OCBC is now coal-free: Singapore bank drops out of final coal project

Asia’s continuing investments in coal is running contrary to the ambition to reduce global GHG emissions and avert climate change impacts which were raised in Paris in 2015. Image by Johannes Plenio from Pixabay Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), Southeast Asia’s second largest bank, has dropped out of the last coal financing project that it is involved in, Eco-Business can reveal. The move away from a financing collective for the 1,200-megawatt Vung Ang 2 coal-fired power station in Vietnam marks a major strategic rethink for the Singapore-based financial services firm, which in January 2018 was identified as Southeast Asia’s largest backer of coal projects in recent years. Sources close to the Vung Ang 2 project confirmed that the bank dropped out during the early stages, when discussions were underway to form the financing collective. In April, OCBC chief executive Samuel Tsien announced that it would back away from new coal financing, but the bank still had two projects in play. After the Van Phong 1 coal project in Vietnam reached financial close in August , that left only Vung Ang 2 that OCBC was involved in. “OCBCs decision to withdraw from the funding consortium for Vung Ang 2, one of […]

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