Russia and Saudi Arabia reject calls to end oil and gas spending, call IEA’s net-zero plan ‘unrealistic’

Published

3 years ago

June 7, 2021

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Russia’s Deputy Prime Minster Alexander Novak (L) and Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman Al Saud attend a session as part of the 24th St Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF 2021) at the ExpoForum Convention and Exhibition Center.

Donat Sorokin | TASS | Getty Images

LONDON — Two of the world’s largest oil-producing countries plan to defy the International Energy Agency’s recommendations and continue investing in oil and gas, rejecting calls to drastically scale back the use of fossil fuels despite a deepening climate crisis.

It comes at a time when policymakers are under immense pressure to deliver on promises made as part of the Paris Agreement, a landmark accord widely recognized as critically important to avoid the most devastating impacts of climate change.

Almost 200 countries, including Russia and Saudi Arabia, ratified the Paris climate accord in 2015, agreeing to pursue efforts to limit the planet’s temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels. The agreement requires net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

Remarkably, the world’s leading energy advisor delivered its starkest warning yet on global fossil fuel use last month, saying the exploitation and development of new oil and gas fields must stop this year if the world wants to reach net-zero emissions by the middle of the century.

Speaking at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum on Thursday, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexander Novak said the IEA had ostensibly arrived at its findings “by using reverse calculations” on how to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

The IEA was not immediately available to return a request for comment. To be sure, the top global watchdog says halting developments in oil, gas and coal is fundamental to reaching the internationally agreed goal of net-zero emissions.

“In my view this a simplistic approach. It is also unrealistic,” Novak told CNBC’s Hadley Gamble, according to a translation.

“There is no doubt we need to move in the green energy and towards the green agenda as there is demand for it in society but we need to be clear what resources this can be done with, who is going to pay for it, what technologies and opportunities we have available to us, including in order to resolve outstanding problems that still await their solutions,” he added.

A Surgutneftegas worker near pumpjacks in Surgut Region of the Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Area – Yugra, in the West Siberian petroleum basin.

Alexei Andronov | TASS via Getty Images

His comments come shortly after Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Prince Abdulaziz bin Salman joked about the IEA’s report at an online news conference earlier this week.

“It is a sequel of the La La Land movie. Why should I take it seriously?” Abdulaziz said, according to Reuters.

His reaction to the report came shortly after OPEC and non-OPEC partners — an energy alliance sometimes referred to as OPEC+ — agreed to gradually ease production cuts in the coming months amid a rebound in oil prices.

Saudi Arabia is “producing oil and gas at low cost and producing renewables. I urge the world to accept this as a reality: that we’re going to be winners of all of these activities,” he added.

Speaking to CNBC Thursday, Russia’s Novak said Saudi Arabia’s Abdulaziz had once again reaffirmed Riyadh’s commitment to invest in oil at a SPIEF panel earlier that day.

Novak said it was Moscow’s intention to do the same.

“I can assure you that the Russian Federation, its plans, its strategy [is to] continue to invest in both oil and gas and in coal. But we also invest in renewables as well, in hydrogen, in electric cars and electric charging stations, so we see the coming decade as using a mix of renewables and fossils fuels,” Novak said.

Environment

Exxon Mobil reaches agreement with FTC, poised to close $60 billion Pioneer deal

Published

9 hours ago

May 1, 2024

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Exxon Mobil reaches agreement with FTC, poised to close billion Pioneer deal

A view of the Exxon Mobil refinery in Baytown, Texas.

Jessica Rinaldi | Reuters

The Federal Trade Commission will wave through Exxon Mobil‘s roughly $60 billion acquisition of Pioneer Natural Resources after reaching an agreement with the energy giant, a source familiar with the matter told CNBC.

The FTC will not block the deal now that the regulator and Exxon have reached a consent agreement, the source said. The agreement will bar Pioneer’s former CEO Scott Sheffield from joining the Exxon board.

The push to remove Sheffield was due to concerns about his prior discussions with OPEC, according to the source.

Exxon and the FTC both declined to comment. The agreement was first reported by Bloomberg News.

Exxon first announced the deal for Pioneer in October, in an all-stock transaction valued at $59.5 billion. Exxon said the acquisition would more than double its production in the Permian Basin.

