Britain's Advertising Standards Authority has banned US oil major ExxonMobil from continuing to show a TV advert saying liquefied natural gas is one of the cleanest fuels, the watchdog said today.
Four viewers had challenged Exxon's claim that "natural gas is one of the world's cleanest fuels" and complained that the advertisement, which had been running on British television over summer, falsely implied LNG was environmentally friendly.
"We concluded that the ad misleadingly implied that natural gas was one of the cleanest sources of energy and that liquefied natural gas was environmentally friendly," the advertising watchdog said in a statement.
"The ad must not be broadcast again in its current form."
The ASA rejected Exxon's defence that it had only said gas was one of the cleanest fossil fuels, which is factually correct, and had not claimed that LNG was environmentally friendly.
Exxon's representatives argued that the majority of viewers would understand that no fossil fuel was "clean" in comparison with renewable energy sources.
But the ASA concluded that although the advert did not say LNG had been developed in an environmentally friendly way "we considered that was how viewers would interpret it."
