Options exist already to drive down international methane emissions – they only must be correctly utilised by oil and gasoline corporations for the business to maintain to their pledges, says Mark Brownstein, senior vp of power transition on the Environmental Protection Fund (EDF), a worldwide non-profit organisation targeted on tackling local weather change and environmental points.
This, he famous, might be key to the oil and gasoline business proving that they’re a constructive accomplice within the power transition.
“Whereas it sounds prefer it’s an unimaginable activity, the actual fact is that the applied sciences are there. It’s nearly making use of them now,” Brownstein pressured.
Methane is certainly the second-largest contributor to local weather change after carbon dioxide and is accountable for virtually a 3rd of the rise in international temperatures for the reason that Industrial Revolution.
The oil and gasoline business is accountable for roughly 60 per cent of human-induced methane emissions, with about half of those emissions coming from flaring and methane launched throughout operations, in response to the Worldwide Vitality Company (IEA).
Greater than 10 per cent of methane leaks and emissions in Southeast Asia stems from the oil and gasoline business.
Focusing on this potent greenhouse gasoline, which has greater than 80 occasions the warming energy of carbon dioxide over the primary 20 years after it reaches the environment, presents a “fast but ample” alternative to quickly drive down carbon emissions – a problem extra urgent than ever within the wake of 2023 being the hottest yr recorded up to now.
“When you consider it, addressing methane emissions might scale back the temperature enhance by a tenth to two-tenths of a level. That’s a giant deal when you think about how warming is already dangerously near the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold referenced within the Paris Settlement,” Brownstein added.
Tackling the unseen
Methane emissions, nevertheless, have gone undetected by oil and gasoline gamers for a few years as a result of lack of measured information to quantify methane leaks from their operations.
Firms have as a substitute relied on inaccurate engineering estimates and solely later found the precise extent of the issue utilizing measurement applied sciences.
In line with Brownstein, methane emissions in the USA alone had been 60 per cent greater than reported. “When folks consider oil and gasoline [companies], they often take into consideration carbon dioxide accumulating within the environment for hundreds of years and the way this drives warming over time. Many don’t realise that these corporations are additionally a supply of methane air pollution,” Brownstein stated.
Whereas methane is typically launched deliberately for security causes from oil and gasoline services, or to take care of strain in pipelines, most methane leaks outcome from gear failures, intentional releases, and the underreporting of emissions.
Methane leaks are sometimes massive sufficient to be outlined as “super-emitter occasions” releasing large quantities of methane into the environment over a interval of a number of weeks. One gasoline storage facility in Los Angeles, California, leaked virtually 100,000 tonnes of methane into the environment over 4 months in 2015.
Whereas the world has seen some progress as of late, it’s removed from sufficient, in response to environmental teams.
Some 50 oil and gasoline corporations accountable for half of world oil manufacturing pledged to achieve close to zero methane emissions and to finish routine flaring of their operations by 2030 on the United Nations Local weather Change Convention in Dubai (COP28) on 2 December 2023.
The pledge, which incorporates oil giants equivalent to ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, Shell, TotalEnergies, and BP, was shortly criticised by inexperienced teams, who known as it a “smokescreen to cover the fact that we have to section out oil, gasoline and coal” in a letter.
Whereas there was a extra hanging local weather deal – which noticed over 200 nations agree on the necessity to “transition away from fossil fuels in power techniques” on the ultimate day of COP28 negotiations – no timescale was specified. The deal additionally lacks the extra financing growing nations require to transition away from fossil fuels.
“The problem now could be to take the commitments that just a few corporations have made and make that the usual apply throughout the business – not simply the worldwide family names like Shell, TotalEnergies, and Exxon, but additionally regional corporations like Pertamina,” stated Brownstein.
Pertamina is the largest oil and gasoline firm in Indonesia and is accountable for roughly 60 per cent of the nation’s oil manufacturing and 80 per cent of the nation’s pure gasoline manufacturing.
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Let’s not overlook that over half of the world’s oil and gasoline manufacturing is within the palms of state-owned and nationwide oil corporations – most of them from the World South. Except we’ve got these nationwide oil corporations totally engaged on this subject, we received’t achieve success in reaching the type of reductions that may be achieved.
Mark Brownstein
Holding corporations accountable
One other mechanism that oil and gasoline corporations can adhere to in demonstrating their dedication to abating methane is the United Nations’ Oil & Gasoline Methane Partnership 2.0 (OGMP 2.0).
The OGMP 2.0 offers corporations with a regular framework to report their emissions utilizing precise measured information to enhance the accuracy of methane emissions reporting and immediately join it to strategic mitigation. Key founding companions of the OGMP 2.0 embody EDF, Local weather And Clear Air Coalition (CCAC), and the European Fee.
