Natural Gas Flaring Research Articles

A review of the status of air quality monitoring in the Permian Basin, USA, and its implications for effective long-term monitoring of industrial operations

The Permian Basin is the largest petroleum producing region in the United States. Few studies have investigated impact the Petroleum Industry had on the air quality of the Permian Basin. Industry operations in the Basin has two primary impacts on air quality, (a) it significantly contributes carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4) to the atmosphere during extraction, transport and use of fossil fuels, (b) industry operations influence public health especially when populations are in proximity to all categories of oil and gas facilities. The advent of Covid-19 in late 2019 and a severe drought that began prior to 2019 in West Texas have created unusual circumstances regarding air quality and public health in the Permian Basin. This study has monitored airborne pollen, spores, fungal spores, and other organically derived particles, and inorganic particulate matter (1, 2.5, 10-micron particulate matter (PM) and total suspended particles (TSP)), volatile organic compounds (VOCs), and sulfur dioxide (SO2). The pandemic caused a historic reduction in oil and gas production slowing operations in the Permian Basin to near zero during the study period, reducing environmental effects on air quality and concomitantly an increase in flaring of natural gas. Although there were increases in the release of VOCs fixed base monitors detected no notable increase. However, an increase in the concentration of airborne pollutants (VOCs and SO2) shows a close correlation with proximity to oil and gas facilities and the intensity of industry operations. This phenomenon is attributed to the highly local nature of flaring and CH4 plume emissions from leaking oil and gas facilities. Air quality improved in the Permian Basin due to reduction in production activity because of the Covid-19 pandemic, and the reduction of particulate matter due to the ongoing drought during the study period.

The impact of a zero-flaring system on gas plants, environment, and health

Continuous natural gas flaring wastes significant energy resources and increases greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to global warming. Our work provides an overview of a technique to recover flare gas and reduce CO2 emissions to a minimum level. There are two methods to recover flare gas: the recovery of natural gas liquids and sales gas production by existing LPG unit and the production of liquid fuels by mini-GTL unit (gas to liquid). This study was conducted using real data from the field. All cases were simulated using Aspen HYSYS software. The mini-GTL unit is modeled using an autothermal reforming method. CO2 emissions will be reduced by 107.68 tonne/day in both methods. Economic analyses revealed that the NGL and sales gas product has a net present value (NPV) of 77.03 MMUSD, while the mini-GTL product has an NPV of 73.7 MMUSD. The study showed that we could extract natural gas liquids (NGLs), including propane, LPG, and sales gas, from the flare gas or convert it to liquid products, including gasoline and diesel. The expected internal rate of return (IRR) and payout time (POT) for NGL and sales gas method are 150.73% and 0.27 years, respectively. The mini-GTL method is recommended due to Egypt’s petroleum fuel shortage and the best solution without an entry point to the Egyptian national gas grid in the plant. However, the IRR and POT for the mini-GTL method are 30.09% and 1.19 years, respectively, and it needs more CAPEX than the NGL and sales gas method.Graphical

Hidrocarburos y cambio climático: análisis del enfoque propuesto por la Resolución 40066 de 2022

Introduction: This paper presents a legal analysis of Resolution 40066 of 2022 of the Ministry of Mines and Energy, since its implementation in Colombian regulations; the benefits and challenges for companies in the hydrocarbons sector; and its legal connection with hydrocarbon exploration and exploitation contracts. Objective: Study the legal framework, balances, challenges, and prospects of Resolution 40066 of 2022, as part of the global strategy to combat climate change in terms of control in the detection, repair of leaks, utilization, flaring, and venting of natural gas. Methodology: The methodology of the paper is the documentary analysis of national doctrine and current regulations. With these sources, the information collected in legal and specialized databases was classified and, as a result, the authors analyzed the Colombian constitutional, legislative, and regulatory context. Conclusions: The paper presents some considerations of the assembly process of the resolution with the hydrocarbon exploration and/or exploitation contracts.

