The oil companies commit to reduce their CO ₂ emissions by 90% in 2050

The big oil companies do not want to stay outside the Law on Climate Change and Energy Transition and have presented this morning their proposal to contribute to the decarbonization of the Spanish economy, which includes the commitment to achieve neutrality of CO emissions₂ for refineries, which implies reducing them by 90% compared to those registered in 2008 and reducing the weight of carbon in liquid fuels by up to 80% by 2050. “But for that there will have to be technological neutrality. That means that the different operators compete with each other on equal terms and that the most emission-intensive are discouraged and the less intensive are encouraged,” said Luis Aires, president of the Spanish Association of Operators of Petroleum Products (AOP), which represents Repsol, Cepsa, BP, Galp or Saras Energía.

With this phrase, Aires showed his rejection of the electric car as the only way to achieve the objectives set in the Climate Change Law, as contemplated in the first draft of that standard. “It talked about banning the rest of technologies other than electricity. We like the promotion and not the prohibition. But the promotion has to be technologically neutral so that the necessary investment is efficient in terms of cost,” stressed the president of the AOP, who stressed that the electric car will be one of the factors to decarbonize the economy, but that it will take time “to penetrate throughout the territory, to make it cheap, so that the autonomy of the vehicles or the duration of the batteries is sufficient”. For his part, the general director of AOP, Andreu Puñet, stressed the need to concentrate efforts on the replacement of the vehicle fleet compared to the promotion of electricity. “Perhaps we would go further if, instead of worrying about vehicles 20 years from now, we worried about vehicles that have been circulating for 20 years,” he said.

The commitment of the oil companies, however, is not free. The companies demanded the support of the Executive to execute the necessary investments in the refineries and in the fuels. “In the last 26 years alone, the oil companies have invested 1,000 million euros a year to renovate the refineries,” said Ares, who presented four major demands to the Executive. “There must be a stable regulatory framework, clear and direct incentives for R&D&I, an industrial policy that includes the renewal of the car fleet and a taxation that favors investments and the consumption of new fuels,” he said. Asked about the amount of the investments, the president of the AOP did not dare to make an estimate of the total needs, although only the commercialization of low-carbon fuels would require an investment of 15,000 million euros in the case of a high degree of penetration. “70% of the products that leave the refineries are used by transport, of which 25% is consumed by cars, another 25% by planes and ships and another 20% by trucks.”

The oil companies’ plan to end their emissions contains four main axes, such as energy efficiency, use of low-carbon energy sources such as hydrogen, CAPTURE AND STORAGE OF _CO2 and the use of low-carbon raw materials. From the AOP, the last two points were emphasized because of the potential they offer. “The _CO2 that is captured can be stored or used as a raw material for plastics or building materials. The forecast is that in 2050 70% of _C02 emissions can be captured, which would be equivalent to eight million tons, as much as everything that Madrid or Asturias emit together, “said Carlos Martín, technical and environment director of the AOP. He also highlighted the possibilities of ecofuels, which will allow the use of agricultural waste such as biomass or municipal solid waste to obtain it.

Source: Five Days