Oil group Equinor should clarify local weather discrepancy, minority house owners say

OSLO (Reuters) -The board of Norway’s Equinor should clarify how the corporate’s plan to lift oil and gasoline manufacturing aligns with its acknowledged dedication to the Paris settlement on curbing local weather change, a bunch of minority shareholders stated on Tuesday.

Equinor, which is 67% authorities owned, this 12 months joined the likes of Shell and BP in promising greater petroleum output whereas scaling again funding in renewables.

In a decision to be voted on at Equinor’s Might 14 annual normal assembly, the minority house owners stated there have been “materials inconsistencies” between the corporate’s local weather technique and the coverage expectations expressed by its majority shareholder.

These expectations, laid out by Noway’s authorities two years in the past, included Equinor setting targets and implementing measures to scale back greenhouse gasoline emissions “in each the quick and long run” in step with the 2015 Paris local weather accord.

“Different shareholders have affordable expectations that the corporate would transfer in direction of alignment with the expectations of the bulk shareholder. As a substitute, Equinor has gone in the wrong way,” Brynn O’Brien, head of the Australasian Centre for Company Accountability (ACCR), which co-filed the movement, stated in an announcement.

Equinor’s board of administrators, nonetheless, requested the shareholders to reject the movement, which was additionally filed by Danish pension fund Sampension and Swedish pension fund Folksam.

The board stated in an announcement it thought of the corporate’s technique and its enterprise mannequin to be in step with international local weather targets.

“Eventualities of future vitality wants, together with these aligned with limiting international warming to 1.5 levels Celsius, point out that oil and gasoline will probably be required for many years to come back,” it added.

Equinor is Europe’s largest provider of pipeline gasoline.

The result of the vote will depend upon the place of the Norwegian authorities, which usually backs the board’s place at AGMs.

The trade ministry didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.

(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis, modifying by Terje Solsvik)