https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/12/climate/methane-natural-gas-flaring.html
By Hiroko Tabuchi
Sept. 12, 2020, 9:14 a.m. ET
Last summer, oil and gas-industry groups were lobbying to overturn federal rules on leaks of natural gas, a major contributor to climate change. Their message: The companies had emissions under control.
In private, the lobbyists were saying something very different.
At a discussion convened last year by the Independent Petroleum Association of America, a group that represents energy companies, participants worried that producers were intentionally flaring, or burning off, far too much natural gas, threatening the industry’s image, according to a recording of the meeting reviewed by The New York Times.
“We’re just flaring a tremendous amount of gas,” said Ron Ness, president of the North Dakota Petroleum Council, at the June 2019 gathering, held in Colorado Springs. “This pesky natural gas,” he said. “The value of it is very minimal,” particularly to companies drilling mainly for oil.
A well can produce both oil and natural gas, but oil commands far higher prices. Flaring it is an inexpensive way of getting rid of the gas.
Yet the practice of burning it off, producing dramatic flares and attracting criticism, represented a “huge, huge threat” to the industry’s efforts to portray natural gas as a cleaner and more climate-friendly energy source, he said, and that was damaging the industry’s image, particularly among younger generations.
“What’s our message going forward?” Mr. Ness said. “What’s going to stick with those young people and make them support oil and gas?”
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Natural gas, when burned (whether in a flare, or to fuel a household oven), typically emits just half the planet-warming greenhouse gases that coal does. But by flaring off natural gas, rather than capturing it for use, companies are creating pollution without creating usable energy.
Many companies do directly drill for and capture natural gas for use. But researchers have warned that drilling for the gas also causes sizable leaks of methane directly into the atmosphere, which is even more damaging for the climate than flaring the gas. Methane can also escape faulty flares, and companies sometimes also deliberately release the gas from wells and pipelines in a practice known as venting.
Methane can trap more than 80 times more heat in the earth’s atmosphere than carbon dioxide, over the shorter term. Research has shown that methane emissions from oil and gas production are far larger than previously estimated.
To address the issue, the Obama administration had proposed new regulations that would have required, among other measures, that oil and gas companies install technology to detect and fix methane leaks from their wells, pipelines and storage facilities.
But a coalition of oil and gas companies pushed the Trump administration to abandon those rules. It said the industry was already regulated by state laws and was already equipped to plug leaks on its own without federal rules. Lobbyists argued that the companies were already incentivized to rein in methane emissions, given that gas is a valuable resource.
•••••
But speaking a few months earlier, at the June 2019 meeting, Mr. Ness appeared to contradict that argument. There is such a glut of natural gas, he said, that some producers that drill primarily for oil have little use for the gas that comes up with it. Yet “you’ve got to manage your gas to produce your oil.”
The pushback against more stringent methane rules has been led by smaller, independent producers who argued the rules were unfairly burdensome for smaller drillers, because they could not afford to invest in costly leak-detection and capture technology.
Oil giants like BP, on the other hand, urged the federal government to keep methane regulations in place, saying it was “the right thing to do.”
But speaking a few months earlier, at the June 2019 meeting, Mr. Ness appeared to contradict that argument. There is such a glut of natural gas, he said, that some producers that drill primarily for oil have little use for the gas that comes up with it. Yet “you’ve got to manage your gas to produce your oil.”
The pushback against more stringent methane rules has been led by smaller, independent producers who argued the rules were unfairly burdensome for smaller drillers, because they could not afford to invest in costly leak-detection and capture technology.
Oil giants like BP, on the other hand, urged the federal government to keep methane regulations in place, saying it was “the right thing to do.”
•••••
But speaking a few months earlier, at the June 2019 meeting, Mr. Ness appeared to contradict that argument. There is such a glut of natural gas, he said, that some producers that drill primarily for oil have little use for the gas that comes up with it. Yet “you’ve got to manage your gas to produce your oil.”
The pushback against more stringent methane rules has been led by smaller, independent producers who argued the rules were unfairly burdensome for smaller drillers, because they could not afford to invest in costly leak-detection and capture technology.
Oil giants like BP, on the other hand, urged the federal government to keep methane regulations in place, saying it was “the right thing to do.”
•••••
But speaking a few months earlier, at the June 2019 meeting, Mr. Ness appeared to contradict that argument. There is such a glut of natural gas, he said, that some producers that drill primarily for oil have little use for the gas that comes up with it. Yet “you’ve got to manage your gas to produce your oil.”
The pushback against more stringent methane rules has been led by smaller, independent producers who argued the rules were unfairly burdensome for smaller drillers, because they could not afford to invest in costly leak-detection and capture technology.
Oil giants like BP, on the other hand, urged the federal government to keep methane regulations in place, saying it was “the right thing to do.”
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