Emerging oil nations reject climate restrictions on exploration

The world’s newest oil-producing nation grabbed the spotlight at an offshore drilling technology conference this week, with ambitious plans to make oil and gas discoveries in a race against the global energy transition to low-carbon fuels.
At the conference, which highlighted fuels from renewable resources or those whose burning results in less polluting materials and shifting investors bets away from fossil fuels, Brazil, Ghana, Guyana and Suriname presented agendas for pumping out huge oil and gas discoveries that might reshape their economies, if they were able to put them in the market. market before eroding its value.
The contradiction between its goals and governments moving toward imposing rules to get net carbon emissions to zero by 2050 was evident at the first major US oil technology conference and exhibition since the pandemic.
This year’s Houston conference, in which oil companies have always boasted of the breakthroughs they have achieved in the field of deep-water exploration, witnessed a review of fuels that are less polluting to the environment and the urgent need to reduce emissions, and highlighting low-carbon technology, and the exploitation of offshore wind and hydrogen that does not pollute the environment by burning it.
“We have millions without electricity in Africa,” Ghana’s Energy Minister Matthew Opoko Prembe said in a speech echoed by other emerging producers. “The transition in energy does not mean we will see our resources untapped.”
While three-quarters of the country is covered by forests, Guyana’s Vice President Bharat Jagdeo said the carbon emissions from huge oil and gas discoveries that are just beginning to be exploited can be absorbed.
“We have been called to leave our oil in the ground. We think this is completely unfair… Since we are a small country, we will not have the capacity and framework for optimal operation of the oil industry at the moment, but we will continue to improve,” Jagdeo said.
Suriname, which shares an oil basin with Guyana, also believes it can join the list of major producers and use the oil revenues to finance the development of less polluting fuels. It is working with global oil companies Total Energies and Chevron Corp., and state-owned Qatar Petroleum on potential discoveries.
“We have to realize what the gas and oil industry is going to offer in the end… We will need that money to invest in those green industries,” said Patrick Brownings, director of exploration and subsurface assets at state energy company Statsoli in Suriname.
Oil executives said these new offshore basins and some already existing ones, including the US Gulf of Mexico, produce oil with lower carbon emissions because of advanced technologies and larger wells.
Even with the increase of solar, wind and hydrogen as energy sources, the demand for fossil fuels will not fade, experts said. Greenhouse gas goals could be supported if producers develop oil fields with lower carbon emissions than conventional regions.
“It is essential that we make sure that we produce the energy that society needs in a responsible way,” said Veronica Coelho, who heads Norwegian Equinor in Brazil.
Brazil, already an oil powerhouse, touts oil buried under a thick layer of rock and salt as one of the least polluting fossil fuels. It plans to hold two bidding rounds this year and encourage development of “pre-salt” areas.
“Pre-salt is an exceptional and very important asset,” said Desio Odun, CEO of Brazilian oil producer Inauta Participasues.
With an investment time horizon of five to ten years before production in the new fields may start, producers are calling for new licenses to be awarded.
“With the transition to new energy sources, if we don’t offer those assets now, we risk leaving the resources underground… This is the last big opportunity,” said Rodolfo Saboya of Brazil’s oil regulator.