British bank Natwest cuts lending to oil and gas sector

Signage for NatWest bank in London February 14, 2012. REUTERS/Luke MacGregor

LONDON, Feb 18 (Reuters) – British lender Natwest (NWG.L) slice lending to purchasers in the oil and fuel sector by 21{797b2db22838fb4c5c6528cb4bf0d5060811ff68c73c9b00453f5f3f4ad9306b} in 2021 and aims to limit it further more as portion of attempts to decarbonise its bank loan reserve and reach web-zero emissions, it claimed on Friday.

Monetary corporations all-around the world are significantly committing to the web-zero target as aspect of efforts to have world-wide warming, despite the fact that most have yet to put organization options in location, notably above the shorter-time period. browse much more

The figures had been announced in the very first update by Natwest due to the fact it warned in 2020 it prepared to minimize off funding for larger oil and gasoline providers if they unsuccessful to have a credible system to transition to web-zero.

Natwest reported its lending to oil and gasoline corporations fell a fifth to 3.25 billion kilos ($4.43 billion) very last yr, and whole lending to the sector now manufactured up .7{797b2db22838fb4c5c6528cb4bf0d5060811ff68c73c9b00453f5f3f4ad9306b} of its total loan reserve.

“Finance is a essential enabler in the drive to Internet Zero and we are acting to assure that we are supporting to close the most unsafe exercise while championing local weather options and accelerating the velocity of changeover to the zero-carbon economy,” Main Govt Alison Rose stated in a statement.

The bank reported it was even further limiting lending, and from Jan. 1 would only lend to upstream oil and gas organizations exactly where the the greater part of their financed assets are United kingdom-dependent, and where the enterprise reports emissions by finish-2023.

A assessment of huge oil and gas companies and these with much more than 15{797b2db22838fb4c5c6528cb4bf0d5060811ff68c73c9b00453f5f3f4ad9306b} of their functions in thermal or lignite coal, which include mining, electric power technology and investing, which jointly accounted for 1.4 billion pounds in funding, discovered a lot of did not have a great adequate local weather changeover system.

As a final result, the lender explained it would quit lending and underwriting to companies accounting for 967 million kilos of the whole.

The local weather update was issued alongside the lender’s complete-12 months final results, which confirmed a leap in pretax revenue to 4 billion pounds. examine a lot more

($1 = .7336 kilos)

(This tale corrected to make clear organizations established to drop upcoming funding, paragraphs 7,8)

Reporting by Simon Jessop
Editing by Mark Potter

Our Criteria: The Thomson Reuters Rely on Ideas.