Economic Sustainability and Gas Flaring in Nigeria

The crude oil exploration leads to the flaring gas, which affects Nigerian economic sustainability. The empirical study is to inquire about the profitable (economic) sustainability of the flaring of natural gaseous substances in Nigeria. The survey is to employ the ready-made design through the National Bureau of Statistics, Central Bank of Nigeria Statistical Bulletin, Department of Petroleum Resources, and World Development Indicators. The Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) model and Augmented Dickey-Fuller test are employed as the estimation technique and unit root test for long-range presence association between the exogenous and explained variables. The findings of the study showed an insignificantly positive outcome of profitable (economic) growth on natural gas flaring in Nigeria. The current employment rate showed a positively insignificant impact on the gas flare. The current oil revenue value showed a positively significant impact on gas flaring. Meanwhile, the oil revenue lag showed an insignificantly negative impact on Nigerian naturally flared gaseous substances. The research recommends that the relevant natural gas authorities should put in place stringent laws to reduce the flaring of natural gas consequences to the well-being of humans, the environment, and the economic growth and development of the country. Alternatively, the government should encourage sound and viable gas flaring processes of industrial and domestic usage.

In Situ Sampling of NOx Emissions from United States Natural Gas Flares Reveals Heavy-Tail Emission Characteristic.

Natural gas flaring is a common practice employed in many United States (U.S.) oil and gas regions to dispose of gas associated with oil production. Combustion of predominantly hydrocarbon gas results in the production of nitrogen oxides (NOx). Here, we present a large field data set of in situ sampling of real world flares, quantifying flaring NOx production in major U.S. oil production regions: the Bakken, Eagle Ford, and Permian. We find that a single emission factor does not capture the range of the observed NOx emission factors within these regions. For all three regions, the median emission factors fall within the range of four emission factors used by the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality. In the Bakken and Permian, the distribution of emission factors exhibits a heavy tail such that basin-average emission factors are 2-3 times larger than the value employed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Extrapolation to basin scale emissions using auxiliary satellite assessments of flare volumes indicates that NOx emissions from flares are skewed, with 20%-30% of the flares responsible for 80% of basin-wide flaring NOx emissions. Efforts to reduce flaring volume through alternative gas capture methods would have a larger impact on the NOx oil and gas budget than current inventories indicate.

Black carbon emissions inventory and scenario analysis for Pakistan

Black carbon (BC) emissions, resulting from the incomplete combustion of carbonaceous fuels, have been extensively linked to adverse impacts on air quality, climate change, and public health. Nevertheless, there is currently a lack of a comprehensive analysis that integrates activity-based BC emissions inventory and scenario analysis at the national/regional, sectoral, and sub-sectoral levels in Pakistan. This study aims to fill this gap by conducting a comprehensive evaluation of Pakistan's BC emissions inventory for 2021 along projecting emissions until 2050 under the reference emission scenario (RES) and the accelerated reduction scenario (ARS) using the GAINS modeling framework to assess the potential impact of mitigation measures. This study takes a unique approach by considering commonly overlooked sources of BC emissions, such as kerosene lighting, brick kilns, diesel generator sets, and natural gas flaring, which are not typically included in conventional analyses. National BC emissions in 2021 were estimated at 181 kt, with residential combustion being the major contributor, accounting for more than half (108 kt) of the total emissions. The transport, industry, waste, agriculture, power plants, and fuel conversion sectors contributed 26.1 kt, 20.1 kt, 10.7 kt, 8.9 kt, 6.0 kt, and 0.9 kt, respectively. We anticipate that the total BC emissions in Pakistan will reach 201 kt under the RES and 41 kt under the ARS scenario by the year 2050. The ARS achieves substantial BC reductions by the adoption of cleaner fuels, improved biomass stoves, end-of-pipe emission control technologies with higher removal efficiencies, and implementing a ban on the open burning of waste and crop residues. This study underscores the considerable potential for reducing BC emissions across various sectors in Pakistan over the next three decades.

