Oil and gas sector can bring quick climate win by tackling methane emissions“. That was the headline of last week’s article published by the UN Environment. “A 75 per cent reduction of methane emissions has the potential to reduce global emissions by up to 6 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalents per year“. Ambitious figures to achieve. Where do you start?

The facts

Methane is responsible for at least a quarter of global warming and is over 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. Actions to reduce emissions now can have a faster impact on the rate of temperature increases than actions on carbon dioxide.”

If the oil and gas industry wants to achieve these ambitious goals, the time to take action is now. The awareness and recognition is there and many initiatives are currently being rolled out by multiple decision makers.

Recognition and initiatives

According to Mark Radka, Head of UN Environment’s Energy and Climate Branch, “the oil and gas sector, which is increasingly recognizing the importance to act on climate change, can make a big difference by virtually eliminating methane emissions.”

Multiple initiatives are being organized by decision makers in the industry to tackle methane emissions, as reported by Jerome Schmitt, Chair of the OGCI Executive Committee:

“The Oil and Gas Climate Initiative is is working hard with its members to quickly scale up meaningful actions and technologies to better detect, reduce and prevent methane leakage from the oil and gas value chain”.

The UN Environment and the Climate & Clean Air Coalition is now even looking into setting up a Global Methane Alliance, which allows governments to enhance ambition in their nationally determined contributions.

What’s in it for the industry?

What is the ROI for the oil and gas companies when they actively contribute to the methane emission reduction challenge? The article states that “around 3.6 trillion cubic feet of natural gas are estimated to have escaped into the atmosphere in 2012 from global oil and gas operations”, which equals around 3% of global natural gas production.”

From a financial point of view, this wasted gas resulted into around US$30 billion of lost revenue.

The Sniffers’ Methane Accounting Program realizes your targets

 “There are low-cost, technically feasible solutions to reduce methane emissions in oil and gas operations, including recovery and use of escaping gas, and reducing leaks from long-distance pipelines.”

That is stated in the article. We could not agree more with this statement. The Sniffers’ Methane Accounting Program helps oil and gas companies to reduce methane emissions diligently for all assets in the gas value chain. The video shows the 3 key steps in the program.

Methane accounting program

More information

The oil and gas sector can indeed bring quick climate win by tackling methane emissions. Our Methane Accounting Program helps them realize the ambitious targets that are being set. Together, we can tackle these methane emissions and minimize global warming.

Contact our experts for more information. We gladly provide you with details and advice on how you can contribute to Methane Emission Reduction.