Abstract
According to the data reported by the international and governmental agencies, the Russian Federation remains one of the world’s major associated petroleum gas (APG) flaring nations. In the past decade, numerous studies have shown the applicability of satellite-based methods to estimate gas flaring. New satellite-based observations might offer an insight in region-, company-, and site-specific gas flaring patterns, as the reported data are often incomplete. We provide a detailed catalog of the upstream and downstream gas flares and an in-depth analysis at the country, region, company and site level of the satellite monitoring results of flaring in Russia from 2012 to 2020. Our analysis is based on the VIIRS Nightfire data and validated against high-resolution daytime satellite images and geographical and geological metadata published by the oil and gas companies and the Russian government. Gas flaring volumes in Russia are estimated to average at 23 billion cubic meters (BCM) annually (15% of global flaring), with 19 BCM (82% on national scale) corresponding to the oil upstream flaring, which has been subject to heavy government regulations since 2013. Despite initially dropping, observed flaring volumes have been on the climb since 2018. We are able to monitor seasonal variations, accidents in gas processing and to track the activities to reduce gas flaring. An effect of gas composition on the flare temperature is reported for oil and gas fields in Russia.
Highlights
Russia has stayed as the top country with regard to the gas flaring associated with oil and gas exploration, with reported annual flaring estimates ranging from 10 to 20.5 billion cubic meters (BCM) depending on the year of estimate and the source [1,2,3,4]
The main result of the present work is a gas flare catalog with detailed geographical In Figure 3, it is apparent that observations for some countries form their own distinct metadata and annual VIIRS Nightfire BCM estimates for individual gas flares in Russia in groups
The catalog is available as the digital supplement both in a spreadsheet format downstream facilities include oil refineries, gas processing plants (GPP), liquified and a keyhole markup language zipped (KMZ) format to review geo- natural facilities, and petrochemical plants
Summary
Russia has stayed as the top country with regard to the gas flaring associated with oil and gas exploration, with reported annual flaring estimates ranging from 10 to 20.5 BCM depending on the year of estimate and the source [1,2,3,4]. Because of the lack of publicly available detailed reporting from flare operators in the country and the remote nature of many flare locations in Sakhalin and sub-arctic Siberia, satellite sensors are an attractive option for the monitoring of gas flares. We provide a detailed catalog of the gas flares situated at upstream (production sites), midstream (transportation infrastructure) and downstream (refineries) oil and gas sector facilities and an in-depth analysis at the country, regional, company and site level of the satellite monitoring results of flaring in Russia in the period of 2012–2020
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