The effects of gas flaring as moderated by government quality in leading natural gas flaring economies

This study seeks to address pertinent economic and environmental issues associated with natural gas flaring, especially for the world's leading natural gas flaring economies (i.e. Russia, Iraq, Iran, the United States, Algeria, Venezuela, and Nigeria). By applying relevant empirical panel and country-specific approaches, the study found that fuel energy export positively impacts economic growth with elasticity of ~ 0.22 to ~ 0.24 for the panel examination. It is further revealed that environmental quality in the panel is hampered by increase in economic growth, gas flaring, fuel energy export, and urbanization. Moreover, for the country-wise inference, government quality desirably moderates economic and environmental aspects of gas flaring in Venezuela and Nigeria, and in Russia and Iran respectively. However, government quality moderates gas flaring to cause economic downturn in the USA. Additionally, economic growth increased with increase in urbanisation (in Iraq and the USA), gas flaring (in Iran and the USA), government quality (only in the USA), and fuel energy export (only in Algeria) while economic growth downturn is due to increase urbanisation in Russia and the USA, increase in fuel energy export in the USA, and increase in government quality in Russia. Meanwhile, environmental quality is worsened through intense carbon dioxide emission from increased urbanisation activity (in Iraq, Iran, Algeria, and Nigeria), increased fuel energy export (in Nigeria), increased natural gas flaring (in Algeria and Nigeria), increased GDP (in Russia, Iran, USA, Algeria, and Venezuela), and high government quality (in Iran). Interestingly, the result revealed that increase in GDP (in Nigeria), increase in urbanisation (in the USA), and increase in gas flaring (in Algeria and Nigeria) dampens environmental quality. Importantly, this study offers policy insight into sustainable approaches in natural gas production, government effectiveness, and regulatory quality.

Guest Editorial: Brownfield Optimization The Key To Unlocking Sustainable Oil and Gas?

The topic of sustainability within the oil and gas industry has dominated news agendas in recent years. As ‘Net Zero by 2050’ goals loom closer, the sector is under greater pressure than ever to decarbonize operations and source oil and gas via more sustainable methods. With the energy transition continuing at pace, the growth of renewable energy has been exponential. Energy sources such as nuclear and wind are set to account for a greater portion of the energy mix. Renewables expenditure is also expected to double over the next 10 years to more than $1,300 billion per year, and grid expenditure is likely to exceed $1,000 billion per year in 2030. However, oil and gas will undoubtedly play a crucial role in meeting global energy demand for the foreseeable future. A recent industry report highlighted that conventional hydrocarbons are set to comprise 49% of the energy mix in 2050, emphasizing the sustained requirement for traditional hydrocarbons. It is no secret the oil and gas sector is a high producer of carbon emissions, and according to the International Energy Agency, global production, transportation, and processing of oil and gas emitted the equivalent of 5.1 billion tons of CO2 in 2022. That’s almost 15% of total energy-related greenhouse gas emissions. So, how do we as an industry continue to extract this much needed energy source in a more-sustainable manner? Methods to curb this emission are already in practice, with operators utilizing new technology to reduce waste-gas production, return the gas to on-site product streams, and reinject methane into reservoirs. A notable example came from ExxonMobil in January of this year with the company announcing it had stopped routine flaring of natural gas from production in the top US shale basin, using compressors to push natural gas to a pipeline. It has also allocated $17 billion through 2027 to lower its greenhouse gas emissions globally. Electrification is also a hot topic, with operators investigating methodologies for how to reduce emissions from offshore assets. bp, Equinor, and Ithaca Energy recently signed a memorandum of understanding to explore electrification options for their offshore production facilities in the West of Shetland area in the North Sea. Electrification solutions could include power from shore, potentially from onshore wind, or from offshore wind. Full electrification would require in the region of 200 MW of power. If successful, the fields would become the first oil and gas developments on the UK Continental Shelf to be powered by electricity delivering a fully renewable solution. These latest industry moves are bold. They certainly show that much-needed action is now taking place and that industry is responding to social and environmental pressures to make changes.

The Economics of Natural Gas Flaring and Methane Emissions in US Shale: An Agenda for Research and Policy

The Economics of Natural Gas Flaring and Methane Emissions in US Shale: An Agenda for Research and Policy

Relationship between Inflation and Other Macro Economics Factors: Comparative Study of Germany, Japan and New Zealand

