Environmental protection is fundamental to how we operate and we make strenuous efforts to reduce climate change and biodiversity loss.
As part of protecting the planet, we have committed to being a responsible energy producer with the aim of reaching zero emissions by 2040 or earlier. Rigorous risk assessments and robust working methods support our focus on minimising our environmental impact and we continue to make progress with regard to benchmarking, measuring and protecting biodiversity.
READ MORE ABOUT OUR ENVIRONMENTAL FOCUS IN OUR SUSTAINABILITY REPORT
Objectives
Our key environmental objectives are:
- Maintain our licence to operate, and
- Provide a safe and healthy working environment.
We have identified seven material issues that direct our focus within this arena.
We aim to reduce our carbon emissions whilst managing the trajectory of the oil and gas industry in the desire to deliver reliable and affordable global energy. We seek ways to fundamentally understand and address our climate and environmental impact while acknowledging the continued requirement for oil and gas resources as the world moves towards a net zero status. We are delivering on our decarbonisation promise and have pursued our offset programme while advancing our reporting against TCFD recommendations.
We have a key focus on addressing climate change through the reduction of GHG emissions by demonstrating our Avoid, Reduce, Substitute, Sequester and Offset principles. We have progressed our equity reporting, and a comprehensive baseline survey in Egypt has given us an opportunity to apply new approaches and techniques to lower emissions. We have also been developing a suite of decarbonisation projects in Egypt, including flare reduction, waste heat recovery units and the use of biofuels and hydrogen.
Reducing fossil fuel consumption is a focus throughout our supply chain and is part of supplier selection, supporting us as we continue to make substantial improvements in our energy use. Supply chain partners and contractors must submit daily, monthly and annual fuel consumption data, while our own hybrid working practice further support our focus on reducing the consumption of fossil fuels.
We’re committed to increasing the time and resources available to protect biodiversity and ecosystems and have been building new tools and guidelines to better assess and manage risk within this important area. Our Biodiversity Framework provides a cross-operational approach to identify, assess and mitigate potential impacts, and follow numerous initiatives, such as those from TNFD, Align, CDP and GRI, while delivering internal training events to increase biodiversity awareness and management.
Minimising our operational discharges and emissions is an important part of our commitment to the environment and we seek to comply with best industry practices. This will have a particular focus as we move to a more active phase in our Egyptian operations.
We take our responsibility to protecting and maintaining water sources and quality very seriously and received an improved B score in our CDP Water Security Submission. Our operational guidelines have clear policies and commitments, such as the efficient use of water, to help ensure the communities we work within have access to clean and safe water.
We use a Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and Recover policy across our operational sites and offices with the aim of minimising and eventually eliminating waste. This policy is applied from initial project definition through to the end-of-life management of assets, and our Egyptian onshore exploration programme in 2022 included detailed Waste Management Plans to support the minimisation of waste in line with international and local guidelines and regulations.
More detailed information can be found on all of our material issues in our Sustainability Report.
Case Study
COP27
Capricorn Energy took part in the British Egyptian Business Association (BEBA) event
at COP27 in Sharm El-Sheikh. BEBA provided a platform for key players from the
government and industry to come together and share knowledge and experience on
how to accelerate implementation of clean energy projects across different sectors of
the Egyptian economy, supporting COP27’s key themes on Adaptation and
Implementation.
Capricorn Energy’s Transition Director, Dr Valentina Kretzschmar, shared insights on the Company’s net zero by 2040 decarbonisation pathway, reflecting our strong commitment to being a responsible oil and gas producer. Dr Kretzschmar discussed the challenges the current compounding energy and economic crises are posing for decarbonisation efforts, as the world tries to solve the energy trilemma, balancing the security of energy supply, affordability and sustainability.
Dr Kretzschmar focused the discussion on the importance of decarbonisation of fossil fuels, which currently account for more than 80% of global primary energy demand and will continue to dominate the global energy mix for the next few decades. Capricorn Energy’s climate and energy transition Strategy is underpinned by its decarbonisation efforts, including stopping flaring, electrifying operations and using carbon capture, utilisation and storage (CCUS).
Case Study
Emissions Reduction: Diadem exploration well
The operated Diadem exploration well,
drilled earlier this year in the UK Central
North Sea, presented one of the first opportunities for Capricorn to put their emissions reduction planning into action.
The first stage of this was to develop and present our emissions reduction plan and corporate net zero strategy to the UK environmental regulators as part of our drilling permit environmental assessment. Through the development of this plan, we identified the aspects of the project that have the greatest impact on emissions and worked out the best process for reducing the atmospheric impact. Our planning also ensured that the Diadem work aligned with the Energy White Paper, the North Sea Transition Deal and OPRED’s Net Zero Strategy.
With the implementation of this plan, Capricorn kept the emissions from drilling operations to a minimum. The plan detailed how we use energy efficiency and emissions as a differentiating factor in our contractor selection, how we designed the project to minimise the environmental impact in the event of a discovery and how we selected a drilling rig equipped with specialist NO x reducing units in its engines along with a suite of other emissions reduction strategies.
Our approach and presentation of our emissions reduction plan was highly commended during our drilling permit application process. Capricorn continues to look for new ways to reduce our emissions footprint and we shall be implementing similar emissions reduction plans in future operations.