OREANDA-NEWS. April 24, 2015. BG Group is supporting the World Bank 'Zero Routine Flaring by 2030' initiative to eliminate routine gas flaring at operated oil production sites by 2030.

"Business as usual will not be enough to meet both rising energy demand and pressing sustainability challenges, such as climate change," said Helge Lund, Chief Executive. "Innovation is critical to deliver an increasingly cost efficient and less carbon intensive industry. This initiative fosters global collaboration across companies, governments and other partners to accelerate innovation towards eliminating routine gas flaring during oil production operations. We encourage others from the oil and gas industry to join this valuable voluntary initiative."

Innovation is critical to deliver an increasingly cost efficient and less carbon intensive industry.

Helge Lund Chief Executive

This initiative supports our climate change strategy which includes meeting our greenhouse gas target of reducing our emission intensity by 10% by 2017. It also aligns with our work as founding members of the Oil & Gas Climate Initiative and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition Oil & Gas Methane Partnership; .

The initiative has been endorsed by nine countries, ten oil companies and six development institutions. It was launched last week by United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon and World Bank Group President, Jim Yong Kim. They were joined by the Royal Dutch Shell Chairman, Statoil CEO, Norwegian Foreign Minister, Gabonese Minister of Petroleum, and several other senior government and corporate officials, and representatives of international development banks. The endorsers collectively represent more than 40% of global gas flaring. Currently natural gas produced together with oil is flared for a variety of technical, regulatory, and economic reasons, or because its use isn’t given high priority.

Natural gas is a versatile, low-carbon fossil fuel.  Using this associated gas as fuel, instead of burning it, can contribute to a lower-carbon energy mix if it is used to displace higher carbon sources such as coal.

Lisa Walker, VP of Environment and Climate Change commented, "I am delighted that we are one of the initial signatories to this ground-breaking initiative. Our Environment and Climate Change Standard already stipulates that our operations have no continuous flaring, except when required for safety reasons. However, joining this initiative enables us to continue to demonstrate leadership through practical programmes which, if adopted by others, would lead to material decarbonisation in our sector."