SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
permian basin
Despite Lofty Rhetoric at COP28, US Approves LNG Pipeline to Mexico
The U.S. State Department, said Public Citizen, "abdicated its authority" when it approved the Saguaro LNG pipeline without securing an emissions review.
Dec 06, 2023
Days after U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken addressed the 28th United Nations Climate Change Conference and warned that food insecurity "is made worse by our warming climate," government watchdog Public Citizen wrote to the top diplomat Wednesday, demanding to know why—if he is concerned about planetary heating—his agency recently approved the construction of a fracked gas pipeline.
The group was particularly perplexed by the fact that the State Department approved Oneok's Saguaro pipeline even though two weeks earlier, the Bureau of Energy Resources had ignored a request for a federally mandated emissions review for the project.
"Today Public Citizen requests that the U.S. Department of State explain why it abdicated its authority to grant a favorable recommendation for a natural gas export pipeline without first obtaining a lifecycle analysis of the project's impact on greenhouse gas emissions," wrote Tyson Slocum, director of Public Citizen's energy program. "We request a meeting with the appropriate representative to discuss."
Oneok wrote to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) in December 2022, requesting a presidential permit to build and operate the proposed 155-mile pipeline, which would connect the Permian Basin in West Texas to liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals in Mexico.
"Why did the government backtrack on a modest demand for a greenhouse gas emissions analysis for a pipeline and instead rubber-stamp a major fossil fuel project?"
FERC is required to obtain a "favorable recommendation" from the State Department before granting a permit for the construction of a pipeline that would cross a U.S. border.
But in an executive action announced in September, President Joe Biden directed agencies to consider the greenhouse gas impacts of new projects, "in environmental reviews conducted pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA)."
As such, Public Citizen noted in its letter, Hagen Maroney, deputy director of the State Department's Office of Global Change wrote to FERC on November 8 requesting "a greenhouse gas emissions analysis for the Saguaro pipeline project that covers lifecycle upstream and downstream greenhouse gas emissions."
Both FERC and Oneok refused to cooperate with the request, saying it was "beyond the scope" of the agency's analysis—but nevertheless, on November 13, the company and the commission were granted a favorable recommendation for the presidential permit.
As Reutersreported in June, U.S. companies were on track to approve three LNG export projects capable of processing 5.1 billion cubic feet per day (bcfd)—a record annual volume for LNG projects.
The U.S. became the largest producer of LNG in 2022, with exports expected to reach 12.1 bcfd this year and 12.7 bcfd in 2024.
"The Biden administration must explain why it is allowing a major fossil fuel export pipeline to be built, at the very moment it is traveling to global climate talks to call for ambitious climate action," said Slocum. "Why did the government backtrack on a modest demand for a greenhouse gas emissions analysis for a pipeline and instead rubber-stamp a major fossil fuel project?"
"The green light for the Saguaro pipeline project," he added, "shows yet again that the Biden administration's support for unfettered fossil fuel exports compromises its position to address the climate crisis."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Fossil Fuel Firms 'Building Bridge to Climate Chaos'
An updated database shows that more than 1,000 oil and gas companies around the world are planning to expand their planet-wrecking infrastructure.
Nov 15, 2023
More than a thousand fossil fuel companies around the world are currently planning to build new liquefied natural gas terminals, pipelines, or gas-fired power plants even as scientists warn that fossil fuel expansion is incompatible with efforts to prevent catastrophic warming.
That's according to an updated database released Wednesday by Urgewald and dozens of partner groups. Described as the most comprehensive public database on the fossil fuel industry, the Global Oil & Gas Exit List (GOGEL) covers 1,623 companies that are operating in the upstream, midstream, or gas-fired power sector and collectively account for 95% of global oil and gas production.
The updated database shows that 1,023 are plotting expansions of fossil fuel infrastructure, threatening to lock in years of planet-warming emissions as extreme weather
fueled by the climate crisis wreaks havoc worldwide. The World Meteorological Organization said Wednesday that global greenhouse gas concentrations reached a new high once again last year.
"The magnitude of the industry's expansion plans is truly frightening," said Nils Bartsch, Urgewald's head of oil and gas research. "To keep 1.5°C alive, a speedy, managed decline in both oil and gas production is vital. Instead, oil and gas companies are building a bridge to climate chaos."
According to the 2023 GOGEL, 96% of the 700 upstream oil and gas companies in the database are exploring or actively developing new oil and gas fields, projects that Urgewald said "severely jeopardize efforts to limit global temperature increase to 1.5 °C."
Nearly 540 companies in the database are collectively planning to produce 230 billion barrels of oil equivalent (bboe) over the short term, the database shows.
