Contact Person:
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Operational contact: Bent Svensson Tel. + 1 202 473-6976
E-mail: bsvensson@worldbank.org OSLO, April 16, 2002--The World Bank and its partners have concluded two days of deliberations on efforts to reduce natural gas flaring. The Global Gas Flaring Reduction Initiative convened its first international conference in Oslo, Norway from April 15-16. The Initiative is led by the World Bank Group in collaboration with the Government of Norway. It was launched in Marakech, Morocco in November, 2002 with the aim of supporting national governments and the petroleum industry in their efforts to reduce the flaring and venting of gas associated with the extraction of crude oil.
The Oslo conference was the first occasion to discuss concrete activities that the Initiative could focus on. Participants emerged from the meetings with a consensus on the overall direction of the Initiative and a specific agenda of activities for going forward. The objective, going into the conference, was to see how best to proceed with the optimum goal of reducing gas flaring and creating opportunities for the poor. Representatives of governments, industry and civil society committed to work together to support each others' efforts to reduce flaring in a public/private partnership. The cooperation would create a forum and platform to disseminate best practices and ideas on implementing and financing gas flaring reduction efforts.
Flowing from this partnership, discussions focused on efforts to improve both the gathering and dissemination of data on gas flaring and venting, including the development of international measurement and reporting standards, and the collection and dissemination of upstream regulatory "best practices." Another area of activity where it was felt that the Initiative could best supplant existing efforts by companies and governments was in the provision of bilateral and multilateral technical assistance for market studies and the development of local/regional gas markets. Also addressed was the need for the development of common international standards on flaring, and a possible voluntary flaring "certification" scheme based on these standards. Participants also agreed to work toward the elimination of barriers to the importation of liquefied natural gas (LNG) in major markets, via a public-private consultation process. There was consensus on promoting the use of the World Bank Group and other multilateral and bilateral insurance and risk mitigation mechanisms for gas flaring reduction and related downstream projects. Participants encouraged traditional donors, together with private funds, to mainstream support for flaring reduction projects by smaller international and national oil companies, especially around project identification and preparation. Also underscored was assistance in designing financing mechanisms for carbon credits to be realized through gas flaring reduction projects, and investigation of the possible need for subsidies for flaring reduction projects at remote fields, in the context of "global public goods." As one of the two co-organizers of the conference, Norway's Minister for Petroleum, Einar Steensnaes, stressed his country's commitment to sustainable development and environmental protection through the Global Gas Flaring Reduction Initiative. "Norway relies significantly on petroleum production. At the same time, we are strongly committed to sustainable development and environmental protection. Hence we feel it is vital that the petroleum industry continuously improve its performance relative to evolving sustainability criteria."
World Bank Vice President for Private Sector Development & Infrastructure, Nemat Shafik also emphasized the importance of collective actions in reducing gas flaring to sustainable development, and to international development goals generally. "Collective actions of the kind we have discussed here over the past two days will result in a substantial reduction in the emission of greenhouse gases. They will engender energy diversity, as well as enhanced regional cooperation and trade and economic development," Shafik said.
Background information on the Global Gas Flaring Reduction Initiative is available on the Initiative's web site at www.ifc.org/ogc/global_gas.htm. |
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