BANKS DODGY DEALS CAMPAIGNS
About BankTrack
Visit us
Organisation
Our team
Our board
Guiding principles
Team up with us
Jobs at BankTrack
Our annual reports
Funding and finances
History
BankTrack in the media
Our privacy policy
International Bank Campaigners Gathering
Donate
2023-05-25 00:00:00
Philippines communities are fighting back against gas & LNG build-out in the Verde Island Passage
2023-03-17 00:00:00
Briefing: The role of financial institutions in decarbonising the steel sector
2023-03-09 00:00:00
Dutch bank ING supports controversial pipeline to import gas from authoritarian Azerbaijan
2023-02-23 00:00:00
Financial institutions need to address steelmaking’s coal addiction
2023-05-17 14:30:30
EACOP Financial Advisor SMBC is no longer involved with the project
2023-03-28 13:43:00
French bank Société Générale withdraws from Rio Grande LNG
2023-03-20 08:50:41
Who dares to finance Eni and Exxon’s dangerous Rovuma gas plans in Mozambique?
2023-03-14 14:59:00
New ING policy could spark bank shift away from financing oil and gas infrastructure
Connect
2023-06-01 00:00:00
BankTrack's submission to the public consultation on TNFD V0.4
2023-05-03 00:00:00
A Rotten Business: How Barclays became the go-to bank for JBS, one of the world's most destructive meat corporations
2023-04-13 00:00:00
Banking on Climate Chaos 2023
2023-04-12 00:00:00
The East African Crude Oil Pipeline (EACOP): Finance Risk Update No. 4
See all publications
Sections
Banks Dodgy Deals Campaigns
Our campaigns
Banks and Climate
Banks and Human Rights
Banks and Nature
Banks and Pandemics
Our projects
Tracking the NZBA
Banks and Putin's war in Ukraine
Tracking the Equator Principles
Tracking the PRBs
Banks and steel
End Coal Finance
Find a Better Bank
Banks and the OECD Guidelines
Media
News Publications
Fossil Banks No Thanks StopEACOP Forests & Finance Banks & Biodiversity Drop JBS Bank of Coal Don't Buy into Occupation
BankTrack
About BankTrack Visit us Organisation Our team Our board Guiding principles Team up with us Jobs at BankTrack Our annual reports Funding and finances History BankTrack in the media Our privacy policy International Bank Campaigners Gathering Donate
Successes Contact BankTrack
Donate Mailing list Facebook Twitter Login
Home › BankTrack blog ›
BankTrack News

HSBC's shift on energy lending has Suncor throwing its toys out of the pram

But new policy is no isolated move - finance for tar sands will dry up, just as it is doing for coal.
2018-08-09
By: Ryan Brightwell – BankTrack
Suncor operations in Alberta Tar Sands. Photo: Jiri Rezac, Greenpeace
2018-08-09
By: Ryan Brightwell – BankTrack

Canadian tar sands giant Suncor Energy last week split noisily with HSBC over the bank’s new Energy Policy. Suncor announced to the Financial Post that it will “sever all ties” with the bank in response to HSBC’s move, unveiled in April this year, which puts an end to new financing for tar sands projects and related pipelines.

“I have a very long list of bankers”, Suncor CEO Steve Williams has insisted. “The world’s capital is coming to offer itself to Suncor and companies like us so, no, it’s not having an impact. It’s not driving up our costs.” Perhaps Mr Williams protests too much?

Significantly, HSBC has not ruled out general finance for the likes of Suncor, and still has exposure to a dozen or so other tar sands companies to comfort it. Yet, Suncor is not alone in its anger at the bank’s partial rejection of tar sands. The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers “expressed its displeasure with the bank’s updated lending policy”, while conservative Canadians came out in support for Suncor on Twitter. The hashtag #BoycottHSBC started doing the rounds, for once for the wrong reasons.