"The seven companies with the largest short-term expansion plans are Saudi Aramco (16.8 bboe), QatarEnergy (16.5 bboe), Gazprom (10.7 bboe), Petrobras (9.6 bboe), ADNOC (9.0 bboe), TotalEnergies (8.0 bboe) and ExxonMobil (7.9 bboe)," Urgewald noted. "These seven companies are responsible for one-third of global short-term oil and gas expansion."
The database also shows that fossil fuel companies are planning to expand global LNG capacity by 162%, a significant threat to critical climate targets. A United Nations-backed report published last week warned that fossil fuel expansion plans are "throwing humanity's future into question."
Urgewald pointed specifically to the LNG boom in the U.S., which the group said is "cementing its position as the world's largest export hub for LNG" with 21 new export facilities planned along the Gulf Coast. Those facilities account for more than 40% of worldwide LNG expansion documented in the GOGEL database.
"Most of the fossil gas that will be exported from these terminals stems from the Permian Basin, the heart of the U.S. fracking industry," Urgewald observed.
The updated database shows that nearly 80 companies—including Exxon, Chevron, and BP—are currently operating in the Permian Basin, located in the U.S. Southwest.
Climate campaigners and experts have also sounded alarm over Calcasieu Pass 2 (CP2), a planned $10 billion LNG export hub that would ship up to 24 million tons of gas annually once it is completed.
"The fossil fuel industry wants to pave undeveloped wetlands all along the coast with LNG facilities like NextDecade Corporation's Rio Grande LNG Terminal, Rebekah Hinojosa, a member of the South Texas Environmental Justice Network said Wednesday. "Besides their environmental implications, these plans violate Indigenous sacred lands, and people working in fishing, shrimping, and eco-tourism risk losing their jobs. Our communities refuse to be sacrificed for the fracking industry's dirty gas exports."
Keep ReadingShow Less
Exxon Purchase of Fracking Giant Shows It Is 'Hellbent on Driving the Thermostat Even Higher'
"This deal shows that Exxon is doubling down on fossil fuels and has no intention of moving towards clean energy," argued one climate campaigner.
Oct 11, 2023
ExxonMobil announced Wednesday that it has agreed to acquire shale competitor Pioneer Natural Resources in an all-stock deal worth nearly $60 billion, a move seen as further evidence that the largest oil giant in the U.S. has no plans to heed scientists' increasingly dire warnings and scale back fossil fuel production.
"This deal shows that Exxon is doubling down on fossil fuels and has no intention of moving towards clean energy," argued Jamie Henn, director of Fossil Free Media. "Even after the hottest summer on record, Exxon is hellbent on driving the thermostat even higher."
The merger, which is expected to face intense scrutiny from the Lina Khan-led Federal Trade Commission (FTC), would make Exxon the biggest producer in the Permian Basin, a massive oilfield in the U.S. Southwest that climate campaigners have described as a "carbon bomb."
"This is a potentially massive consolidation which should be closely investigated by the [U.S. government] for antitrust concerns, with Exxon doubling down on fossil fuels when it should be phasing them out," Antonia Juhasz, a senior researcher on fossil fuels at Human Rights Watch, argued last week amid reports of a looming agreement.
Environmental groups have estimated that if drilling in the Permian Basin is allowed to continue, it could unleash around 40 billion tons of planet-warming CO2 by 2050—roughly 10% of the world's rapidly dwindling carbon budget.
Exxon said in a statement that once the Pioneer merger is complete, the company "will have an estimated 16 billion barrels of oil equivalent resource in the Permian."
"At close, ExxonMobil's Permian production volume would more than double to 1.3 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (MOEBD), based on 2023 volumes, and is expected to increase to approximately 2 MOEBD in 2027," the company said.
As Reutersreported Wednesday, Exxon CEO Darren Woods "has rebuffed investor and political pressure to shift strategies and embrace renewable energy as European oil majors have done."
"He faced heavy criticism for sticking to a heavy oil-dependent strategy as climate concerns became more pressing," the outlet added. "Exxon's decision paid off when the company last year earned a record $56 billion profit, two years after losses ballooned to $22 billion during the Covid-19 pandemic."
News of the merger deal comes less than a month after The Wall Street Journal published documents detailing Exxon's decadeslong effort to cast doubt on climate science even after it publicly acknowledged the connection between fossil fuel emissions and climate change in 2006.
Exxon and other fossil fuel giants are currently facing lawsuits from dozens of U.S. cities and states for misleading the public about their role in the worsening climate emergency.
"ExxonMobil is planning to ramp up its climate pollution while continuing to lie to the public and policymakers about its so-called commitment to solutions," said Richard Wiles, president of the Center for Climate Integrity. "Big Oil companies are driving the world toward climate catastrophe, and as the crisis accelerates, it's more important than ever that officials call out their climate deception and hold these polluters accountable."
This story has been updated to include a statement from the Center for Climate Integrity.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular