The amount of natural gas released or burned at oil-and-gas wells reached a record high in 2019 due to growth in Texas and North Dakota, per Energy Information Administration data.
Why it matters: Venting directly releases the highly potent planet-warming gas methane, while flaring (or burning) produces CO2 emissions and also allows some methane escape.
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
New York's $226 billion pension fund has set a 2040 goal to neutralize its carbon emissions and may divest from oil and gas companies in order to achieve it, the state's comptroller announced Wednesday.
Why it matters: The proposal, from America's third-largest public pension fund, is one of the more significant moves in the divestment battle that's been building over the last several years.
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Two huge oil companies charting different paths through the industry's uneven movement toward lower-carbon sources are both coming under fresh — but different — forms of pressure and scrutiny.
Driving the news: The Financial Times scooped yesterday that several clean energy executives have left Shell "amid a split over how far and fast the oil giant should shift towards greener fuels."
Illustration: Rebecca Zisser/Axios
Exxon has paused plans to develop a major carbon storage project in Wyoming as the pandemic curtails industry spending plans, according to Bloomberg.
Why it matters: Experts, including the UN's climate science panel, say CO2 trapping and removal tech will need to play a role in holding warming in check.
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
One of America's biggest oil producers, Occidental Petroleum, has a new term to describe how it hopes to evolve in response to climate change.
What they're saying: “Ultimately, I don’t know how many years from now, Occidental becomes a carbon management company and our oil and gas would be a support business unit for the management of that carbon," Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub told IHS Markit's Daniel Yergin in an interview.
Illustration: Aïda Amer/Axios
Crude prices are trading at nine-month highs after a protracted OPEC+ meeting ended with plans to just slightly boost output and fresh signs emerged of a potential Beltway deal on new stimulus.
Driving the news: OPEC+ yesterday avoided a breakdown that would have led to a large output boost in January.
Photo: Win McNamee/Getty Images
The Interior Department on Thursday said it will auction oil drilling leases in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in early January.
Why it matters: The procedural step would make it harder for President-elect Joe Biden to thwart drilling in the region, even though any actual development is years away.
Illustration: Sarah Grillo/Axios
There doesn't seem to be an oil major that's got it all figured out between the pandemic, cloudy demand and price outlooks, and the unknown path through a world getting a bit more serious about climate.
Driving the news: ExxonMobil yesterday afternoon showed the latest signs of its struggle to position itself as it announced large write-offs and a big rethink of long-term spending.
Powerful lobbying groups are throwing their support behind oil companies' efforts to keep climate-related lawsuits against the industry out of state courts.
Driving the news: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers, among others, filed amicus briefs this week supporting Big Oil companies in a pending jurisdictional case before the Supreme Court.
Illustration: Rebecca Zisser/Axios
Dozens of oil-and-gas companies — including the big ones like BP, Shell and Total — are pledging to provide more detailed information about their methane emissions.
Why it matters: Methane is a very strong planet-warming gas and atmospheric concentrations keep rising, as new World Meteorological Organization data shows. Releases or leaks from oil-and-gas well sites, pipeline and other infrastructure are a key source.