7977
capture_tweet.jpg
center
Rally 4 Resources is "a grassroots movement from Western Canada working tirelessly to promote our resource based industries.".
Photo: Twitter

And let’s be clear about these wrong reasons: Suncor’s core business is extracting oil from Alberta’s tar sands, in a process that results in significantly higher lifecycle greenhouse gas emissions than conventional oil, as well as huge local impacts on Alberta’s boreal forest, water and communities. (Just look at the pictures.) Globally it is the second biggest company in the industry by reserves, and its recently completed Fort Hills open pit mine has an expected life span of 50 years. So this is a company that still hopes to be pumping out tar sands oil beyond 2060.

HSBC has provided Suncor with more than US$2 billion in financing over the last three years, and was the company’s third biggest bank financier over this period. Clearly a lot was at stake in the Suncor-HSBC relationship. So why was Suncor so quick to very publicly give up access to the kind of money HSBC was – and still is – providing to tar sands players? It might be that Suncor wanted to publicly hit back at HSBC for not doing what it was told, after Mr Williams claimed in June that he may have persuaded HSBC to backtrack on its new policy. Seeing the final version of the policy still exclude greenfield tar sands projects must have been humiliating.

Still, Suncor is posturing as the stronger party, claiming that HSBC’s move does not matter and that the company has “numerous financial institutions express interest in taking place.” With HSBC out of the picture, we assume the company can rely on the support of its main existing financers – the largest being Canada’s CIBC, RBC, TD Bank and BMO, together with JP Morgan Chase, Citi and Mizuho – for now at least. And BankTrack will certainly be watching to see if other banks step in to fill the HSBC-shaped hole.

But HSBC is far from being the only bank taking a step back from tar sands these days – indeed this is fast becoming standard practice among the major European banks. At least 11 major European banks beat HSBC to it in stopping tar sands project finance, including ING, Rabobank and the big three French banks.

With a bank exodus from coal in full swing and widespread, disruptive anti-tar sands activism continuing to ramp up in North America and elsewhere, finance for new tar sands projects looks like it is fast becoming a no-go area for the banking sector –  as it must if the world is to have some chance of hitting the Paris Agreement targets. Behind Suncor’s petulant reaction, perhaps the company realises its hand is not so strong, and that HSBCs policy move is a sign of things to come.

Banks

Bank of Montreal (BMO)

Canada
Active

Canadian Imperial Bank of Commerce (CIBC)

Canada
Active

Citi

United States
Active

HSBC

United Kingdom
Active

JPMorgan Chase

United States
Active

Mizuho Financial Group

Japan
Active

Royal Bank of Canada (RBC)

Canada
Active

Toronto-Dominion Bank (TD Bank)

Canada
Active
Dodgy Deals
There are no active project profiles for this item now.

Canadian tar sands

Canada
Project
On record
Oil and Gas Extraction

Canadian tar sands

Canada
Sections
Banks Policies Dodgy Deals Campaigns
Our campaigns
Banks and Climate Banks and Human Rights Banks and Nature Banks and Pandemics
Our projects
Tracking the NZBA Banks and Putin's war in Ukraine Tracking the Equator Principles Tracking the PRBs Banks and steel End Coal Finance Find a Better Bank Banks and the OECD Guidelines
Media
News Publications
Fossil Banks No Thanks StopEACOP Forests & Finance Banks & Biodiversity Drop JBS Bank of Coal Don't Buy into Occupation
BankTrack
About BankTrack Visit us Organisation Our team Our board Guiding principles Team up with us Jobs at BankTrack Our annual reports Funding and finances History BankTrack in the media Our privacy policy International Bank Campaigners Gathering Donate
Successes Contact BankTrack
Vismarkt 15
6511 VJ Nijmegen
The Netherlands
Tel: +31 24 324 9220
Contact@banktrack.org
Donate Mailing list Facebook Twitter
©2022 BankTrack
BankTrack is a registered charity in the Netherlands (ANBI) - RSIN 813874658
Find our privacy policy here

Stay up to date

Sign up now for all BankTrack's news


Make a comment

Your comment will be reviewed, before being posted