Flaring Emissions Quantification and Mitigation

Publication Overview

This review aims to assess the current understanding on reducing emissions from flaring in the oil and gas industry and to review literature on both the quantification of emissions and current mitigation strategies. IEAGHG published a technical review 2017-TR7 (Oct 2017) which studied emissions along the natural gas supply chain but flaring emissions were not included. This review aims to follow on from 2017-TR7 as a supplementary review on flaring emissions.

Publication Summary

‘Flaring’ (also known as a gas flare or flare stack) occurs in the oil and gas industry at a variety of points along the supply chain (production both on and offshore, oil refining, chemical plants, natural gas processing plants and others). Flare gas systems are designed to dispose of waste gas via a gas combustion process which converts the emissions from methane to CO₂ to reduce the impact on air quality. The gas may be flared for a variety of reasons e.g. to prevent over-pressurisation or to remove gas during routine maintenance. Flaring is used when waste gas cannot be efficiently captured and utilised and is typically used as a control measure when vapour recovery of the gas is impractical. Methane is a commodity and when capture, transportation via pipeline or re-injection are viable options, these are preferred. Flaring is often considered a last-resort option to dispose of waste gas.

The quantification of flaring emissions on a global scale is largely based on estimates from satellite data. Direct metering is regularly undertaken at some sites but depends on the country’s regulations and hence large-scale quantification is taken from extrapolating this data and large uncertainties still remain. Most data on flaring is confidential and not regularly reported given sensitives associated with the negative impacts of the associated emissions. This report outlines current quantifications methods and the regulations governing how flaring emissions are reported.

One of the main groups working on reducing flaring emissions are the Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership (GGFR). The partnership is part of The World Bank and has 189 member countries working towards reducing their emissions from flaring. A current initiative started by the GGFR is ‘Zero Routine Flaring by 2030’. Companies such as Total has also advertised that they have reduced their flaring emission from 2005-2015 by 50% from 15 to 7.5 million m3. The GGFR post an annual summary of upstream flaring emissions and the quantification process is gathered from a variety of sources. The GGFRs work has improved the amount of work reported on flaring emissions although publically available data directly from industry is still limited.

The flaring mitigation strategies currently in place are reviewed in this report including those by individual countries, company strategies and global schemes such as ‘Zero Routine Flaring by 2030’. This review summarises the current standing of quantification methods and concludes further research is needed on direct measurement from flaring stacks to support global satellite estimates. Annual data is being collected by World Bank and the GGFR which is greatly improving the global database on flaring emissions. Current mitigation plans are ambitious and progress is being made with GGFR data showing flaring has been in moderate decline from 2015-2017. Approximately 54% of global gas flaring is represented within the 71 governments that have to date signed up to the “Zero Routine Flaring by 2030” initiative.