decarbonization

If it seems like the push for decarbonization has suddenly picked up the pace lately, Michigan provides proof. Home to the Big 3 automakers and for many the symbolic heart of U.S. manufacturing, its efforts to move away from fossil fuels have long been met with skepticism and resistance. But changing attitudes about climate change and renewable power — and full Democratic control of the state government for the first time in 40 years — have led to a swift about-face in the state’s energy policy. In today’s RBN blog, we examine Michigan’s plans to accelerate its transition away from coal-fired power and the long-term challenges that come with it. 

Over the past five years, the North American oil and gas industry has undertaken a major strategic shift, embracing the global push to decarbonize by, among other things, emphasizing the greener emissions profile of natural gas vs. coal and taking aggressive steps to reduce the volumes of methane, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases emitted during the production, processing and transportation of just about every kind of hydrocarbon. It’s a real challenge, though. Operators face a seemingly endless and overwhelming set of choices about how best to approach emissions reductions, which technologies to use, which programs to join, and how to interpret new emissions-measurement data, to name a few. In today’s RBN blog, we begin a look at how operators can achieve key environmental goals while protecting — even improving — their bottom line and meeting a host of important goals, from reducing the cost of capital and managing investor pressure to improving realized prices and market access.

Japan’s strategy for LNG imports has been based on security and reliability of supply, with JERA, the country’s largest LNG buyer, reliant on supply contracts that can last for 20-25 years. Those deals have been of paramount importance since imports to Japan started in 1969, but things are changing in a big way. In parallel with Japan’s plan to decarbonize its economy, JERA has made clear its intention to reduce its dependence on long-term LNG contracts and instead focus more on short-term deals supplemented by spot market purchases. This decision will have several important effects, and in today’s RBN blog, we look at what it may mean for the LNG industry.

IMO 2020, the mandate that ships plying most international waters slash their sulfur emissions starting in January of last year, was only another step in the International Maritime Organization’s long-running effort to ratchet down the shipping industry’s environmental impact. The group’s next focus, as you might expect, is reducing shippers’ carbon footprint — while no specific rules have been set, the IMO in 2018 laid out the goal of cutting ships’ carbon dioxide emissions by 40% from their 2008 levels by 2030. One way to move toward that goal would be fueling more ships with LNG, which emits 20-25% less CO2 than very low sulfur fuel oil. But as we discuss in today’s blog, shippers could augment those emission reductions by moving from the LNG trade’s traditional point-to-point model to optimization through cargo swapping.

On the surface, it may seem that the LNG market has normalized after the past year’s tumult, and it’s true that many of the day-to-day disruptions that plagued LNG offtakers and operators have subsided. Mass cargo cancellations are a distant memory, and U.S. LNG exports have been flowing at record levels. Global demand has recovered, and buyers are back to worrying more about what they normally worry about: storage refill and securing enough supply for the next winter. However, in other ways, the pandemic and the more decisive shift toward decarbonization measures in many ways have fundamentally changed how deals for future LNG development will get done. Today, we look at what the global initiative to reduce greenhouse gas emissions will mean for LNG project financing.