On 16th August, Nigeria’s President signed into law the long-awaited Petroleum Industry Bill. The law has a clause that directs penalties received from flaring fines towards midstream gas infrastructure in community (see article from 15/7/2021). If Nigeria were to collect the flaring penalties as per the stated law, it could capture fines of up to $510 million per year – although this is only 0.1% of GDP.
The IPCC released its 6th assessment report “Climate Change 2021: The Physical Science Basis” which highlights the critical role that methane reduction must play in slowing climate change. The Economist’s leader says “Methane shoudl be given priority on the agenda at the COP26 climate summit in November” – and we agree. Interestingly the IPCC report references “CO2” 4546 times, “methane” 682 times, but “flaring” only 10 times. Whilst the focus on CO2 and methane is correct, we must not overlook the impact of flaring – not least because it is a significantly overlooked source of methane from incomplete combustion (see our article “flaring’s billion tonne secret“).
The UK’s OGA (Oil and Gas Authority) highlighted that it is investigating a “breach of flare consent” for a significant upstream asset in the UK’s sector. We at Capterio have offered to assist with independent data from FlareIntel Pro, whcih tracks flaring at every asset and for every operator every day. You can sign up for our free version of FlareIntel at www.flareintel.com.
Petronas announced its first Carbon Neutral LNG from its Bintulu export complex to Japanese utility Shikoku Electric at the Sakaide import terminal in Shikoku Island. We applaud such moves, but given that the Bintulu plant has significant gas flaring – including a recent up-tick in the last few days (see chart below from FlareIntel Pro), we would ask the operator whether these emissions have been properly account for. Indeed, Bloomberg suggests that “the carbon offsets do not appear to cover regasification and combustion”. See our article “gas flaring in the LNG supply chain“.
Flaring associated with the LNG supply chain for Petrona’s carbon-neutral LNG. Data from FlareIntel Pro which was made in part by integrating VIIRS Nightfire (VNF) nightly data produced by the Earth Observation Group, Payne Institute for Public Policy, Colorado School of Mines
