Advancing Global Consistency in Estimating Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Oil and Gas Industry Operations

Application of the API Compendium of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimation Methodologies for the Oil and Gas Industry to Examine Potential Emission Reductions

Understanding the sources and quantities of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are critical to developing an emissions inventory that accurately represents various oil and natural gas industry segment operations. To address this, API formed a Greenhouse Gas Emissions Methodology Working Group. The working group's objectives are to review, summarize, and recommend methodologies for consistent estimation of greenhouse gas emissions from oil & gas industry facilities. This paper will discuss the process undertaken to review and compare methodologies used by member companies, national governmental bodies, and intergovernmental experts. It will highlight technical, scope, and boundary considerations that play key roles in the final inventory calculations. It will also present a general classification scheme for all oil & gas industry devices and operations, while identifying the parameters needed to generate robust estimates of emissions for each equipment category and oil & gas industry segment.

Harmonizing the quantification of CCS GHG emission reductions through oil and natural gas industry project guidelines

Implementation of a Corporate-Wide Process for Estimating Energy Consumption and Greenhouse Gas Emissions from Oil and Gas Industry Operations

The environmental culture (EC) is the total learned behaviour, attitudes, practices and knowledge for the society with respect to maintaining or protecting its natural resources.The development of EC is associated primarily with environmental education, awareness, ethics, and training of employees inside and peoples outside of oil and gas industry operations.EC is considered as a specific element, because it influences on decisions about dealing with environmental problems or accidents.The procedure of inserting EC into an environmental management system (EMS) results in more effective environmental protection management and related problems solving.The oil and gas industry operations are series of functions of cementing, acidizing, stimulation, nitrogen services, coiled tubing, fracturing, filtration, grouting, cleaning, oil recovery, maintenance, transporting, and chemical with mechanical treatment.As a new topic, EC is defined as a new element, and the procedure of inserting EC into EMS can be done for improved environmental protection, resulting in an efficient EMS for oil and gas industry operations.The most reputable national and international organizations (such as EMAS, BS 7750, GEM1, and IS0 14000 series) do not refer to EC -they did not enter it into their programs because there is a gap in their contents.As a tactic, inserting EC can achieve the same 17 elements created by International Standards (ISO 14001) and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for gaining results of better outcomes for environmental protection.

Incorporating uncertainty analysis into life cycle estimates of greenhouse gas emissions from biomass production

Understanding the sources and quantities of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions is critical to developing an emissions inventory that accurately represents oil and natural gas industry operations. In response to continued interest by its member companies about consistency in emissions estimation, the American Petroleum Institute (API) developed a Compendium of Greenhouse Gas Emissions Estimation Methodologies for the Oil and Gas Industry. The Compendium is a result of more than a year long effort by API to screen, evaluate and document a range of calculation techniques and emission factors that could be useful for developing GHG emissions inventories. In this work all oil and gas industry segments from exploration and production to transportation, refining and distribution were considered. Particular emphasis has been placed on including estimation techniques that depend on knowledge of oil and gas processing simulation, along with a ranking of preferred and alternate methods. Initially distributed in June 2001 as a "Road-Test" document, API will continue to gather comments from end users and other interested parties for a one-year trial period. API has reached out to governmental, non-governmental and industry associations during the development process to ensure broad peer-review. Additional opportunities will be sought for further discussions prior to finalizing the document in 2002. This paper will summarize the technical approach adopted for the Compendium and introduce some of the techniques for estimating GHG emissions from specific oil and gas industry operations. It will discuss decisions that need to be made when designing a GHG emissions inventory. It will also present findings from users of the Compendium and feedback from end-user reviews.

Global warming/climate change is the greatest environmental threat of our time. Rapidly developing aquaculture sector is an anthropogenic activity, the contribution of which to global warming is little understood, and estimation of greenhouse gases (GHGs) emission from the aquaculture ponds is a key practice in predicting the impact of aquaculture on global warming. A comprehensive methodology was developed for sampling and simultaneous analysis of GHGs, carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (CH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O) from the aquaculture ponds. The GHG fluxes were collected using cylindrical acrylic chamber, air pump, and tedlar bags. A cylindrical acrylic floating chamber was fabricated to collect the GHGs emanating from the surface of aquaculture ponds. The sampling methodology was standardized and in-house method validation was established by achieving linearity, accuracy, precision, and specificity. GHGs flux was found to be stable at 10±2°C of storage for 3days. The developed methodology was used to quantify GHGs in the Pacific white shrimp Penaeus vannamei and black tiger shrimp Penaeus monodon culture ponds for a period of 4months. The rate of emission of carbon dioxide was found to be much greater when compared to other two GHGs. Average GHGs emission in gha-1day-1 during the culture was comparatively high in P.vannamei culture ponds.