One of the major concerns in different countries today is to manage inflation and to manage the resources according to it. Even though there are many factors that affect economic growth that can affect inflation, the concern of this research is regarding Consumer Price Index. The first objective of this study is to investigate the relationship between the consumer price index and Agricultural Land, Urban Population, Trade, Military Expenditure, Primary Energy Consumption, Natural Gas Flaring, and Oil–Refining Capacity. This study includes time series data from 1980 to 2020. Johansen's cointegration method is used to find cointegration, and the significance of long-run and short-term variables is tested. The findings of this study conclude that in the case of Germany, normalized coefficients show consumer price index, Agricultural Land, Military Expenditure, Oil Refining Capacity, and Primary Energy Consumption have a positive and significant impact, Whereas Trade, Natural Gas Flaring, and Urban Population has a negative and significant impact on consumer price index. On the other hand, Japan normalized coefficients show that consumer price index, Agricultural Land, and Primary Energy Consumption have a negative and significant impact. Whereas Military Expenditure, Oil Refining Capacity, Trade, Natural Gas Flaring, and Urban Population have a positive and significant impact on the consumer price index, if we talk about New Zealand, their long run coefficient shows that the normalized coefficients show that consumer price index, Oil Refining Capacity, Trade, and Urban Population has negative and significant impact Whereas Military Expenditure, Primary Energy Consumption, and Natural Gas Flaring has a positive and significant impact on consumer price index. Similarly, the results of the Germany-adjusted coefficients show that Military Expenditure and Urban Population have a positive significant, while primary consumption and trade have a negative relationship with the consumer price index. According to Japan and New Zealand, Oil Refining Capacity has a significant and positive relationship with the consumer price index in the short run. The study, therefore, recommends that the governments of New Zealand, Germany, and Japan should take more initiatives to increase their urban population and trade because these activities help to decrease the inflation in New Zealand, Germany, and Japan.

Gas Flaring in Nigeria: A Multi-level Governance and Policy Coherence Analysis

The unnecessary flaring of natural gas impacts public and environmental health, contributes to climate change and wastes fuel resources. Though reducing flaring is an emergent global environmental governance priority, progress has been slow. We assess gas flaring policy in the critical case of Nigeria through multi-level governance (MLG) structure. Our analysis assesses policy coherence (leading to progress in reaching shared goals) and divergence (creating tension and undermining progress) amongst sectors and institutional structures across the supranational, federal, state and local government scales. A combined dataset of documents, stakeholder interviews and expert surveys is analysed using Qualitative Document Analysis (QDA) and content analysis. We identify the principal actors involved, examine the extent of gas flaring awareness and policy coherence across multiple sectors/policy domains, and assess progress towards Nigeria’s national intended contribution and national policy on climate change mitigation. We find that policy coherence around gas flaring, including efforts towards climate change mitigation, has been slowed by political partisanship, poor governance, lack of regulatory compliance, and policy conflict between environmental protection and economic development priorities. Nigeria urgently requires inclusive involvement of stakeholder voices across multiple sectors and scales of local/regional government, the strengthening of federal institutions, a revaluation of economic aspirations through revenue diversification, and leadership that can temper the power of International Oil Companies (IOCs) to exploit the complexity of the MLG structure. These actions would help the government in improving environmental justice outcomes for flaring-affected communities.

Natural Gas Flaring Management System: A Novel Tool for Sustainable Gas Flaring Reduction in Nigeria

The use of hydrocarbon fuels increases with population growth and rising standards of living, and so does natural gas flaring. Natural gas flaring is both a waste of natural resources and a violation of Nigeria’s energy policy for sustainable development through natural gas conservation. However, it remains the most cost-efficient and effective associated natural gas (ANG) management option in developing countries such as Nigeria. The World Bank’s initiative to eliminate routine gas flaring by 2030 has increased the need to limit or eliminate routine gas flaring. Often, studies on natural gas utilisation techniques fail to consider the lack of practical tools that integrate economic, technical, and regulatory factors into a gas flaring management framework, and the intricacies of existing tools, which often come at the expense of simplicity to achieve real-time information output. This paper aims to establish a framework and ANG management tool to reduce regular gas flaring in Nigeria. This research established a management framework (using a flowchart decision tree) and models to provide a user-friendly ANG flaring tool (using a MATLAB graphical front end user interface with back-end ASPEN HYSYS thermodynamic models). This was combined with techno-economic models for liquefied natural gas, gas-to-methanol, and gas-to-wire ANG utilisation options. The tool was then tested with data obtained from Fields Y and X in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. The results, considering both economic and technical factors, showed that the choice of liquefied natural gas for Field Y was best due to its proximity to the pipeline infrastructure and its cost-effectiveness, and the availability of a high-demand LNG market for that area. For Field X, gas-to-wire was best due to its proximity to the electrical grid and high electricity requirements for that area. Additional geographical profiles in West Africa and ANG utilisation alternatives were recommended for further investigation. This paper developed and validated a one-of-a-kind ANG flaring management tool that incorporates techno-economic analysis of selected ANG utilisation options to assist operators and investors in making more profitable investment decisions.

