The Financial Times has a scoop this morning on new allegations by Shell that US liquefied pure gas supplier Venture Global has “wrongfully earned” $3.5bn via cargo arbitrage, the most recent escalation in a bitter dispute between a few of the largest gamers within the LNG industry.
The oil main accuses Venture Global of failing to ship shipments to European prospects beneath long-term provide contracts and as a substitute promoting them on high-priced spot markets when gas costs soared following Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Venture Global has dismissed Shell’s claims, declaring pressure majeure on its contractual commitments.
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New examine raises issues of college ties to fossil fuel sector
Western universities are dealing with growing stress to minimize ties with oil and gas firms as critics elevate issues that the industry’s donations undermine analysis and efforts to deal with local weather change.
A new study launched this morning offers the primary evaluate of analysis trying on the sector’s in depth position in increased training. It attracts from almost three dozen reviews on how college ties to oil and gas firms have created biases in analysis, supported unproven options for local weather mitigation and curbed tutorial freedom.
The evaluate cited a report final yr from Data for Progress, a progressive think-tank, which discovered that six fossil fuel firms, together with Exxon, Chevron, BP and Shell have contributed at the very least $700mn in donations to US universities from 2010 to 2020. Another current examine from Columbia University discovered that college energy centres that accepted donations from the gas industry have been extra beneficial of their analysis in the direction of the fuel than renewables, whereas establishments much less depending on gas funding displayed the alternative development.
“Everything that’s been done so far by researchers on this indicates an emerging consensus . . . that this is a really serious and significant problem that needs to be taken a lot more seriously,” mentioned Geoffrey Supran, director of the Climate Accountability Lab on the University of Miami and a co-author of the evaluate, which checked out analysis on establishments within the US, Canada, the UK and Australia. Conflicts of curiosity transcend fossil fuel funding for analysis and embody tutorial posts, scholarships, coaching and recruitment occasions, the examine says.
Nearly 1,000 teachers have signed an open letter organised by Fossil Free Research calling for US and UK universities to halt funding from the industry for local weather, environmental and energy analysis. In the previous two years, Princeton University and Cambridge have made commitments to restrict ties with fossil fuel firms. And over the summer season, Columbia created a committee to contemplate the implications of fossil fuel-funded analysis for the college after stress from college students.
The push for universities to sever relations, or “dissociate”, from the fossil fuel industry expands on earlier scholar campaigns for the establishments to divest their portfolios of oil and gas shares and comes because the personal sector performs a better position in funding tutorial establishments.
“These calls by scholars and students for universities to cut funding ties with the oil industry is basically divestment 2.0,” mentioned Supran, who helped lead the divestment marketing campaign as a scholar on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which has not made any fossil fuel divestments. More than 270 college students and school members on the college earlier this yr signed a letter calling for the dissociation of fossil fuel firms within the Climate Project, a brand new coverage centre.
The examine’s authors likened the oil and gas industry’s techniques to affect tutorial analysis to these of the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries and known as on universities to publicly disclose company contributions to analysis funding. A multiyear investigation from congressional Democrats earlier this yr outlined cases during which oil majors partnered with universities to order to bolster their credibility and strategic goals. Their findings included a spreadsheet from BP that rated how the analysis plans of Princeton, Harvard and Tufts University aligned with the priorities of the foremost, such because the shift to gas and development in refining.
“It’s not just research, but it’s also this culture of . . . perpetuating fossil fuel’s future,” mentioned Jennie Stephens, a professor on the Icarus Climate Research Centre at Maynooth University and a co-author of the evaluate. “The bigger picture question for higher education is public funding for public good versus private industry funding to advance the interest of corporate private interests.”
Opponents of dissociation argue that reducing ties to the fossil fuel sector might create financing challenges for analysis, isolate an industry that’s wanted on the desk to deal with local weather change and polarise tutorial discourse.
In June, a Stanford committee really helpful in opposition to dissociating from the fossil fuel industry, warning it might have an “inhibiting effect” on tutorial freedom, however known as for extra guardrails.
“The scale and seriousness of this [climate] crisis, especially given the acute energy poverty remaining in much of the world, requires a robust and diverse community of views, actors and tools,” the committee wrote in its report.
A spokesperson for the American Petroleum Institute mentioned that the US oil and gas industry “will continue to work with experts and organisations committed to advancing solutions that tackle climate change, meet growing demand and ensure continued access to affordable, reliable American energy”.
Job strikes
US oilfield companies big Baker Hughes appointed Amerino Gatti as government vice-president of oilfield companies and tools, Maria Claudia Borras as chief development and expertise officer and Muzzamil Khider Ahmed as chief individuals and tradition officer. Deanna Jones, chief human sources officer, is shifting into an advisory capability earlier than leaving the corporate subsequent yr.
Volodymyr Kudrytskyi, head of Ukrenergo, Ukraine’s state-owned electrical energy firm, was ousted on Tuesday, prompting the resignations of board members Peder Andreasen and Daniel Dobbeni.
Víctor Rodríguez, an energy tutorial, has been chosen by Mexico’s incoming president to run Pemex, the state-owned oil firm.
Swedish EV maker Polestar appointed Michael Lohscheller as chief government and Jean-Francois Mady as chief monetary officer, succeeding Thomas Ingenlath and Per Ansgar, respectively. Lohscheller beforehand led Nikola and VinFast, and Mady most just lately served as a senior vice-president at Stellantis.
The Kamala Harris presidential marketing campaign has tapped Rewiring America’s Camila Thorndike as local weather engagement director, according to Politico. Thorndike beforehand served as senior director of public engagement on the electrification non-profit.
X-energy appointed Robert Taylor as vice-president of regulatory affairs and licensing. Taylor joins the nuclear energy start-up after greater than 20 years on the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the place he most just lately served as deputy workplace director for brand spanking new reactors.