While Germany is trying to build up hydrogen partnership with Russia, and while Russia is pushing for stronger measures to protect climate and environment, the country’s oil and gas industry faces accidents with serious environmental impact on a regular basis. The oil and gas business, which has been notoriously non-transparent for decades, can now be seen a little more open to the public. This is what the studies held by WWF Russia and Creon Group say. Creon, the investment and advisory company, sees a growing transparency trend in the oil and gas connected with the decarbonisation efforts of the EU.
Source: Tagesspiegel Background (German)
This year’s environmental transparency ranking of 18 largest oil and gas producers in Russia shows a positive trend in disclosing environmental damage information, as WWF and Creon announced on Friday. Moreover, the leaders in the rating have entered a fierce competition to win the top rankings.
Zarubezhneft won the first place in the ranking, followed by Surgutneftegaz, Lukoil, Sakhalin Energy and Exxon Neftegas. The two largest producers, Gazprom and Rosneft, became eighth and ninth, accordingly. Gazprom’s rating has improved the most, moving the company up two lines. The Russian-German joint venture Achimgaz with the participation of Wintershall Dea and Gazprom was not rated. According to Creon, the rating calculation takes into account the impact on air, water, soil and ecology, as well as the environmental management of the companies and their willingness to disclose relevant data.
Deputy Head of the EU Delegation in Russia, Aleska Simkic, commented that “a new generation of corporate reporting that takes environmental risks to heart” is important for investor confidence. Creon founder Fares Kilzie said the rating results documented that Russian companies understood and accepted the importance of the energy transition in Europe.
