ExxonMobil Makes U-turn on Monitoring  of Methane Emissions

Emmanuel Addeh in Abuja

ExxonMobil has agreed to join the United Nation’s flagship methane emissions reporting programme as it seeks to present a more transparent image after years of resisting external monitoring of its approach to climate change.

The biggest western oil producer told the Financial Times that advances in technology meant it was now in a position to join the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP), a standardised reporting framework to monitor industry emissions of the potent greenhouse gas, led by the UN Environment Programme.

The decision represents a sharp U-turn for Exxon, which as recently as its annual meeting in May urged shareholders to vote against a resolution calling for it to join the programme, arguing that doing so would be “duplicative” and “unnecessary”.

“Now seems like the right time,” Vijay Swarup, Exxon’s Director of Technology, said in an interview at the company’s headquarters in Spring, Texas, just north of Houston. “What has happened over the last couple of years is the technology has evolved.

“We wanted to make sure that we had the . . . technology roadmap to meet what OGMP requires you to do,” he said. “If we say something we’re going to do it — we’re not going to say something that we can’t do,” he added.