NatWest pledges to stop providing loans for new oil and gas projects

Bloomberg

NatWest Group Plc plans to further restrict its financing of the oil and gas industry.
The UK bank will no longer provide so-called reserve based lending for new customers, it said. From the end of December 2025, NatWest will no longer renew, refinance or extend reserve based lending for existing customers.
“We want to ensure our capital is being used to support a transition whilst continuing to reduce the financing of harmful emissions,” Alison Rose, NatWest’s chief executive officer, said in a speech. “Tackling the climate emergency is one of, if not the biggest issue of our time – and banks have a massive role to play in mobilising the power of finance to meet the net zero ambition.”
NatWest has already stopped lending to and underwriting debt for oil and gas majors without a credible transition plan aligned with the goals of the Paris agreement. And in December it became the first UK bank to have its emissions-reductions claims approved
by the Science Based Targets
initiative, a widely-respected benchmark for corporate
climate plans.
Reserve based lending refers to financing used by upstream oil and gas companies to get access to loan facilities, based on the value of a customer’s oil and gas reserves. It is repaid using the proceeds from sales. Oil and gas account for less than 1% of NatWest’s corporate lending exposures at the bank. That compares with 40% for residential mortgages.