A Review on Qualitative Assessment of Natural Gas Utilisation Options for Eliminating Routine Nigerian Gas Flaring

Natural gas flaring, with its harmful environmental, health, and economic effects, is common in the Nigerian oil and gas industry because of a lower tax regime for flared gases. Based on the adverse effects of flared gas, the Nigerian government has renewed and improved its efforts to reduce or eliminate gas flaring through the application of natural gas utilisation techniques. However, because the conventional approach to flare gas utilisation is heavily reliant on achieving scale, fuel, and end-product prices, not all technologies are technically and economically viable for typically capturing large and small quantities of associated gas from various flare sites or gas fields (located offshore or onshore). For these reasons, this paper reviews and compares various flare gas utilisation options to guide their proper selection for appropriate implementation in the eradication of routine gas flaring in Nigeria and to promote the Zero Routine Flaring initiative, which aims to reduce flaring levels dramatically by 2030. A qualitative assessment is used in this study to contrast the various flare gas utilisation options against key decision drivers. In this analysis, three natural gas utilisation processes—liquefied natural gas (LNG), gas to wire (GTW), and gas to methanol (GTM)—are recommended as options for Nigeria because of their economic significance, technological viability (both onshore and offshore), and environmental benefits. All these gas utilisation options have the potential to significantly reduce and prevent routine gas flaring in Nigeria and can be used separately or in combination to create synergies that could lower project costs and product market risk. This article clearly identifies the environmental benefits and the technical and economic viability of infrastructure investments to recover and repurpose flare gasses along with recommendation steps to select and optimise economies of scale for an associated natural gas utilisation option.

Natural Gas Flaring in Nigeria, its Effects and Potential Alternatives – A Review

Natural Gas Flaring in Nigeria, its Effects and Potential Alternatives – A Review

Concurrent 24. Presentation for: Greenhouse gases emissions evaluation for prospective energy projects

Presented on Thursday 19 May: Session 24 Greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory assessment, monitoring and auditing is becoming increasingly routine in oil and gas project evaluations. Already, some companies carry an ‘internal’ carbon cost reflected in projected capital and operational expenditure. Early evaluation allows for optimal planning of GHG mitigation and economic analysis inclusive of carbon costs, allaying concerns of investors and lenders. The challenge in evaluating pre-development, however, is the lack of real data and thus, uncertainties in field production. In this paper, we demonstrate the use of a Monte Carlo probabilistic method to better account for uncertainties in production, gas-oil ratio (GOR) and operation loads in a case study of a prospective oil field in offshore Western Australia. We compared the results to the scenario-based deterministic GHG emissions evaluation of the same field and found the deterministic estimates to be extreme representatives of the range of possible emission quantities, due to GOR and production uncertainties. From a breakdown of annual emissions, we also identified the emissions from flaring of excess natural gas to be one of the most significant mitigatable sources of emissions, due to the unexpectedly large production of gas over the project lifetime. Avoiding the flaring of excess gases alone could reduce the project’s emissions by ~44%. Through identifying these key sources and uncertainties, we are able to flag such unexpected, mitigatable sources of emissions at an early stage and provide a representative range of projected emissions, thus assisting the operator to make informed decisions in the field development. To access the presentation click the link on the right. To read the full paper click here

Decreasing natural gas flaring in Brazilian oil and gas industry

From 2009 to 2019, Brazil experienced a reduction in its flaring volumes from 16% of the natural gas production to 4%. That was the result of the policy of reducing flaring volumes that started in 2000 and was recently improved. That places Brazil in the 24th position on natural gas volume flaring, with a flaring percent of around 4%. That flaring is compatible with countries with good practices in the oil and gas sector, like the United Kingdom.To identify and quantify the main reasons for flaring natural gas in oil & gas production units, both risk map analysis and future prediction on flaring were employed. The results can lead to the achievement of mid-term reduction with focused regulation. Both tools suggest that regulation improvements must be directed to the flaring in fields with high production of natural gas (especially newer and future ones) and the commissioning of production units.With improvement in regulation, the increase of 100% in natural gas production will possibly result in a decrease in natural gas flaring to around 2% in 2030. Some proposed actions can lead to even lower flaring percentages.

