WE believe in action, asserted A.K. Hazarika, Director (onshore) and Director-in-charge, Carbon Management, the ONGC, tersely summing up the companys approach to the issue of climate change. The ONGCs aim is to achieve sustainable development through a holistic approach to carbon management.
On October 2, 2007, it became the first public sector undertaking to adopt a corporate policy on climate change and sustainability. On December 21, its third project for a clean development mechanism (CDM) was registered with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. This large-scale project is aimed at reducing flaring of gas from the ONGCs Uran plant. The expected annual accruable certified emission reduction (CER) is 97,740, equal to an annual earning of Rs.93 million of green revenue. The two other registered CDM projects of the ONGC are in the small category.
Hazarika said: The world today has only two options: either to stop generating GHGs [green house gases] and stop development as a corollary or synergise development with environment. The ONGC, like other oil majors, is striving to position itself as a leading organisation in sustainable management. We have an exclusive group called Carbon Management Group to synergise all our business activities in terms of sustainable development.
Ashok Baran Chakraborty, General Manager and Head (Carbon Management Group), ONGC, who is a qualified environmental scientist, said: If you can do carbon management, you can control climate change. We cannot stop exploration and production because it is our bread and butter. But we can curb climate change by cutting down the emission of carbon. The group was set up in May last. Its mandate includes identifying the ONGC projects that emit GHGs, develop CDM projects, develop climate protection strategy, disclose carbon emission in the companys balance sheet and develop sustainability reports.
The ONGC is currently developing 14 new, potential CDM projects. Our aim in developing the CDM projects is to position the ONGC in the global arena as a company committed to sustainable development. We are also developing a comprehensive trading policy for trading the CERs from the CDM projects, said Hazarika.
He called carbon dioxide CO2 capture and sequestration (CCS) the mother of all mitigating projects. It involves capture of CO2 at the source, transporting it and sequestering/storing it in a place where its chances of re-emergence will be minimum.
On February 6, the ONGC signed in New Delhi a memorandum of understanding with the Norwegian oil and gas major, StatoilHydro ASA, to develop carbon management projects. The company already has a CCS project, where the CO2 generated during the processing of sour gas at its Hazira plant in Gujarat is to be captured, transported to the nearby Ankleshwar asset and into the depleted reservoir there for enhanced oil recovery.
It is also engaged in Methane to Market (M2M), an international initiative aimed at recovery of methane, which is 23 times more potent than CO2, and its usage as fuel.
T.S. SubramanianCOMMents
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