A coalition of oil and gas companies which cumulatively produce more than 40 percent of the world’s oil announced this month that they have reduced their upstream methane emissions by 55 percent and cut greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from flaring by nearly half since 2017.
The companies are members of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative (OGCI), which released its annual progress report in November. OGCI is comprised of 12 of the world’s leading oil and gas companies: Aramco, bp, Chevron, CNPC, Eni, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Occidental, Petrobras, Repsol, Shell and TotalEnergies. All of them have committed to reducing upstream methane emissions to near zero by 2030, and more broadly, net zero operational emissions by 2050.
Similar drops in methane emissions, flaring, and carbon intensity are happening at a wider scale across the industry, from national pipeline operators to independent producers in West Texas.
In a climate report released in November 2024, the Interstate Natural Gas Association of America found that the methane emissions intensity of its members fell from 2021 to 2022, even as the total amount of natural gas they transported increased. Total methane emissions from INGAA’s membership also fell; in 2022 total emissions were 254,502 Metric Tons (MT) – an improvement of 17,081 MT from 2021.
In the Permian Basin in West Texas – one of the most prolific basins in the world – methane emissions intensity fell by nearly 85 percent between 2011 and 2022. This drop in intensity is in part thanks to aggressive adaptation of technology to identify potential methane leaks, harnessing tech like drones, AI-based satellite analytics, and on-site sensors.
Read the full post on EIDClimate.org.
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