Capterio features in the Washington Post and Het Financieele Dagblad

19 October 2021

Washington Post

Capterio’s CEO, Mark Davis, features in an article published today in the Washington Post called “Russia allows methane leaks at planet’s peril“. The article highlights not only the very high levels of methane emissions from the oil and gas industry (in the form of “venting” and “leaking”), but also the very high levels of gas flaring.

Here are some of the key quotes:

  • “From his home computer, former Shell geologist Mark Davis can quickly find almost any flare in the world. The practice is common in the industry, and it accounts for 2 percent of global greenhouse gases every year — enough to power sub-Saharan Africa — according to the World Bank.”
  • “Flaring wastes 150 billion cubic meters a year, creates $20 billion of revenue loss and creates over 1 billion CO2-equivalent tons of emissions,” said Davis, chief executive of a flare tracking firm called Capterio. “By solving flaring, we can make a big short-term quick win, accelerate the transition and make good some of the ambitions in the [pledges] at COP26.”
  • With the help of satellite data and software developed in part by the Colorado School of Mines, Davis said he can get a picture of any flare in the world on a given day, including the air speed of the gas release, the location and the owners of the site.
  • Asked to look up one of the biggest flares in Russia, Davis quickly pulled up satellite photos and emissions data for flares coming from the Novoportovskoye field, operated by Gazprom’s oil subsidiary in Yamal. There are a handful of flares, but two stacks, jutting up from storage tanks, stood out with large flames and black smoke. Although it is an oil field, gas was found along with the oil and the nearest gas pipeline was 85 miles away. The field had the second-highest flaring levels in Russia in 2020 and the third-highest in 2021 so far, Davis said.
  • Even flaring doesn’t work efficiently. About 20 percent of the methane escapes the combustion of flares. Davis estimates that energy from the field’s lost methane would drive the equivalent of 1.7 million gasoline-fueled cars for a year.
  • That is the power — and promise — of the new sentinels in the sky

Het Financieele Dagblad

Capterio’s CEO was featured in an article titled “The Netherlands participated in the refinancing of the controversial Australia gas project” published on 15th October. In the article, journalist Bert van Dijk explores the flaring associated with the Icthys asset in Australia which supplies LNG to international markets.

The article states that: “at the time of the refinancing in June last year, more than a million cubic meters of gas were flared daily, according to data from Flare Intel, a London-based agency that collects real-time data on the flaring of gas based on satellites.” Given that flaring is against Dutch policy, this data is of keen interest.

Readers may be interested to read the original analysis published by Capterio: “Flaring within the LNG supply chain“.