1st November: weekly gas flaring news

1 November 2021

Here’s our review of the main news on gas flaring over the last week. Of course, with COP26 starting we can expect a lot of focus on this topic, and a lively couple of weeks!

Capterio

  • Capterio is quoted in a thought-provoking piece by Seb Kennedy from Energy Flux news on the growing pains of the US LNG export business.
  • Capterio is pleased to announce that we will be holding a series of client and partner meetings in Glasgow on 9, 10 and 11 November. Please contact ceo@capterio.com for more information on our events.

Industry

  • Big news: Shell has committed to delivering zero routine flaring by 2025, 5 years ahead of its 2015 commitment as part of the World Bank’s ZRF programme. Shell has made some excellent progress on flaring reduction in many geographies (and we largely agree). Whilst this is therefore another great step forward led by Shell, we do note that this applies to it’s operated and upstream assets only. The company must continue to drive down flaring in non-operated ventures, e.g. PDO in Oman.
  • In a significant development in Nigeria, the Nigeria Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative (NEITI) has revealed a major increase in “flare gas payment … from $15.4million in 2018 to $307.496 million in 2019“. This is a dramatic turnaround in enforcement, which alone should incentivise more urgent action to reduce gas flaring. Given that there have been suggestions that flaring is underestimated by producers (even falsified), there is a clear need for indepedent monitoring, such as that delivered by FlareIntel.
  • Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Ali Allawi pledges to eliminate gas flaring by 2025 at a summit which included US Climate Change Envoy John Kerry. This is a major development which, if delivered, would substantially reduce emissions in Iraq, whilst also creating reliable power and stimulate economic growth and diversification.
  • USA: a draft of President Joe Biden’s climate-and-social-spending plan proposes fees as high as $1500 per tonne on excess methane from oil and gas. Clearly, this would be incredibly impactful, if it becomes law, not least because flaring is also a significant source of methane emissions.