Solutions already exist to drive down global methane emissions – they just have to be properly utilised by oil and gas companies for the industry to keep to their pledges, says Mark Brownstein, senior vice president of energy transition at the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), a global non-profit organisation focused on tackling climate change and environmental issues.
This, he noted, will be key to the oil and gas industry proving that they are a constructive partner in the energy transition.
“While it sounds like it’s an impossible task, the fact is that the technologies are there. It is just about applying them now,” Brownstein stressed.
Methane is indeed the second-largest contributor to climate change after carbon dioxide and is responsible for almost a third of the rise in global temperatures since the Industrial Revolution.
The oil and gas industry is responsible for approximately 60 per cent of human-induced methane emissions, with about half of these emissions coming from flaring and methane released during operations, according to the International Energy Agency (IEA).
More than 10 per cent of methane leaks and emissions in Southeast Asia stems from the oil and gas industry.
Targeting this potent greenhouse gas, which has more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over the first 20 years after it reaches the atmosphere, presents a “quick yet ample” opportunity to rapidly drive down carbon emissions – a challenge more pressing than ever in the wake of 2023 being the hottest year recorded so far.
“When you think about it, addressing methane emissions could reduce the temperature increase by a tenth to two-tenths of a degree. That’s a big deal when you consider how warming is already dangerously close to the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold referenced in the Paris Agreement,” Brownstein added.
Tackling the unseen
Methane emissions, however, have gone undetected by oil and gas players for many years due to the lack of measured data to quantify methane leaks from their operations.
Companies have instead relied on inaccurate engineering estimates and only later discovered the actual extent of the problem using measurement technologies.
According to Brownstein, methane emissions in the United States alone were 60 per cent higher than reported. “When people think of oil and gas [companies], they usually think about carbon dioxide accumulating in the atmosphere for centuries and how this drives warming over time. Many don’t realise that these companies are also a source of methane pollution,” Brownstein said.
While methane is sometimes released intentionally for safety reasons from oil and gas facilities, or to maintain pressure in pipelines, most methane leaks result from equipment failures, intentional releases, and the underreporting of emissions.
Methane leaks are often large enough to be defined as “super-emitter events” releasing massive amounts of methane into the atmosphere over a period of several weeks. One gas storage facility in Los Angeles, California, leaked almost 100,000 tonnes of methane into the atmosphere over four months in 2015.
While the world has seen some progress as of late, it is far from enough, according to environmental groups.
Some 50 oil and gas companies responsible for half of global oil production pledged to reach near zero methane emissions and to end routine flaring in their operations by 2030 at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Dubai (COP28) on 2 December 2023.
The pledge, which includes oil giants such as ExxonMobil, Saudi Aramco, Shell, TotalEnergies, and BP, was quickly criticised by green groups, who called it a “smokescreen to hide the reality that we need to phase out oil, gas and coal” in a letter.
While there was a more striking climate deal – which saw over 200 countries agree on the need to “transition away from fossil fuels in energy systems” on the final day of COP28 negotiations – no timescale was specified. The deal also lacks the additional financing developing nations require to transition away from fossil fuels.
“The challenge now is to take the commitments that a few companies have made and make that the standard practice across the industry – not just the global household names like Shell, TotalEnergies, and Exxon, but also regional companies like Pertamina,” said Brownstein.
Pertamina is the largest oil and gas company in Indonesia and is responsible for roughly 60 per cent of the nation’s oil production and 80 per cent of the country’s natural gas production.
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Let’s not forget that over half of the world’s oil and gas production is in the hands of state-owned and national oil companies –…
Read More: ‘The technologies are there’: How oil and gas companies must go beyond pledges