December 20th: global gas flaring news
Some interesting news on gas flaring this week:
Capterio
- Our research continues to find that companies have a significant blind spot when it comes to flaring from their non-operated assets. Check out the profile from the Elephant field and adjacent block in Libya, which is operated by the Libyan NOC, but has partners including OMV, Total, Equinor and Repsol. More detail in our article here.
Industry
- The EU published it’s draft methane regulations last Wednesday (click to read the full document). In our view this has many positive developments which enables the EU to say it “has it’s house in order”. Indeed, this is probably a prerequisite to have in play before the EU can credibly address *imports on supply chain emissions* from imported oil and gas. As we argue in our article, imports really are the elephant in the room that urgently need addressing.
- The Guardian had an interesting – and quite critical – article about the energy used in Bitcoin mining. In our view, Bitcoin mining can often be a credible solution to flared gas, as it provides a market for what is probably otherwise a waste product, and this article in the Spectator gives a review. We highlighted the impact of Bitcoin mining delivered by Crusoe Energy in the US in our article “celebrating successful flare capture projects“.
- According to Rystad, the flaring in the US Bakken and Permian has reached a new low, and this is particularly surprising in the Permian. However, a report by EDF also last week highlighted how about 14% of all emission events came from malfunctioning flares and half of all surveyed midstream facilities – which process, pressurize and help transport gas – had detectable emissions. Confused? Reach out to us for a demo of FlareIntel!
- Good to see an important academic paper published by Stanford on gas flaring, which reports the satelitte data are accurate within 1% at a global level – interesting read.
