French Bank BNP Paribas Says It Will No Longer Fund Shale Cos.

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We spotted a Reuters story trumpeting word from BNP Paribas–France’s largest bank–that it will no longer “work with oil and natural gas companies that primarily do business in shale or oil sands.” Why? “It plans to boost support for renewable energy projects.” We found that interesting, because BNP Paribas has had a hand in financing a myriad of projects–in the Marcellus/Utica region. Many of the projects they’ve underwritten are in the midstream (pipeline companies), and the downstream (gas-fired electric generating plants). Does the ban on working oil and natural gas companies extend to them? After all, they flow the gas fracked from shale (or oil sands), or burn fracked gas in the case of power plants. Will BNP pull its part of the $400 million credit line from Eureka Midstream (see M-U Pipeline Co. Eureka Midstream Expands Line of Credit to $400M)? Will BNP pull its $460 million worth of loans for the Lawrence County, PA fracked shale gas-fired electric plant (see Ground Broken for Lawrence County, PA NatGas-Fired Electric Plant)? Will BNP pull its backing of hundreds of millions of dollars from two fracked gas-fired OH power plants it’s involved with (see Fluor & Clean Energy Partner to Build 2 OH NatGas Electric Plants). You get our point. This is nothing more than a rankly hypocritical, sleazy, pandering, pusillanimous publicity stunt. Totally meaningless…

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