17th September: The weekly round-up of all things flaring

17 September 2021

Capterio news:

  • If you are not already following us, please do so on LinkedIn and Twitter by clicking the links.

  • You might have seen the news articles last week on flaring in Iraq and Nigeria (click here).  Check out our movie clips from FlareIntel Pro on Twitter and Linked In that show how flares in these regions can be tracked here.

Industry news:

  • Great video on gas flaring produced by the FT that focusses on the challenges around flaring and some recent improvements in gas flaring in the US. Made us think that it’s also key to ensure that the better practices on flare reduction are radiated to other geographies – especially by those with international operations.

  • The Iraq oil report’s excellent article by Lizzie Porter discusses the merits of the Tawke gas capture project delivered in Kurdistan by DNO and Genel.  This project has reduced flaring by some 20 million scf/day by transporting the gas around a mountain in new pipeline for injection. Read more about it in our paper in April “celebrating successful gas capture projects“.

  • The BBC had a piece on gas flaring in Nigeria, with a longer piece on Youtube, highlighting that 2 million people live within 4 km of a gas flare in the oil-rich south. These flares are all tracked by FlareIntel (our free version is available here). Our subscripton offer (FlareIntel Pro) brings the daily data to life to our subscribers.

  • In an apparently positive development, the members of the “Environmental Partnership” claim (through self-reported data) that flaring in 2020 was down 50% on the same period in 2019, from 3.04% to 1.49% respectively.  Whilst they state this is due a range of good initiatives (including upgrading gas compressors, replacing pneumatic controllers, suspending use of high-bleed devices and removing gas-driven controlled), it is also due likely due to a change in the mix of assets operating in the pandemic, and in our view, the resurgence of drilling and production triggered by high oil prices will lead to a dramatic increase in flaring in 2021. Their full report is here.

  • Shell and EDF authored a piece in Euractiv on why the EU should extend its methane regulation across the gas supply chain, including imports.  We agree, see our paper and watch out for our paper on what would happen if the EU’s proposed CBAM was extended to fossil fuel imports. One of our key conclusions is that – if a carbon tax of EUR 50 per tonne were to be applied to flaring alone associated with imports, the EU could raise EUR 3 billion per year in taxes. Hopefully any sums raised would be hypothecated to in-country investments that reduce flaring.

  • Building on the prior point, it is interesting to note that the Kazakhstan is proposing to impose an internal CBAM to rival that proposed by the EU. We think this could be a very good development – and shows the potential for widespread impact of the EU’s policy leadership.