By Ndubuisi Micheal Obineme
Equinor, a Norwegian energy giant, has announced a new investment focus in onshore and offshore renewables, aiming to adopt hydrogen, ammonia, biofuels as it moves to become a net-zero company by 2050.
The Norwegian energy giant has set a clear ambitious target to use ammonia on its offshore vessels by 2024 as part of the company’s energy transition strategy to explore opportunities in offshore renewable energy sources.
At SAIPEC 2021, Christel Kvalvik, Managing Director, Equinor Nigeria Energy Company Ltd, disclosed this during her presentation in the panel session titled “IOCs perspective on Dynamics’s of Sub- Saharan Africa’s Energy, Oil and Gas as we Strive to a Low Carbon Future.”
Christel said that Equinor has developed a new international business portfolio that includes onshore and offshore renewables which make the company take a more holistic approach to work closely with government and industry stakeholders to share experience, technology, and resources.
She also affirmed that Equinor has developed three pillars to become a net-zero company which are centralised on carbon efficiency, renewables and decarbonisation.
She explained, “We have assets and partner-operated assets in more than 20 countries. Equinor’s objectives are to turn natural resources into energy for people and progress for society.
“We are looking at electrifying some of our offshore assets with power cables from land, and offshore wind turbines.
“We are also doing integrated onshore base ports which guide the totality of our portfolio on the Norwegian Continental Shelf on both production and emissions.
“In our new climate roadmap, we have introduced the ambition to have a carbon-neutral global operation by 2030. We are also looking at various range of digital tools to reduce emissions from our current operations. This means by that time, the remaining emissions from our oil and gas operations will be compensated by nature-based solutions.
“We are test running hydrogen, ammonia, biofuels. By 2024, we will have some of our vessels running 300 hours with ammonia.
“We have a very close collaboration with the maritime industry on green shipping. We are working together to improve selling patterns, reduce consumption and developing new fuels. We are also working very closely with the Norwegian government, suppliers, and with various industries,” she added.
Equinor is growing its renewable energy capacity and developing as a global offshore wind major while strengthening the company’s industry-leading position on carbon-efficient production in line with the Paris Agreement.
According to Christel, Equinor has powered more than one million homes with renewables, offshore wind from UK and Germany.
In her words, “The second pillar in our strategy is profitable growth in renewables. We will increase our installed capacity on renewable energy between 12-16 GW by 2026. This translates to annual average growth of more than 30% in electricity production.
“The final pillar in our strategy is decarbonisation. We will look at this from different angles. There is also a very important building block for our net-zero ambition which is Capturing & Storing C02 underground.
“Equinor has a long history of storing C02 in the North Sea. We will build on this experience when we are part of developing a full-scale value chain for carbon-capturing storage,” she said.