StatoilHydro “tackling climate challenge”

StatoilHydro’s CEO, Helge Lund, told the World Petroleum Congress in Madrid today that the Norwegian company is helping to tackle the world climate challenge by building a more material position within renewables, including offshore wind and sustainable biofuels. In his first address to the World Petroleum Congress (WPC) as CEO of the newly-merged StatoilHydro, Helge Lund called climate change “the challenge of our time” and said that the complexity of the issue challenges the world at the very highest political and scientific levels. “In fact, it challenges the capability of the very system of global policy-making,” he said. “The dilemma of fossil fuels is that they are perceived as both a blessing and a curse. Fossil fuels drive economic development, but they also impact our climate. Any constructive sustainability discussion has to recognise this dilemma,” he said. He said that StatoilHydro views climate change as both a challenge and an opportunity: “It is a challenge as cost of emissions affects our profits and tests our licence to operate. It is also a business opportunity as demand for clean energy and climate technology increases,” the CEO said, underlining that the company is already hard at work on solutions addressing the climate challenge. “On the Norwegian continental shelf, we have already reduced our carbon emissions per barrel produced to a third of the industry average — the lowest anywhere. There are three main reasons for this: first, a firm policy of non-flaring under normal operations; second, early introduction of a CO2 tax in Norway on offshore operations at a level that really made an impact on the bottom line, and third, conscious design of platforms, pipelines and plants to increase energy efficiency. These are examples of doing well by doing good; in other words, saving money and the environment,” Lund said “We also have more than ten years of practical experience from CO2 storage, and at full capacity we can permanently store three million tonnes of CO2 in the fields where we are involved in carbon capture and storage projects, Sleipner, In Salah and Snøhvit.”