Oil firm Vitol buys quarter of carbon crediters

When oil folk go shopping, what do they buy? If Dallas is anything to go by, kidney-shaped pools, shoulder pads, ten gallon hats and even more gallons of gin for the good old gals to drown their sorrows in. If this week’s news is anything to go by, they buy stakes in carbon abatement companies.

Oil conglomerate Vitol has decided to take out its wallet and avail itself of a 25 percent stake in Carbon Resource Management, a company which develops wind, biomass and coal mine methane projects which can then “enable developing countries to develop carbon abatement initiatives, with the certificates of qualifying projects being sold into industrialised countries to fund the initiatives”.

As well as putting in cash now, Vitol will be funding future development of the carbon negating goodness.

CRM is doing a lot in China on the carbon front, where it’s got one-sixth of the certified emission reductions market. It’s recently got the thumbs-up to go ahead with 12 projects in the country, including three biomass projects, seven windfarms, a hydropower scheme and a coal mine methane project.