Sheep on a road in view of mobile offshore drilling units in the Port of Cromarty Firth in Cromarty, U.K., on Tuesday, June 23, 2020.
Jason Alden | Bloomberg | Getty Images
LONDON — Costa Rica and Demark are spearheading efforts to build the world’s first diplomatic allianceto manage the decline of oil and gas production.
The co-leaders of the initiative, known as the “Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance,” are seeking to establish a deadline for the end of oil and gas production that would get countries aligned with the 2015 Paris Agreement. This legally binding treaty aims to limit global heating to below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels — and preferably to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Meeting the conditions of the agreement is widely recognized as critically important to avoid an irreversible climate crisis.
The Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance is expected to formally launch at U.N.-brokered climate talks in early November, a summit known as COP26.
Until then, Costa Rica and Demark are seeking to persuade as many countries and jurisdictions as possible to join them in bringing an end to oil and gas production.
Speaking on Thursday during an online webinar hosted by the International Renewable Energy Agency, Dan Jorgensen, minister for climate, energy and utilities for Denmark, said: “The science is clear. We cannot negotiate with nature.”
“There is no scenario in which we burn all the oil and gas that we can find and in which we stay below 2 degrees — and definitely not 1.5. It is just not possible, so we need to stop.”
They are simply inferior technologies by now. They weren’t inferior last century but, in this century, given the rise of all the other alternatives that we have, they have become inferior technologies.
Christiana Figueres
Former U.N. climate chief
Denmark pledged in December last year to end all future licensing rounds on oil and gas exploration in the North Sea and put a stop date of 2050 on oil and gas production. At that time, the relatively small European country was the largest oil producer in the European Union.
“On one hand, if you look at it, it is a huge thing to ask a country,” Jorgensen said, acknowledging the challenge of trying to persuade others to sign up to the alliance.
“What you are saying, like one of my political opponents did when I proposed this in Denmark, is: ‘So, basically you want us to say no to free money? You want us to stop pumping money out of the ground so that others can do it instead of us?'”
“And I had to say: Well, yes,” Jorgensen continued. “But it is for a good reason.”
Climate hypocrisy
Andrea Meza, environment and energy minister for Costa Rica, said on Thursday that some opposition political parties were pushing the country’s government to consider using oil and gas revenues to pay for their energy transition. “We are very clear that this is not the right pathway.”
Costa Rica, a Central American country of around 5 million people, has never extracted oil. What’s more, it is currently considering a bill to permanently ban fossil fuel exploration to ensure that no future government does so.
When asked during the same webinar why other countries would consider joining their initiative, Meza said that platforms such as the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance need to exist to show others that it is possible.
“It is just one planet,” Meza said. “This is not about doing things in the right way in the internal part of our countries and selling … all of the old technologies outside of our borders. This is not fair.”
U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken (C), Costa Rica’s First Lady Claudia Dobles (L) and Costa Rican Minister of Environment and Energy Andrea Meza (R) are seen during the launch of the National Land Use, Land Cover, and Ecosystems Monitoring System (SIMOCUTE) in San Jose, on June 2, 2021.
EZEQUIEL BECERRA | AFP | Getty Images
Research published in the scientific journal Nature on Sept. 9 found that the vast majority of the world’s known fossil fuel reserves must be kept in the ground to have some hope of preventing the worst effects of climate change.
Separately, analysis published by Carbon Action Tracker on Wednesday, showed that none of the world’s major economies are currently on track to contain global heating to the Paris Agreement target of 1.5 degrees Celsius.
It follows a bombshell report from the influential, yet typically conservative, International Energy Agency earlier this year. The IEA concluded that there could be no new oil, gas or coal development if the world was to reach net zero fossil fuel emissions by 2050.
Environmental activists and Native Americans march to the construction site for the Line 3 oil pipeline near Palisade, Minnesota on January 9, 2021. Line 3 is an oil sands pipeline which runs from Hardisty, Alberta, Canada to Superior, Wisconsin in the United States.
