Challenge

Energy is a good thing.  It underpins the way we live today and supports the hope of a better future. The twin engines of population growth and economic development will double energy demand by 2050.  Shell’s customers will demand more oil and chemical products and natural gas supplies.  They will insist on quality, low cost, and supply security.  At the same time, mitigating the threat of global warming will require reducing CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels.

Shell is first and foremost a supplier of oil products, chemicals, and natural gas to customers, and our main contribution to the energy challenge is to find and produce oil and gas and to process these into useful products and useable energy while reducing CO₂ emissions.

Our main contributions to reducing CO₂ emissions are in four distinct areas:

Natural Gas. Economically de-carbonizing the power generating sector must be the first priority in reducing CO₂ emissions from fossil fuels.   With Shell’s leading position in LNG and new technologies in recovering natural gas from tight formations, we can supply natural gas to replace coal in power generation.   Even without CCS, this can cost-effectively reduce CO₂ emissions by 50%, and with CCS it could virtually eliminate CO₂ emissions from power generation.

Biofuels. Our main contribution in reducing CO₂ emission in transportation will be to supply lower-carbon fuels.   We are the world’s largest supplier of fuels containing renewable components and are developing capabilities to produce sustainable biofuels components—using current processes and developing technologies for advanced biofuels that do not compete with resources for food.

Carbon Capture and Storage.   De-carbonizing power generation and large industrial emitters of CO₂ will eventually require CO₂ to be captured and stored.   Shell will advance technologies in CO₂ capture and transportation, and contribute our capabilities to characterize reservoirs and inject CO₂ underground.  We will also participate in demonstration projects involving our facilities.

Reducing Shell’s CO₂ Emissions.  Shell will improve the energy efficiency of our operations and reducing flaring of natural gas.

While these four areas are our main focus, we will contribute in other ways to reducing CO₂ emissions:  providing advanced fuels and lubricants that help customers save energy, helping customers manage their energy use, supporting market-based approaches to managing carbon emissions, supporting low cost CO₂ abatement mechanisms—like forestry, and  using our understanding of the global energy system to advocate for improved efficiency standards in transportation, building standards, and urban planning.

Peter Voser

“Government and industry both have roles to play in responding to climate change. At Shell, we focus our efforts on delivering natural gas to reduce CO₂ emissions from power generation, on biofuels to reduce CO₂ emissions from road transport, on developing carbon capture and storage technology and on improving the energy efficiency of our operations. We are proud of the UK Springboard programme, which enables small businesses to develop products and services that help combat climate change” Peter Voser, CEO, Royal Dutch Shell plc, 2011.