Sustainable Development With First CDM Project in Thailand

Abstract

This article, written by Senior Technology Editor Dennis Denney, contains highlights of paper SPE 146681, ’Sustainable Development With First CDM Project in Thailand E&P,’ by Chiratthakan Getwech and Lawan Pornsakulsakdi, PTT Exploration and Production plc, prepared for the 2011 SPE Asia Pacific Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition, Jakarta, 20-22 September. The paper has not been peer reviewed. A clean-development-mechanism (CDM) project takes aim at recovering and then using associated gas from the oil wells of Sao Thian-A field in Sukhothai Province, Thailand. Without a CDM project, this associated gas would continue to be flared. The CDM project involved the installation of a gas-treatment system to filter out hydrocarbon droplets from the associated gas before its internal use and sale to an external facility. Introduction The CDM project is one of three flexible mechanisms that allow Annex-I Parties* to implement projects that reduce emissions or increase removals by sinks in the territories of non-Annex-I Parties. The carbon credits generated by CDM projects are “certified emission reductions” (CERs) that can be claimed by the project investor. Thailand is classified as a non-Annex-I Party and is not obligated to meet any emission-reduction targets. Instead, Thailand is eligible to participate in the CDM project as a host country, and possibly attract environmentally friendly investment from governments and businesses of developed countries. Sustainable development is a pattern of resource use aiming to meet human needs while preserving the environment so that such needs can be fulfilled now and in the future. There is interdependence among the three concepts of sustainability: environment, economics, and socio-culture. On the basis of this approach, sustainable development can occur only where the environment, the economy, and the social needs meet. The Thailand Greenhouse Gas Management Organization (a public organization), or TGO, is an autonomous governmental organization with the specific purpose of reducing greenhouse-gas emission, reviewing CDM projects for approval, and performing its role as the Designated National CDM Authority in Thailand. CDM-project development in Thailand must function in accordance with TGO guidelines, as well as with its sustainable-development criteria. *According to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, countries are divided into two main groups: those that are listed in the Annex I, known as Annex-I Parties, and those that are not, known as non-Annex-I Parties. The Annex-I Parties are industrialized countries that are obligated to respond to climate change by lowering their greenhouse-gas emissions to an average of approximately 5.2% below their 1990 levels over the 2008–2012 period.