Marubeni, Ukrainian Firm to Generate Power to Get Emission Credits
By Kyodo News International, Tokyo
Feb. 2–TOKYO — Marubeni Corp. said Friday the Japanese trading house and Ukrainian coal mining firm A. F. Zasyadko have agreed to jointly implement a project to generate power by burning methane gas from the Ukraine firm’s underground mines in order to gain greenhouse-gas emission credits.
A.F. Zasyadko earlier got approval to conduct the project from the Ukrainian Ministry for the Protection of the Environment, which is a national authority designated by the Ukrainian government to supervise businesses related to emission credits-related trading.
Under the project, methane gas will be collected from underground coal mines. Methane gas has repeatedly caused accidents by inducing explosions at Ukrainian mines, where coal facilities have become old, according to the Japanese trading house.
The project, which calls for generating power with a total of 24 electricity-generation engines by 2008 by burning methane gas, will improve the working environment for Ukrainian miners, thus helping boost coal output, it said.
The Joint Implementation Supervisory Committee, a U.N. agency to verify the feasibility of projects to cut greenhouse-gas emissions to gain emission credits, will shortly start examining the project’s ability to cut emissions, now that Marubeni got the Japanese government’s approval to take part in the Ukrainian project.
The project is expected to annually generate 2 million tons worth of emission credits during the 2008-2012 first commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol, it said.
Marubeni spokesman Takashi Hashimoto said, “Marubeni wants to buy emission credits worth a total of 10 million tons” which will result from the methane gas-based power generation project.
If Marubeni starts annually purchasing 2 million tons worth of credits, it would signify the biggest emission credits-related transaction in which a Japanese firm takes part, Marubeni said.
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