“Pioneer is a clear leader in the Permian with a unique asset base and people with deep industry knowledge. The combined capabilities of our two companies will provide long-term value creation well in excess of what either company is capable of doing on a standalone basis,” Exxon chairman and CEO Darren Woods said in a press release at the time.

Shares of Exxon and Pioneer were both little changed in extended trading Wednesday.

— CNBC’s Pippa Stevens and Mary Catherine Wellons contributed reporting.

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Environment

The US just proposed 18 GW of new offshore wind sales

Published

9 hours ago

May 1, 2024

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The US just proposed 18 GW of new offshore wind sales

Hywind floating offshore wind turbine by U.S. Department of Energy is licensed under CC-CC0 1.0

The US announced two proposals for offshore wind sales that could generate more than 18 gigawatts (GW) of clean energy – enough to power more than 6 million homes.

New US offshore wind auction areas

The offshore wind auction areas announced by the US Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) are off the Oregon coast and in the Gulf of Maine. It’s the first in a five-year lease schedule that could see up to 12 separate offshore wind auctions.

The US has already held four offshore wind lease auctions in the New York–New Jersey region, off the Carolinas, and off the Pacific and Gulf of Mexico coasts.

Gulf of Maine

The first-ever offshore wind energy auction in the Gulf of Maine would include eight lease areas off the Maine, Massachusetts, and New Hampshire coasts. The nearly 1 million acres have the potential to generate approximately 15 GW of renewable energy and power more than 5 million homes.

This auction is exciting because BOEM wants to conduct simultaneous auctions for each of the eight lease areas using multiple-factor bidding.

In July 2023, Governor Janet Mills (D-ME) signed legislation to procure up to 3 GW of offshore wind energy in the Gulf of Maine by 2040. Offshore wind is banned in Maine state waters to protect the commercial lobster harvesting industry.

Oregon

The proposed lease sale in Oregon includes two lease areas totaling 194,995 acres – one in the Coos Bay Wind Energy Area and the other in the Brookings Wind Energy Area – which have the potential to power more than 1 million homes with renewable energy. The areas were finalized by BOEM in February.

The Coos Bay WEA is 61,204 acres and located approximately 32 miles from shore. The Brookings WEA is 133,808 acres and approximately 18 miles off the coast.

The state of Oregon has set a goal of achieving 3 GW of offshore wind by 2030.

Due to deep waters, any offshore wind farms in the Gulf of Maine and offshore Oregon will consist of floating wind turbines.

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Environment

Tesla’s next-gen Dojo AI training tile is in production

Published

9 hours ago

May 1, 2024

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Tesla’s next-gen Dojo AI training tile is in production, according to supplier Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company Limited (TSMC).

Tesla has been heavily investing in AI training compute power both through buying NVIDIA hardware and building its own under its Dojo program.

The first generation of its Dojo super computing platform went into operation last summer.

Shortly after, it was reported that Tesla had expanded its partnership with TSMC, a large semiconductor company that manufactures the Dojo chip for the automaker.

Now, TSMC has confirmed that Tesla’s next-generation Dojo chip has entered production and they are working on tech that could deliver much greater power to Dojo in 2027 (via IEEE Spectrum):

At TSMC’s North American Technology Symposium on Wednesday, the company detailed both its semiconductor technology and chip-packaging technology road maps. While the former is key to keeping the traditional part of Moore’s Law going, the latter could accelerate a trend toward processors made from more and more silicon, leading quickly to systems the size of a full silicon wafer. Such a system, Tesla’s next generation Dojo training tile is already in production, TSMC says. And in 2027 the foundry plans to offer technology for more complex wafer-scale systems than Tesla’s that could deliver 40 times as much computing power as today’s systems.

This new tile is likely going to be used for Tesla’s new planned $500 million Dojo cluster in New York.

Sperately, Tesla is building a new 100 MW data center to train its self-driving AI at Gigafactory Texas, but we were told that this system is going to use NVIDIA hardware.

Tesla’s Dojo program hasn’t been all smooth sailing. In December, we reported that two of the top executive engineers behind the program left the company.

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