Japan energy firm Inpex sets 2050 net zero emission goal

Inpex Corp, Japan’s biggest oil and gas producer, said on Wednesday it is targeting net zero carbon emissions by 2050 through the expansion of renewable and hydrogen energy as well as the use of carbon capture technology.

The move comes after Japanese Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga pledged to make Japan carbon-neutral by 2050 and with global oil and gas companies shifting away from fossil fuel to green energy.

Inpex plans to fully offset carbon emissions from its own oil and gas production and the energy it uses by 2050. It also aims to reduce its net carbon intensity by 30% by 2030 compared to the level in 2019.

Mitigation would rely on offsetting emissions such as tree planting or carbon capture technology, which has not yet reached commercial scale.

At the same time, Inpex will its expand green energy assets such as renewable energy and hydrogen.

It will spend 20-30 billion yen ($193-$289 million) a year on decarbonisation, out of planned annual spending of 250-300 billion yen for the next five years.

“We want to become an innovator for energy transition,” Inpex President Takayuki Ueda told a news conference.

The company, which produces 580,000 barrels of oil-equivalent (BOE) per day, had previously set a target to raise the volume to 1 million BOE per day, but Ueda said the goal is no longer valid.

“As for LNG, we still believe demand will rise in the mid- and long-term, mainly in Asia, and we will keep investing in new projects,” Ueda said.

“But as for oil, we would expand assets only near existing projects…instead of starting new projects from scratch,” he said.