(Paris) Some 96% of the 700 oil and gas producing companies are continuing the exploration and development of new hydrocarbon reserves, indicates an NGO report on Wednesday, which recalls that according to the International Energy Agency ( IEA) these projects “are no longer necessary”.
The German NGO Urgewald analyzed, with more than 50 partner NGOs, the investment plans of 1,623 companies in the oil and gas industry “representing 95% of global hydrocarbon production” (producers, but also manufacturers of infrastructure and gas power plant operators).
According to this report entitled “Global Oil and Gas Exit List” (GOGEL), the sector’s investment spending for the exploration of new oil and gas reserves has “increased by more than 30%” since 2021. The companies studied have spent a total of “$170.4 billion” on these projects over the past three years.
However, given the development of clean energies and technologies, “it is not necessary to invest in new deposits of coal, oil and natural gas”, underlined the IEA in September in the latest version of its energy sector roadmap to achieve carbon neutrality in 2050.
The main companies highlighted in the report are the Chinese companies China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), CNOOC and Sinopec, the Saudi national company Saudi Aramco, the Mexican Pemex, the American Pioneer Natural Resources and the Anglo-Dutch Shell.
According to this report, 1,023 companies are planning hydrocarbon transport infrastructure projects, such as the construction of “new liquefied gas (LNG) terminals” or oil and gas pipelines.
Urgewald estimates that 539 companies – including Saudi Aramco, QatarEnergy and the Russian company Gazprom – are preparing in the short term (one to seven years) to launch production of the equivalent of 230 billion barrels of oil.
And it is the activities of the French group TotalEnergies which are the most geographically extensive, with oil and gas projects in “53 countries”, adds the report. In addition, “nearly a third of the countries” in which TotalEnergies explores and develops new hydrocarbon reserves are countries that currently have “little or no oil and gas production”.
Through these projects, large oil and gas companies are pushing these countries “to become dependent on fossil fuels,” denounces Urgewald.