Google says it will no longer build custom artificial intelligence tools for speeding up oil and gas extraction, separating itself from cloud computing rivals Microsoft and Amazon.

The announcement followed a Greenpeace report Tuesday that documents how the three tech giants are using AI and computing power to help oil companies find and access oil and gas deposits in the U.S. and around the world.

The environmentalist group says Amazon, Microsoft and Google have been undermining their own climate change pledges by partnering with major oil companies including Shell, BP, Chevron and ExxonMobil that have looked for new technology to get more oil and gas out of the ground.

But the group applauded Google on Tuesday for taking a step away from those deals.

“While Google still has a few legacy contracts with oil and gas firms, we welcome this indication from Google that it will no longer build custom solutions for upstream oil and gas extraction,” said Elizabeth Jardim, senior corporate campaigner for Greenpeace USA.

Source: Greenpeace

Google said it will honor all existing contracts with its customers, but didn’t specify what companies.

Greenpeace’s report says Microsoft appears to be leading the way with the most oil and contracts, “offering AI capabilities in all phases of oil production.” Amazon’s contracts are more focused on pipelines, shipping and fuel storage, according to the report. Their tools have been deployed to speed up shale extraction, especially from the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico.

Report findings

Key Findings, according to Greenpeace:

  • Although it is difficult to isolate the specific impact of cloud computing and AI on production levels, it is clear that these new information technologies will play a key role in returning the industry to expansion. Accenture has estimated that advanced analytics and modeling could generate at much as $425 billion in value for the oil and gas sector by 2025.[6] In one case, we found AI technologies could boost production levels by as much as 5%.
  • Despite the crash in the price of oil, BloombergNEF predicts oil company spending on cloud computing and advanced analytics to increase from $2.5 billion in 2020 to $15.7 billion by 2030, mostly for the purposes of exploration and production. Capabilities which make it easier for oil companies to find and produce oil are a loss for the climate, yet none of the carbon emitted thanks to these advanced technologies are reflected in the tech companies’ published footprint data.
  • All three tech companies appear to be aware of the disconnect between their stated climate goals and the real world climate impact of aiding the fossil fuel sector in becoming more productive and efficient. Indeed, since public awareness about these contracts has increased, all three companies have updated their websites to target the Energy Sector, rather than Oil & Gas explicitly.
  • Microsoft appears to have the most contracts with oil and gas companies, offering AI capabilities in all phases of oil production. Microsoft can never truly achieve its recently announced “Carbon Negative” goal while continuing to aid the oil and gas sector with exploration and production. Microsoft’s contract with ExxonMobil alone could lead to emissions greater than 20% of Microsoft’s annual carbon footprint.
  • Amazon has contracts in the mid and downstream phases of oil production, focusing on pipelines, shipping, and storage for oil and gas companies. The Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud is the largest in the world, the virtual home to millions of websites, and is now being used by oil and gas firms to get oil to market more efficiently. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recently stepped up his company’s ambition on climate, announcing the Climate Pledge and his $10 billion Earth Fund. These efforts unfortunately ignore Amazon’s ongoing support of the fossil fuel sector with AI technologies.
  • Google has undergone personnel and structural changes that seem to show Google is deprioritizing these contracts, stating recently it will no longer develop custom AI/ML solutions to facilitate upstream extraction for oil and gas companies. While this is a good first step, Google still needs to account for its existing involvement with oil and gas companies, and publicly commit to wind down these contracts.
  • Much of this work is happening in the Permian Basin located in Texas and New Mexico, which has become the epicenter of the U.S. shale boom. The area contains vast oil and gas resources and enough potential carbon emissions to exhaust a significant share of our remaining carbon budget. Other regions where AI technologies are being deployed include the Atlantic Offshore, North Sea, Arctic, Gulf of Mexico, and the Tar Sands in Canada.

Some of the contracts have led to internal protests by employees who are pushing their companies to do more to combat climate change.

Amazon declined to comment on the Greenpeace report, but pointed to wording on its website that said “the energy industry should have access to the same technologies as other industries.”

Microsoft published a blog statement Tuesday that didn’t address Greenpeace’s claims but emphasized the company’s commitment to remove from the air all the carbon it has ever emitted by 2050.