Whereas 80 oil and gasoline corporations have dedicated to measuring and lowering their methane emissions via the OGMP 2.0, it’s nonetheless a voluntary initiative and depends on self-reported information from taking part corporations, that are nonetheless topic to inaccuracies or manipulation. The OGMP 2.0 additionally focuses totally on methane emissions from upstream oil and gasoline operations, which can not seize the complete scope of emissions throughout your entire worth chain.
There’s a have to confirm these corporations independently, Brownstein emphasised, equivalent to via the Worldwide Methane Emissions Observatory, which makes use of satellites to collect information to publish an annual report on the business’s emissions.
EDF additionally hopes that its methane-tracking satellite tv for pc, known as MethaneSAT, which launches in March this yr, will present detailed data on greater than 80 per cent of oil and gasoline operations worldwide, starting from the supply of methane emissions to the speed at which the gasoline is emitted.
How regulators can implement methane abatement
Worldwide regulators are equally accountable for implementing the obligatory measuring, reporting and abatement of methane emissions. “Regulators are key to enabling clear measurement, reporting, and verification processes for methane emissions, both via themselves or third-party verification our bodies,” stated Dr Victor Nian, co-founder and CEO of the Centre for Strategic Vitality and Sources (CSER).
The US’ Environmental Safety Company issued a “ultimate rule” additionally on 2 December 2023 that goals to scale back methane almost 80 per cent beneath preliminary projections and forestall “an estimated 58 million tons of methane emissions from 2024 to 2038.”
Included within the new rule is a “Tremendous Emitter Programme” that enables third events, together with environmental teams, to detect and report massive methane releases from oil and gasoline websites, and requires the oil and gasoline business to section out routine pure gasoline flaring at new oil wells, amongst different necessities.
Future insurance policies, Nian added, might mandate methane emission reductions in chosen sectors by together with nationwide greenhouse gasoline stock accounting, which is the method of measuring and reporting greenhouse gasoline emissions on the nationwide stage. Higher insurance policies must also mandate company carbon emission accounting requirements, which consult with measuring and reporting an organization’s carbon emissions.
Over half of the methane emissions from the oil and gasoline business stem from operation and maintenance-related deficiencies, which then result in methane leaks, Brownstein stated.
The EPA’s laws additionally require “complete monitoring” for methane leaks from nicely websites – the place drilling takes place to entry subsurface reservoirs containing petroleum or pure gasoline – and compressor stations, that are services that preserve the strain and move price of pure gasoline shifting via pipelines.
The rule additionally creates requirements for lowering emissions from gear equivalent to controllers, pumps, and storage tanks, with the EPA noting that oil and gasoline corporations should select “low-cost and progressive methane monitoring applied sciences” to detect leaks.
The laws require corporations to conduct common inspections to seek out and repair leaks, exchange older gear concerned in releasing methane, and set up vapour restoration tanks on strain reduction valves to gather gasoline in a tank as a substitute of being launched into the environment.
“Though we use satellites to determine the issues, fixing the methane drawback within the oil and gasoline business just isn’t rocket science – it’s extra of an auto mechanics or plumbing subject,” added Brownstein.
One dimension doesn’t match all
Past regulation, financial incentives ought to be allotted for oil and gasoline corporations – notably these in growing nations – to deal with methane leaks, stated Brownstein.
“We frequently argue that each molecule of methane that goes into the environment is one much less molecule of pure gasoline that can be utilized to satisfy power wants,” he defined. “When methane goes to waste, it’s a waste of a worthwhile power useful resource.”
Regardless of the pledges at COP28, little might be achieved except oil and gasoline corporations put in place a correct framework to show their efforts in addressing the problem.
“[Oil and gas] corporations want to ascertain a correct ESG framework, with a deal with governance, to indicate how they perform the correct monitoring, accounting, reporting and verification of methane leakage, together with a clear plan of motion on mitigation and prevention measures,” Nian famous.
This consists of plans to attain internet zero carbon emissions on or earlier than 2050, famous Brownstein.
“Let’s not overlook that over half of the world’s oil and gasoline manufacturing is within the palms of state-owned and nationwide oil corporations – most of them from the World South,” he stated. “Except we’ve got these nationwide oil corporations totally engaged on this subject, we received’t achieve success in reaching the type of reductions that may be achieved.”
Nian famous that substantial methane emissions discount is achievable, supplied the assorted stakeholders are dedicated to addressing the problem.
“Carbon seize, utilisation and storage, various fuels, and a change in consumption habits all play a task in enabling deep decarbonisation pathways. Every nation, nevertheless, wants to make sure they’re doing so on a sustainable pathway via implementing nationally applicable mitigation actions, all whereas holding their internet zero aim in thoughts,” Nian stated, including that whereas developed economies are calling for internet zero targets, rising economies might must proceed counting on fossil fuels of their power transition journey in the meanwhile.
“Except the world modifications its considering and technological processes in manufacturing, the oil and gasoline business will at all times have a task in supporting the correct functioning of the economic system.”
