India’s state-controlled Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) announced its $12 billion investment plan in carbon capture and energy transition projects.
The investment plan is in line with the fossil fuel giant’s strategy to reach net zero emissions across its Scope 1 and Scope 2 operations by 2038, according to chief executive Arun Kumar Singh.
“We have done our internal workings and are now confident that we can achieve net zero for Scope1 and Scope 2 emissions by 2038,” Singh said.
ONGC intends to focus more on generating electricity from renewable energy sources, i.e., wind and solar.
Green ammonia projects are also on the agenda, with one particular plant mentioned in Mangalore that will produce 1 million metric tons of green ammonia per year.
The Indian giant has already taken big steps towards decarbonizing its operations and has managed to reduce its CO2 emissions by over 12% since 2016.
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This new major investment will further give these sustainability efforts a boost, particularly as the public sector in India finds itself under ever more pressure from the government to slash emissions and align with global climate targets.
In fact, the country’s Power and Renewables Ministry has even proposed mandating the use of green hydrogen in fertilizer plants and oil refineries in order to tap into an emerging market while also minimizing their impact on the environment.
And ONGC is well ahead of the game in that it has registered 15 clean development mechanism (CDM) projects, even though it continues to focus mainly on its oil and gas operations.
In that line of thought, part of the projects ONGC will be investing in over next few years also include carbon capture, utilization and storage or CCUS.
Read more: India Prepares To Launch Its Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)