Intended nationally determined contributions (INDCs) are a new strategy for mitigating climate change. Many international organizations and scholars have assessed the possibility of holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2°C based on INDCs. Although the conclusions of these assessments are consistent, there are still large differences among the assessment results. For example, the global greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 estimated by INDCs are between 47.1–66.5 GtCO2 eq, and the temperature increase at the end of the 21st century estimated by INDCs is between 2.4–4.0°C; the inconsistency represented by these ranges is not conducive to an accurate assessment of the contributions of the current INDCs to global warming mitigation or to the further development of emissions reduction programs. By summarizing the existing studies, we found that the main reasons for the differences in estimates of global greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 made using INDCs are as follows: (1) The studies interpreted INDCs differently, which is attributable to three reasons: The studies (a) made different assumptions for the unquantifiable INDCs; (b) ignored or used different methods to estimate the emissions not covered by INDCs; and (c) used different amounts of INDCs because the studies were performed at different times. (2) The studies used different databases that include different greenhouse gases, accounting methods and data sources to estimate historical greenhouse gas emissions. (3) The studies used different methods for estimating greenhouse gas emissions and removals related to land use, land-use change and forestry (LULUCF). (4) The studies used different values of the global warming potential. Additionally, the main reasons for the differences in the predictions of the temperature increase at the end of the 21st century based on INDCs are as follows: (1) Differences in the estimations of greenhouse gas emissions in 2030 based on INDCs and (2) different methods of extrapolating global greenhouse gas emissions to 2100. There are three main extrapolation methods: one is to maintain the net present value of the carbon price in 2030 and then extrapolate the greenhouse gas emissions to 2100; another is to maintain the decarbonization rate of a certain period of history and then extrapolate the greenhouse gas emissions to 2100; the third is to match the emissions reduction scenario with the current INDC emissions reduction scenario from the IPCC AR5 scenario database and then use the matching emissions reduction scenario as the current INDC emissions reduction scenario. The use of different methods of extrapolating carbon emissions is one of the main reasons for the differences in the prediction results. (3) Differences in the methods for predicting the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on temperature. Statistical methods and simulation methods are the two main prediction methods; they use different calculation methods, which led to the difference in the prediction results. Therefore, the following points are worth noting: (1) Most importantly, to the extent possible, countries should submit absolute emissions reduction targets as much as possible; nonquantifiable INDCs without detailed methods descriptions and data introductions should not be submitted; (2) authorities should recommend certain data sets that are the most suitable for INDC accounting; (3) a global warming potential should be designated to avoid differences in greenhouse gas estimates due to the use of different criteria; and (4) to the extent possible, future research should adopt simulation methods for predicting the impact of global greenhouse gas emissions on temperature.

This study presents an updated estimation of annual Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission from crop and rice cultivations from year 2008 to 2012 in Sarawak. This includes GHG estimation from rice cultivations, biomass and soils organic. The estimation of GHG emission in this study is conducted in accordance to 2006 IPCC guidelines for Agriculture, Forestry and Other Land Use (AFOLU) sector, where uncertainty analyses are incorporated. This study also presents findings at urban and non-urban areas of Sarawak and its comparisons. It is found that, the change in biomass for both urban and non-urban areas in Sarawak increases yearly with significant changes in biomass at urban areas at 160.29×10 3 tons C yr −1 as compared to non-urban areas at 45.90×10 3 tons C yr −1 . It is also found that, the annual carbon loss from cultivated organic soil at urban areas is higher at 6.17×10 6 tons C yr −1 in Miri. Total CH 4 emission from wet paddy in non-urban areas is found to be higher than urban areas at 19.01 Gg CH 4 yr −1 . This study would unable relevant authorities to use the values of GHG emission estimated in this study for the purpose of analysis on vulnerability, adaption and mitigation.

