Saturday, 29 April 2017

Global warming-I: It will hit the Indian oil industry sooner than later

 It is now a well known fact that global warming is going to hurt the oil & gas industry.
A business as usual scenario is unsustainable even for a developing country like India where there will necessarily be a rising appetite for energy.
The business as usual case, global energy use could grow by 80% to reach 650 EJ by 2050. Today’s global energy system relies on fossil fuels to provide 80% of total primary energy consumption, and is responsible for about 75% of total greenhouse gas emissions.
The business as usual case is not sustainable for the simple fact that it will warm up the globe by 4 to 6 degrees by the end of the century with cataclysmic impact. Indian oil and gas companies will have to start planning for a scenario where overall fossil fuels use begins to start falling.
And the impact might be immediate. Who, for example, would have imagined a three years ago that no investor, scared of rising carbon taxes and an uncertain future, would want to set up a coal fired power plant anymore.
Dramatic changes brought about both by a combination of climate events, policy changes and technological breakthroughs can break the back of today's oil and gas companies quicker than they can imagine.Global coal consumption has already started declining and this will have to reduce by 70% by 2040.
More worryingly for oil & gas companies, a two degree scenario allows for only a limited increase in gas production, but with a flat profile beyond the 2020s, and with a total volume in 2040 which will be only 2% higher than today – provided methane leakages can be ended
Even oil companies are now looking at the advent of the electric car with greater concern and are admitting that consumption can start peaking sometime in the mid-2020s, and falling some 30% below today’s level by 2040.

source: Indian Petroplus

No comments:

Post a Comment