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‘Biggest oil barons’: the US private equity firms funding dirty energy projects
A report, shared exclusively with the Guardian, provides a snapshot of industry’s involvement in some of the country’s most controversial fossil fuel investments
American private equity tycoons are profiteering from the global climate crisis by investing in fossil fuels which are driving greenhouse gas emissions, a new investigation reveals.
Oil and gas pipelines, coal plants and offshore drilling sites linked to Indigenous land violations, toxic leaks and deadly air pollution are among the dirty energy projects financed by some of the country’s largest private equity firms, according to an investigation by the corporate accountability non-profits LittleSis and the Private Equity Stakeholder Project (Pesp).
The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms, owns dozens of oil and gas companies including a stake in NGP Energy Capital, which boasts its own major portfolio mostly focused on fracking and drilling in states like Texas, Wyoming and Colorado. Carlyle, which recently announced a target of net zero emissions by 2050, also partners with Hilcorp Energy – a major methane emitter with a track record of offshore spills in Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico – on at least $4bn in equity and debt deals. (Methane is more than 25 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere, and accounts for about a quarter of today’s global heating.)
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR) has a controlling stake in the Coastal Gaslink pipeline in Canada, a 400-mile multibillion-dollar infrastructure project through unceded Indigenous territories that will transport fracked gas to a Pacific coast port for export to Asia. Police have deployed to evict protests and blockades organised by the hereditary chiefs of the Wet’suwet’en Nation. Co-founder Henry Kravis is a major Republican donor, donating $1m to Trump’s 2017 inauguration fund.
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