MOSCOW (MRC) -- US oil major Exxon Mobil Corp reiterated its support for methane regulations, a day after President Joe Biden’s administration came out with a slew of executive orders to address climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions, reported Reuters.
The orders map out the direction for the Democratic president's climate change and environmental agenda and reverse policies of his Republican predecessor, Donald Trump, who sought to maximize US oil, gas and coal output by removing regulations and easing environmental reviews.
Methane is the main component of natural gas. It is a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide but does not remain in the atmosphere as long.
Exxon said that it has outlined emission reduction plans to reduce methane intensity by up to half compared to 2016 levels, which is expected to result in a 40 to 50 % decrease in absolute methane emissions globally.
The largest US oil producer, under increasing pressure from investors and climate change activists, reported the emissions that result when customers use its products, for the first time this month.
The American Petroleum Institute, a powerful fossil fuel lobby, also came in support with Biden's Environment Protection Agency earlier this week, after previously supporting the Trump administration rolling back methane regulations.
As MRC informed earlier, last year, Exxon Mobil Corp announced it will lay off about 1,900 employees in the United States as the COVID-19 pandemic batters energy demand and prices.
We remind that ExxonMobil has undertaken a planned shutdown at its cracker in Singapore. The company halted operations at the cracker for maintenance on September 14, 2020. The cracker was expected to remain off-line till end-October, 2020. Located at Jurong Island, Singapore, the cracker has an ethylene production capacity of 1 million mt/year and a propylene production capacity of 450,000 mt/year.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's DataScope report, PE imports to Russia decreased in January-November 2020 by 17% year on year and reached 569,900 tonnes. High density polyethylene (HDPE) accounted for the greatest reduction in imports. At the same time, PP imports into Russia increased by 21% year on year to about 202,000 tonnes in the first eleven months of 2020. Propylene homopolymer (homopolymer PP) accounted for the main increase in imports.
ExxonMobil is the largest non-government owned company in the energy industry and produces about 3% of the world"s oil and about 2% of the world"s energy.
MRC