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Shell’s emissions

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  • The Guardian, 
  • Wednesday October 15 2008

Phil Bloomer of Oxfam comments on Shell’s global emissions and the emissions from our oil sands projects in Canada (Letters, October 10). Unfortunately, he has not compared figures in a like-for-like manner. As he points out, Shell is one of the few companies that reports broadly on emissions, including the emissions from the use of our products. But the emissions that we are directly responsible for, ie from the operations at all our refineries, oil and gas production platforms and oil sands mines around the world (in 140 countries) were 92m tonnes in 2007, which is equivalent to about one-sixth of UK emissions. Our oil sands investments contributed direct emissions of 2m tonnes in 2007, together with a further 1.6m tonnes in electricity-use-related emissions.

Emissions including the use of our products is expressed in a so-called wells-to-wheels calculation. In Shell’s case in 2006, that is 847m tonnes globally. And since Mr Bloomer uses that figure to compare with the UK’s emissions, he should, in fairness, also have used it in the comparison of emissions from the end use of oil-sands fuels with emissions from the end use of fuels from conventional oil. On that basis, emissions from oil sands are about 15% higher than from conventional oil.
David Hone
Shell Group climate change adviser

Guardian Article

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