Page 14 - EurOil Week 47 2021

EurOil ENERGY TRANSITION EurOil

Activist investor urges Shell to do

more on climate

UK AN activist investor Follow This has said that A similar proposal it made in May got 21% of
Royal Dutch Shell’s climate ambitions do not go shareholder votes.
Shell is also under far enough, although it has failed to convince a Meanwhile, another activist Investor called
pressure to split up its majority of shareholders to force the major to Third Point is pushing for Shell’s break-up, but
businesses. commit to tougher targets. the company’s management have resisted the
Shell announced in late October it would step move. It had called for the separation of Shell’s
up its emissions targets, seeking to halve its Scope legacy oil and gas business from its growing
1 and 2 absolute emissions over the next decade, renewable and low-carbon portfolio.
using 2016 as a baseline. But it is yet to introduce Follow This has launched similar campaigns
a goal for Scope 3 emissions resulting from the against BP, Norway’s Equinor and US major
use of its products by customers, as is required Chevron.
under a Dutch court ruling earlier this year. Shell also made headlines this month for its
“Their silence about Scope 3 speaks volumes decision to relocate its head office and its tax res-
about oil majors’ reluctance to engage with the idency to the UK. It said the move would help
fundamental concerns raised by sharehold- facilitate returns to shareholders and make it
ers,” Follow This founder Mark van Baal said in simpler to change up its portfolio of assets. But
response to Shell’s update. the Dutch government has said the decision
Follow This asked shareholders to vote came as an “unwelcome surprise,” and has said
one a climate proposal that would introduce a it is working with Shell to minimise job losses in
Scope-3 target, but it only garnered 30% support. the Netherlands. ™

GIE pushes for better hydrogen

blending policies

EUROPE THE EU needs to improve its policies to sup- to guarantee the unhindered gas flow across
port hydrogen blending in order to decarbonise borders, while also considering regional spe-
GIE points to the the gas grid, Gas Infrastructure Europe (GIE) cificities. Exploiting the benefits of hydrogen
advantages of blending reported on November 24. blending is a great opportunity we should not
rather than building The organisation, which represents some miss to accelerate the decarbonisation of our
dedicated hydrogen 70 gas grid operators working in 27 European energy system.”
infrastructure. countries, stressed the need for an explicit reg- According to GIE, the advantage of hydro-
ulatory framework for blending hydrogen into gen blending is that it can deliver emission cuts
the network. Investments in blending by oper- quicker and to more energy consumers, and it
ators should also be sufficiently remunerated, is also less costly than investing in dedicated
GIE said. hydrogen infrastructure. However, there is a
What is more, interoperability should be a group of operators looking to develop a ded-
guarantee at interconnection points, and with icated system known as European Hydrogen
regional specificities in mind, local and specific Backbone. They aim to establish a system almost
solutions should be permitted. 40,000 km in size by 2040, consisting of repur-
GIE also called for further research and posed natural gas pipelines and new hydrogen
development and advanced gas quality handling ones. While many of its members are involved in
tools to assess new technical options for hydro- this initiative, GIE believes the benefit of blend-
gen blending that are emerging. ing hydrogen into existing systems should not
“Gas infrastructure operators stand ready to be overlooked.
integrate hydrogen blends into their systems as There are a number of challenges to estab-
quick as necessary where this option is chosen,” lishing a European hydrogen market, including
Francisco de la Flor, the sponsor of GIE Sys- the issue of sufficient storage space to underpin
tem Operation & Development Area, said in a supply, given hydrogen’s far lower density than
statement. “They have the technical expertise gas. ™

P14 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 47 25•November•2021