Idemitsu may sell coal with emissions rights
Date: 14-May-02
Country: JAPAN
The move will be backed by Idemitsu's reforestation project in Australia where the firm started to plant eucalyptus trees in April at a coal mine that it owns, a company spokesman said.
It would be the first move by a Japanese oil firm to sell fuel linked to greenhouse gas emission rights.
"We are considering selling coal that grants greenhouse gas emissions rights. We eventually hope to sell the coal to buyers in Japan and Australia," said a spokesman at Idemitsu, Japan's third-largest oil firm.
"We expect demand (for our product) to grow in the future as energy firms will be required to take further environmental steps," he said.
To meet conditions under the international Kyoto pact on global warming, energy firms will be required to take additional environmental steps. Idemitsu's plan would help lessen their burden as it would grant emission rights to buyers of its coal.
Idemitsu plans to plant about 960,000 eucalyptus trees on an 820-hectare area of Ebenezer coal field in eastern Australia over the next few years.
The field produces about one million tonnes of coal per year. The trees will absorb an estimated 25,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide annually.
As a first step, it will spend 25 million yen ($195,900) to plant 160,000 trees.
Countries around the world are seeking to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases under the 1997 Kyoto treaty. Japan's guidelines under the pact call for the nation's industrial sector to cut such emissions by seven percent by 2010 from 1990 levels.