Porvair makes environmental improvements across its global operations

The traditional upscaling approach to greenhouse gas (GHG) emission estimates of inland waters is imprecise, but more precise methods based on environmental drivers are a longstanding challenge. Mexico lacks GHG emission estimates for its inland waters, and only sparse but scientifically validated information is available. This study provides the first GHG emission estimates from Mexican inland waters using 4275 GHG flux measurements from 26 distinctive waterbodies and one local and another global surface area dataset (INEGI and HydroLAKES). GHG emission factors were calculated and subsequently upscaled to estimate total national GHG emissions from the inland waters and compare to other emission measures based on mean global emission factors or size-productivity weighted (SPW) models. Mean (standard error) annual fluxes from all inland waters were 2.2 (5.3) kg CO2 m−2 yr−1, 0.6 (1.14) kg CH4 m−2 yr−1, and 1.0 × 10−3 (6.0 × 10−4) kg N2O m−2 yr−1. Estimates for natural waterbodies are annual average release rates between 74 (87) and 139 (163.23) Tg CO2eq while artificial waterbodies reach between 32 (2) and 21 (21) Tg CO2eq according to INEGI and HydroLAKES datasets, respectively. Considerable uncertainty was determined in the calculated mean emission factor, mostly for anthropogenic emissions. Waterbody area and chlorophyll a concentration were used as proxies to model CO2 and CH4 fluxes through regression analysis. According to SPW and IPCC models, computed mean annual CH4 emission factors were close to our estimates and exhibited a strong influence from eutrophication. In a likely scenario of increased eutrophication in Mexico, an increase in total net emissions from inland waters could be expected.

Blue revolution for food security under carbon neutrality: A case from the water-saving and drought-resistance rice

We present the results of analysis of the state of greenhouse gas emissions in the oil and gas industry according to data of the last National Inventory Reports. It was shown that industry is a great source of methane leakage, responsible for 44% of total country's methane emissions in 2017. Carbon dioxide emissions from the industry make a marginal contribution to total country's carbon dioxide emissions, responsible for only 3% in 2017. It was established that the main priority for oil and gas industry is the reduction of methane emissions from natural gas activities, which is typical for gas industries in other countries. The experience of national and international programs and initiatives aimed at reducing methane emissions from oil and gas operations were used for forming the lists of measures and technologies advisable for introduction in Ukraine, concerning the hydrocarbons exploration, development, and production as well as their preparation to transportation, activities for the natural gas transportation and its underground storage, activities for the natural gas distribution and its consumption by the residential and commercial sectors. The necessity to solve in Ukraine the problem of monitoring of methane emissions and leakages in the oil and gas sector, which requires the improvement and standardization of their quantification, reporting, and verification, is mentioned separately, but this problem is not completely solved in any country of the world, which is connected with certain peculiarities of emissions sources. The article provides a comparative analysis of the results of cost calculations for the services of main pipeline transportation of natural gas with replacing existing gas-turbine gas pumping units by new gas-turbine or electric drive units. We present the external conditions for development of the oil and gas industry, for which overall estimates of greenhouse gas emissions by 2040 are calculated for two formed scenarios – with and without measures for emission reduction.

The Global Fire Emissions Database (GFED3) and the FAOSTAT Emissions database, containing estimates of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from biomass burning and peat fires, are compared. The two datasets formed the basis for several analyses in the fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC AR5), and thus represent a critical source of information for emissions inventories at national, regional and global level. The two databases differ in their level of computational complexity in estimating emissions. While both use the same burned area information from remote sensing, estimates of available biomass are computed in GFED3 at tier 3 using a complex dynamic vegetation model, while they are computed in FAOSTAT using default, tier 1 parameters from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Over the analysis period 1997–2011, the two methods were found to produce very similar global GHG emissions estimates for each of the five GFED aggregated biomass fire classes: i) Savanna; ii) Woodland; iii) Forest; iv) Deforestation; v) Peatlands; with total emissions ranging 6–8 Gt CO2eq yr-1. The main differences between the two datasets were found with respect to peat fires, with FAOSTAT showing a lower 1997–1998 peak in emissions compared with GFED3, within an otherwise good agreement for the rest of the study period, when limited to the three tropical countries covered by GFED. Conversely, FAOSTAT global emissions from peat fires, including both boreal and tropical regions, were several times larger than those currently estimated by GFED3. Results show that FAOSTAT activity data and emission estimates for biomass fires offer a robust alternative to the more sophisticated GFED data, representing a valuable resource for national GHG inventory experts, especially in countries where technical and institutional constraints may limit access, generation and maintenance of more complex methodologies and data.