Greenhouse gases emissions evaluation for prospective energy projects

Greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory assessment, monitoring and auditing is becoming increasingly routine in oil and gas project evaluations. Already, some companies carry an ‘internal’ carbon cost reflected in projected capital and operational expenditure. Early evaluation allows for optimal planning of GHG mitigation and economic analysis inclusive of carbon costs, allaying concerns of investors and lenders. The challenge in evaluating pre-development, however, is the lack of real data and thus, uncertainties in field production. In this paper, we demonstrate the use of a Monte Carlo probabilistic method to better account for uncertainties in production, gas-oil ratio (GOR) and operation loads in a case study of a prospective oil field in offshore Western Australia. We compared the results to the scenario-based deterministic GHG emissions evaluation of the same field and found the deterministic estimates to be extreme representatives of the range of possible emission quantities, due to GOR and production uncertainties. From a breakdown of annual emissions, we also identified the emissions from flaring of excess natural gas to be one of the most significant mitigatable sources of emissions, due to the unexpectedly large production of gas over the project lifetime. Avoiding the flaring of excess gases alone could reduce the project’s emissions by ~44%. Through identifying these key sources and uncertainties, we are able to flag such unexpected, mitigatable sources of emissions at an early stage and provide a representative range of projected emissions, thus assisting the operator to make informed decisions in the field development.

Natural gas flaring, respiratory health, and distributional effects

Although there is strong evidence that oil and natural gas development lead to decreases in local ambient air quality, there is less evidence of a causal link between these activities and human health. This paper explores the environmental health costs of burning natural gas by-products during crude oil extraction – flaring. We estimate the impact of flared natural gas on respiratory health by using quasi-random variation in upwind flaring generated by the interaction of wind patterns and natural gas processing capacity. Specifically, we construct a novel dataset to estimate the causal effect of increased upwind flaring on the monthly respiratory-related hospital visitation rate by using the number of upwind wells that are connected to a capacity-constrained natural gas processing facility as an instrument for monthly upwind flaring. We find that a 1% increase in the amount of flared natural gas in North Dakota would increase the respiratory-related hospital visitation rate by 0.73%. Furthermore, zip codes that were exposed to more than half of all flared natural gas extracted less than 20% of all resource wealth during the sample time period, and the zip codes exposed to a disproportionate amount of flaring tend to be economically-disadvantaged and communities of color. Our estimates indicate that the health costs constitute a material portion of the external cost of flaring, and therefore ought to be considered in global initiatives to reduce flaring.

A Daytime Multisensor Satellite System for Global Gas Flaring Monitoring

Natural gas flaring (GF) is a longstanding problem for the oil industry. Recent estimates indicate that this phenomenon has increased to levels recorded a full decade earlier. While in 2020 there was a decline in global GF due to COVID-19 pandemic, data suggest that GF continues to be a persistent issue, with solutions remaining difficult or uneconomical in certain countries. Nighttime satellite products are widely used to map and monitor GF affected areas, partially filling the general lack of information from oil companies and/or national reporting. In this work, we assess the potential of daytime infrared satellite observations at high spatial resolution from operational land imager (OLI) and multispectral instrument (MSI) sensors, respectively, onboard Landsat-8 (L8) and Sentinel-2 (S2) satellites, in monitoring GF activity. The normalized hotspot indices (NHI) algorithm is used for this purpose, testing its performance over six different GF sites. Results show the NHI capability in providing accurate information about GF-related thermal (e.g., 100% of detections offshore; up to 92% onshore), despite some limitations due to clouds and smoke. They open challenging scenarios regarding the possibility of quantifying the volume of emitted gas from daytime S2-MSI and L8-OLI data, integrating information from well-established nighttime operational systems.

Natural Gas Flaring Status in the Bakken Shale Play and Potential Remedial Solutions

Natural Gas Flaring Status in the Bakken Shale Play and Potential Remedial Solutions