The Wall Street Journal - 23.08.2019

THE WALL STREET JOURNAL. ** Friday, August 23, 2019 |B5

nior director for oil and gas at

Ceres, a nonprofit focused on

sustainability.

Part of the demand for

greener gas is being driven by

utilities, which are looking for

more information on the gas

they purchase as they seek to

satisfy growing consumer de-

mand for cleaner energy. Rich-

mond, Va.-based Dominion

EnergyInc. launched a pro-

curement process this year for

gas deemed to have been re-

sponsibly sourced, andVer-

mont Gas SystemsInc. plans

to release a request for pro-

posals in the fall.

Vermont Gas hopes that re-

sponsibly fracked gas ulti-

mately will become its stan-

dard offering. “Our goal is to

stimulate responsible produc-

tion and transportation,” Chief

Executive Don Rendall said.

The initiatives would piggy-

back onto more-established

programs that charge custom-

ers a premium for methane

produced by landfills and

farms, dubbed renewable nat-

ural gas.

Institutions such as Middle-

Groups Work on

Standards for Gas

Groups are working to de-

velop credible standards to de-

clare certain sources of gas as

greener than others.

Criteria for responsibly

fracked gas have included leak

rates, water contamination lev-

els and engagement with area

residents.

New Jersey Natural Gas Co.

agreed to pay an undisclosed

premium for responsibly pro-

duced gas from Southwestern

Energy Co. that was evaluated

by ratings firm Independent En-

ergy Standards Corp. The fuel

made up 14% of the utility’s

supply, according to a spokes-

man, who said it closed a sec-

ond deal with Southwestern in

May. New Jersey Natural Gas

doesn’t market this greener gas

to customers separately or

charge more for it.

Hervé Mahé, a restaurant

owner in Burlington, Vt., said he

potentially would be interested

in buying greener gas, but

wouldwanttoknowmore

about how the extraction pro-

cess affected neighboring com-

munities.

“Whenever you think frack-

ing, you don’t think clean,” said

Mr. Mahé, a Vermont Gas Sys-

tems Inc. customer. “At this

point I’m not sure I would be-

lieve them until they prove it.”

Vermont Gas already offers

its customers options to pur-

chase renewable gas. The aver-

age residential customer would

pay an additional $88 a month

for all of their gas to come

from facilities such as landfills

or farms, or an extra $10 a

month for 10% renewable natu-

ral gas, according to the com-

pany’s calculator.

Software companyVMware
Inc. plans to buyPivotal Soft-
ware Inc. and cybersecurity
providerCarbon Black Inc.,
bolstering its push to allow
customers to build, manage and
secure applications across de-
vices and cloud-computing en-
vironments.
“These acquisitions address
two critical technology priori-
ties of all businesses today—
building modern, enterprise-
grade applications and
protecting enterprise work-
loads and clients,” VMware
Chief Executive Pat Gelsinger
said.
The proposed deals were
disclosed Thursday as VMware
reported results for the quarter
ended Aug. 2, including a
nearly $5 billion tax benefit
tied to the transfer of some in-
tellectual-property rights to an
Irish subsidiary.
VMware, a Silicon Valley
company that is majority-
owned byDell Technologies
Inc., holds a roughly 15% stake
in Pivotal. The proposed Pivotal
deal, which the companies val-
ued at $3.6 billion, called for
VMware paying a blended price
of $11.71 a share for each Piv-
otal share held.
Dell andFord MotorCo., an-
other large investor in Pivotal,
have agreed to vote for the Piv-
otal deal, according to a securi-
ties filing.
The Carbon Black deal offers
$26 a share for each share held,
a deal the companies valued at
$2.3 billion.
Both transactions are ex-
pected to close by Jan. 31, the
end of VMware’s business year.
“The security industry is
broken,” Mr. Gelsinger said dur-
ing a conference call with ana-
lysts, adding that the “idea of
individual products that are
bolted on and patched on is
just ineffective for customers.”

BYMARIAARMENTAL
ANDJOSHBECKERMAN

VMware

To Acquire

Pair of

Companies

BUSINESS NEWS

bury College and the Univer-

sity of Vermont Medical Cen-

ter have committed to

purchasing renewable natural

gas, which qualifies as a bio-

fuel under the federal Renew-

able Fuel Standard, to meet

sustainability targets. Meth-

ane, the primary component of

natural gas, is far more potent

than carbon dioxide in con-

tributing to climate change,

meaning it is better for the en-

vironment to capture and burn

it than to allow it to escape di-

rectly into the atmosphere.

Dominion is joiningSmith-

field FoodsInc. to develop the

infrastructure to collect

roughly 3 million cubic feet a

day of methane from hog

farms in Utah, North Carolina

and Virginia, said Gary Courts,

Dominion’s general manager

for new gas business develop-

ment. The company estimates

that is enough to power about

14,000 homes and businesses.

“Our world is changing, and

what we find is our customers

want different things,” Mr.

Courts said.

Some shale drillers want

consumers to know that their

natural gas was sustainably

fracked.

Many of the companies be-

hind the U.S. shale boom are

stepping up efforts to reduce

greenhouse-gas emissions,

toxic wastewater and other

environmental impacts tied to

fracking, amid mounting pres-

sure over climate change.

Now, drillers such as

Southwestern EnergyCo. and

BPPLC are seeking to mone-

tize those investments by

marketing their natural gas as

a cleaner fossil fuel, akin to

organic vegetables or fair-

trade coffee.

“It’s the same molecule. But

it’s not so much about what

we produce, but how we pro-

duce it,” said Mark Boling, a

former executive at South-

western, which last year

reached a deal for gas touted

as responsibly produced, sell-

ing it to utilityNew Jersey

Natural GasCo.

In Texas, BP is testing

blockchain technology that

would allow its gas to be

tracked through the supply

chain, enabling customers to

know when they are buying

BP-fracked fuel. The oil giant

is investing in technology to

limit methane leaks, and it is

part of the Oil and Gas Climate

Initiative, an industry group

whose members have pledged

to collectively cut average

methane emissions to less

than 0.25% of gas sold by

2025.

“We do all the work on the

ground to differentiate what

we produce,” said Brian Pugh,

chief innovation officer for

BP’s U.S. onshore business.

Some environmental groups

say that regulation, not green

marketing, is the way to en-

sure sustainable practices. Un-

like fair-trade standards or

federal rules that govern or-

ganic labeling, there is no

widely accepted industry defi-

nition for responsibly fracked

gas.

“It’s hard not to be dismis-

sive,” said Andrew Logan, se-

BYREBECCAELLIOTT

Shale Drillers Pitch Green Label

BP is investing in technology to limit methane leaks and using blockchain that would allow its gas to be tracked in the supply chain.

JAMES DURBIN FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

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