Santos sticking with oil and gas
Santos has come out ahead of its upcoming annual meeting to say it won’t be getting out of oil and gas any time soon.
Santos has come out ahead of its upcoming annual meeting to say it won’t be getting out of oil and gas any time soon, despite a request from a tiny group of activist shareholders.
In what has become an annual tradition in recent years, activist shareholder group Market Forces has asked Santos to consider a special resolution at its annual meeting of shareholders.
The resolutions have differed in detail, however not in intent, with the general thrust being that Santos should seek to wind down its oil and gas operations.
Santos has not always accepted the special resolutions for discussion, saying in the past that some have not met the requirements under the Listing Rules.
Last year it opted to address the matters formally despite them not being appropriately requisitioned, however the resolution considered, which would have allowed shareholders to pass “advisory resolutions” in relation to the powers vested in the board, attracted less than 6 per cent of the votes cast.
Santos said on Wednesday it had been asked by shareholders representing less than 0.01 per cent of the shares on issue to put up a resolution to request that it “report annually on how the company’s capital expenditure and operations will be managed in a manner consistent with the climate goals of the Paris Agreement, including detailing how the company will facilitate the efficient managing down of oil and gas operation and assets’’.
The company told the ASX that it had “already committed to and announced a credible pathway to achieve net-zero Scope 1 and 2 emissions by 2040’’.
“Santos does not intend to close down its oil and gas operations, as doing so would be against the interests of shareholders and would not be consistent with global climate and human development goals, particularly reducing air pollution and poverty.’’
The company said it had a strong future in the clean fuels sector, with the possibility of producing zero-emissions LNG, hydrogen and other clean fuels, “enabled by large-scale carbon capture and storage such as our proposed Moomba CCS Project, world-leading nature-based offsets such as our West Arnhem Land Fire Abatement Project and increased use of renewables and energy efficiency in our operations’’.
Market Forces has previously targeted other resources companies such as Beach Energy and Senex Energy, BlueScope Steel, and banking major Westpac.
Santos shares closed 1.2 per cent higher at $6.80 on Wednesday.
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