and investor defeats over carbon emissions a historic turning point, say campaigners and lawyers
A “cataclysmic day” for three major oil companies in which investors rebelled over climate fears and a court ordered fossil fuel emissions to be slashed has sparked hope among campaigners, investors, lawyers and academics who said the historic decisions marked a turning point in efforts to tackle the climate crisis.
A Dutch court on Wednesday ordered Shell to cut carbon emissions from its oil and gas by 45% by 2030. A tiny activist investor group simultaneously won two places on ExxonMobil’s board and Chevron’s management was defeated when investors voted in favour of forcing the group to cut its carbon emissions.
Continue reading...Voting at the oil giant’s annual meeting this week could see Follow This activists making trouble over emissions
Shell is braced for its largest climate rebellion this week as shareholders face the choice between backing the oil giant’s carbon-cutting plans or siding with an activist investor who is calling for tougher emissions targets.
With its annual meeting planned for Tuesday, the Anglo-Dutch company has called on its investors to vote against a shareholder resolution from campaign group Follow This in favour of its own plans to reduce its emissions to “net zero” by 2050.
Continue reading...People fleeing militant violence near Total’s Afungi project in Cabo Delgado have been blocked by government forces
More than 20,000 Mozambicans have been trapped near a huge natural gas project in the country’s Cabo Delgado province, more than a month since it was abandoned after a militant attack.
People camped at the gates of French energy company Total’s Afungi site have had been unable to escape, despite fears of imminent violence, and have limited food because the Mozambican government has blocked humanitarian access.
Continue reading...Powering Past Coal Alliance accused of failing to follow up on pledges as many countries expand use of coal
An attempt by the UK government to encourage countries and businesses around the world to quit coal for power generation is failing to make an impact, and in danger of being used as “greenwash”, an assessment has found.
The Powering Past Coal Alliance, led by the UK and Canada, with 111 members including 24 governments, local governments and businesses, is a key plank of Boris Johnson’s strategy for vital UN climate talks to be hosted in Glasgow in November.
Continue reading...Investigation finds up to 40% of UK solar farms were built using panels from leading Chinese companies
Solar projects commissioned by the Ministry of Defence, the government’s Coal Authority, United Utilities and some of the UK’s biggest renewable energy developers are using panels made by Chinese solar companies accused of exploiting forced labour camps in Xinjiang province, a Guardian investigation has found.
Confidential industry data suggests that up to 40% of the UK’s solar farms were built using panels manufactured by China’s biggest solar panel companies, including Jinko Solar, JA Solar and Trina Solar.
Continue reading...Landmark case says thousands of birds including endangered eagles die needlessly each year
In Leonard Cohen’s famous song, a bird on a wire is a symbol of freedom, but for thousands of birds it is the equivalent of being sent to the electric chair.
Now, in a landmark case, a Spanish electricity company is being prosecuted over the deaths of hundreds of birds electrocuted on pylons and overhead cables and for failing to comply with regulations designed to protect wildlife.
Continue reading...Activists say the ‘heart of Africa’ line shipping crude from Uganda to Tanzania is unnecessary and poses a huge environmental risk
Activists have accused French and Chinese oil firms of ignoring huge environmental risks after the signing of accords on the controversial construction of a £2.5bn oil pipeline.
Uganda, Tanzania and the oil companies Total and CNOOC signed three key agreements on Sunday that pave the way for construction to start on the planned east African crude oil pipeline (EACOP). But on Tuesday a letter signed by 38 civil society organisations across both east African countries said the parties had failed to address environmental concerns over the pipeline and had steamrollered over court and parliamentary processes.
Continue reading...Developers built windfarms with a total capacity of almost 100GW in 2020, a rise of nearly 60% on previous year
China built more new windfarm capacity in 2020 than the whole world combined in the year before, leading to an annual record for windfarm installations despite the Covid-19 pandemic.
A study has revealed that China led the world’s biggest ever increase in wind power capacity as developers built almost 100GW worth of windfarms last year – enough to power almost three times the number of homes in the UK and a rise of nearly 60% on the previous year.
Continue reading...Bitcoin mining – the process in which a bitcoin is awarded to a computer that solves a complex series of algorithm – is a deeply energy intensive process
It’s not just the value of bitcoin that has soared in the last year – so has the huge amount of energy it consumes.
The cryptocurrency’s value has dipped recently after passing a high of $50,000 but the energy used to create it has continued to soar during its epic rise, climbing to the equivalent to the annual carbon footprint of Argentina, according to Cambridge Bitcoin Electricity Consumption Index, a tool from researchers at Cambridge University that measures the currency’s energy use.
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