Gas flaring at oil and gas facilities and global warming

Gas flaring at oil and gas facilities and global warming

Subject: Environment

Section: Capital Market

Context:

• Gas flared at oil and gas facilities is greater than EU’s total import from Russia and a key source of methane emission

What is gas flaring?

• Gas flaring is the burning of natural gas associated with oil extraction.
• The practice has persisted from the beginning of oil production over 160 years ago and takes place due to a range of issues, from market and economic constraints, to a lack of appropriate regulation and political will.
• Flaring is a monumental waste of a valuable natural resource that should either be used for productive purposes, such as generating power, or conserved.
• For instance, the amount of gas that is currently flared each year – about 144 billion cubic meters – could power the whole of sub-Saharan Africa.

Impact of Gas flaring:

• Gas flaring is turning out to be a major source of methane emission, a greenhouse gas (GHG) “over 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide as a warming gas in a 20-year timeframe”.
• The World Bank’s latest 2022 Global Gas Flaring Tracker Report underscored that the efforts to curb this global warming causing activity have “stalled” in the last one decade.
• Reduction Partnership — “a multi-donor trust fund composed of governments, oil companies, and multilateral organizations committed to ending routine gas flaring at oil production sites across the world” — has been tracking gas flaring using satellite technology.
• According to the latest data released May 5,2022, the world in 2021 burnt 144 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas at oil and gas facilities.
• It is estimated that this gas flaring resulted in approximately 400 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (MMtCO2e) equivalent emissions globally last year.Of this, 361 MMtCO2e was in the form of CO2 and 39 MMtCO2e was in the form of methane.
• Gas flaring is considered both energy waste and global-warming activity. The flared gas in 2021 is more than the European Union’s 27 member states’ gas imports from Russia.
• To make sense of its energy potential, the wasted 144 bcm of natural gas would have generated 1,800 terawatt hours of energy or nearly two-thirds of the European Union’s net domestic electricity generation.
• Not only could the gas wasted displace dirtier fuels and increase energy access in some of the world’s poorest countries, but by utilizing the gas that is currently being flared, the world could make significant progress towards much needed energy security.

Way forward

• Gas flaring is a direct source of methane. Methane has more warming potential than CO2 but its atmospheric life is much less. Thus, its control can lead to fast reduction in emission of GHGs, thus controlling climate change.
• In 2015, countries and companies committed to end flaring by 2030 under the World Bank-initiated Zero Routine Flaring initiative.The latest assessment shows that efforts are matching the commitment made. “Global gas flaring volumes have remained largely static over the last 10 years, plateauing at around 144 bcm.”