The oil and gas industry is playing an important role in the energy transition by providing the affordable and reliable energy needed to fuel fair growth and improved living conditions for all, producing this energy with decreasing emissions to support a net-zero world.
Ipieca members are committed to playing their part in a net-zero future. Over 50% of Ipieca corporate members have publicly committed to achieving net-zero emissions and published plans on how they will reach their goals.
Reducing operational emissions
Ipieca members are reducing GHG emissions from their operations through energy efficiency, flare reduction and managing methane emissions, as well as increasingly powering their operations with low-carbon or renewable energy sources.
Scaling up energy transition solutions likes CCS and hydrogen
One of the key technologies that can enable large-scale, cost-effective mitigation of CO2 within the industry and across other sectors is carbon capture and storage (CCS).
A number of sectors are very difficult to electrify, including long-haul transport, petrochemicals, cement, steel, mining, marine transport, and aviation. At present, only oil, gas and hydrogen can provide the heat required for many industrial processes and the feedstock for the production of renewable fuels (advanced biofuels and e-fuels), especially for transport. CCS is therefore a key lever in supporting decarbonisation of the hard-to-abate sectors. Oil and gas also serve as a feedstock to other industries like petrochemicals, steel, cement, agriculture, aviation, and heavy-duty road and marine transport. Of the 15 large-scale CCS projects in operation today, 11 are based on oil and gas activities.
Hydrogen will be a key enabler of the energy transition. Low-carbon hydrogen can support hard-to-abate sectors within heavy industry and heavy-duty transport, often the drivers of developing economies, to lower their emissions as well as offer large-scale, long-term back up for renewables. Because of the close association of hydrogen and fossil fuels, the sector with the experience, skills and knowledge that is most likely to support the emerging hydrogen economy is the oil and gas industry. A hydrogen economy can make use of existing gas pipeline infrastructure.
Working with other sectors
The oil and gas industry is working together with other sectors, including, for example, the automotive sector to develop electric vehicle infrastructure, efficient engines, mobile carbon capture technologies and low-emissions transport solutions such as synthetic gasoline, hydrogen and biofuels. Ipieca members are also supporting UNEP-led road transport desulphurisation strategies in the global south.
Ipieca members are leading the development of sustainable and lower-carbon aviation fuels, producing these fuels in their own refineries and working in joint ventures to build new sustainable aviation fuel plants.
Ramping up renewables
A number of Ipieca members are part of the growth in the alternative energy sector and have been increasingly using, investing in and producing energy through alternative technologies in particular wind, solar and biofuels.
Currently, a number of Ipieca member companies have over 10 GW of renewable projects already in operation, with the collective membership aiming to achieve 325 GW of renewable energy capacity by 2050.