KEREM YUCEL | AFP | Getty Images
Denmark’s Jorgensen said it would be “impolite” to name specific countries, but described it as a “paradox” that many governments were touting their commitment to net zero by 2050 while also quietly planning to extract oil and gas to sell to others. These countries include the U.S., Canada, Norway and the U.K., among others.
“You are not going to burn it yourself and you think others shouldn’t either, but you will make money selling oil to other countries? It doesn’t make sense,” he added.
Jorgensen said he did not want to dismiss the fact that signing up to the yet-to-be-revealed pledges of the Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance would come with difficult economic choices, particularly those heavily reliant on oil and gas. “But, it is the tough questions that we need to ask ourselves.”
“Can we live with a future where we don’t do this? I don’t think that we can.”
‘Inferior technologies’
Speaking alongside Denmark’s Jorgensen and Costa Rica’s Meza on Thursday, former U.N. climate chief Christiana Figueres addressed the urgent need for governments to dramatically scale down fossil fuel use. She cited air pollution, caused mostly by the burning of fossil fuels, which kills an estimated 7 million people worldwide every year.
Figueres also stressed that the economic imperatives for moving beyond oil and gas were compelling. “They are simply inferior technologies by now. They weren’t inferior last century but, in this century, given the rise of all the other alternatives that we have, they have become inferior technologies.”
Pipes for the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline are stacked at Houstrup Strand, near Noerre Nebel, Jutland, Denmark, on February 23, 2021. The Baltic Pipe gas pipeline, which is to come ashore at Esbjerg, on the west coast of the Jutland peninsula, will transport ten billion cubic meters of gas every year from the Norwegian gas fields in the North Sea through Denmark and to Poland.
JOHN RANDERIS HANSEN | AFP | Getty Images
An increasing number of cities banning the use of fossil fuel burning vehicles was likely to usher in “the demise of oil,” Figueres said. The end of gas production may take longer given that it is recognized as a transition fuel, she said, but still not more than 20 to 30 years as there are alternative fuels coming on the market, such as hydrogen and ammonia, “that will be able to compete favorably.”
In summary, Figueres said the economic case, “pounding” litigation in Europe and elsewhere and a social license for these fuels that has been “completely lost,” showed that there is no more space for oil and gas production.
Saudi Aramco’s Ras Tanura oil refinery and oil terminal
Ahmed Jadallah | Reuters
Saudi state oil giant Aramco reported a 15.4% drop in net profit in the third-quarter on the back of “lower crude oil prices and weakening refining margins,” but maintained a 31.05 billion dividend.
The company reported net income of $27.56 billion in the July-September period, topping a company-provided estimate of $26.9 billion. The print is also a 5% drop from the previous quarter, which came in at $29.1 billion, as lower global oil prices, weaker demand and prolonged OPEC+ production cuts led by Saudi Arabia continue to impact crude prices.
The average selling price of oil for the second quarter of 2024 stood at $85 per barrel, but dropped to $78.7 per barrel during the third quarter, according to Saudi-based bank Al Rajhi capital, as non-OPEC supply volumes grew.
The oil firm said its year-on-year decline was partly offset by a “reduction in selling, administrative and general expenses primarily driven by a gain from derivative instruments, and a decrease in production royalties largely reflecting lower crude oil prices and a lower average effective royalty rate compared to the same quarter last year.”
Aramco’s dividend includes a base payout of $20.3 billion and an atypical performance-linked one of $10.8 billion. The Saudi government and the kingdom’s sovereign wealth vehicle, the Public Investment Fund, are the main beneficiaries of the dividend, holding stakes of roughly 81.5% and 16% in the company.
The remaining shareholding trades freely on Saudi Arabia’s Tadāwul stock exchange, with the company having finalized its second public share offering back in June.
Aramco’s earnings before Interest and Taxes (EBIT) came in at $51.45 billion in the third quarter, down 17% year-on-year. Aramco’s capital expenditure guidance was brought up 20% to $13.23 billion.
The company was trading at 27.45 riyals following the announcement, down 0.18% on the previous day.
The earnings align with a broader trend across oil majors, whose third-quarter profits have also suffered from declines in crude prices and refining margins. Aramco said it achieved average realized crude price of $79.3 per barrel in the third quarter, compared with $89.3 per barrel in the same period of last year.
Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest crude exporter who produces roughly 9 million barrels per day of crude at present, serves as the de facto leader of the OPEC+ oil producers’ alliance, a subset of whom agreed over the weekend to delay a planned December output hike by one month.
“Aramco delivered robust net income and generated strong free cash flow during the third quarter, despite a lower oil price environment,” CEO Amin Nasser said in a statement. “We also progressed our upstream developments, strengthened our downstream value chain, and advanced our new energies program as we continue to invest through cycles.”
The revenues will be a boon to the Saudi economy, which is currently undergoing a diversification process under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s legacy Vision 2030 scheme spanning a slew of high-cost infrastructure “gigaprojects.”
Earlier this year, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Finance cut the kingdom’s growth forecast to 0.8% in 2024, in a steep decline from a previous projection of 4.4%, and raised the outlook for the national budgetary shortfall to roughly 2.9% of GDP, from a prior indication of 1.9%.
On today’s episode of Quick Charge, Tesla’s Cybertruck is now available in Canada – and, like in the US, there’s no waiting! Plus, we’ve got an “actually” smart summon Tesla that’s actually stuck, GM reaches a sales milestone, and we get a brand-new title sponsor!
Today’s episode is the first with our new title sponsor, BLUETTI – a leading provider of portable power stations, solar generators, and energy storage systems.
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Mobile car care company Yoshi Mobility launched a DC fast charging EV mobile unit that it likens to “a supercharger on wheels.”
November 4, 2024 update: Yoshi Mobility will only be charging EVs on the side of the road now – it announced today that it’s selling its fleet fueling operation to EZFill Holdings (Nasdaq: EZFL).
It was originally founded as a direct-to-consumer, mobile fueling business in 2016, but now it’s going to focus on mobile EV charging, virtual vehicle inspections for partners like Uber and Turo, and onsite preventative maintenance.
Bryan Frist, Yoshi Mobility’s CEO & cofounder, said, “By spinning off our fuel business and focusing all of our energy on solving hair-on-fire problems that fleet owners face, we are meeting the changing needs of enterprise customers while making the future of transportation safer, cleaner, and more sustainable.”
May 22, 2024: Yoshi Mobility saw that its existing customers needed mobile EV charging in places where infrastructure has yet to be installed, so the Nashville-based company decided to bring the mountain to Moses.
“We recognized a demand among our customers for convenient daily charging, reliable private charging networks, and proper charging infrastructure to support their fleet vehicles as they transition to electric,” said Dan Hunter, Yoshi Mobility’s chief EV officer and cofounder.
The company says its 240 kW mobile DC fast charger, which can turn “any EV” into a mobile charging unit, is the first fully electric mobile charger available. It can provide multiple charges in a single trip but doesn’t detail how they charge the DC fast charger or who manufactured it. (I asked for more details, and they replied that they won’t disclose client names or the manufacturer of its DC fast charger yet.)
Yoshi is launching its mobile charger on two GM BrightDrop Zevo 600s and will introduce additional vehicles throughout 2024. It aims for full commercialization by Q1 2025. (I wonder if the Zevo 600 ever charges itself? Yes, I asked that too.)
Yoshi Mobility says it’s already deployed its EV charging solutions to service “major OEMs, autonomous vehicle companies, and rideshare operators” across the US. Its initial customers are made up of large EV operators managing “hundreds” of light-duty vehicles requiring up to 1 megawatt of energy per day that don’t yet have grid-connected EV chargers. I’ve asked Yoshi for details of who it’s working with, and will update if they share that info.
The company says pricing is based on location and enterprise charging needs. Once under contract for service, the service will be deployed to US-based customers within 10 days.
To date, Yoshi Mobility has raised more than $60 million, with investments from GM Ventures, Bridgestone, ExxonMobil, and Y-Combinator in Silicon Valley.
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