Largely unheralded, the Texas energy industry is taking its methane emissions problem seriously and working like a 1950s roughneck to fix it.
Spokesmen for the Texas Independent Producers and Royalty Owners, the Apache Corp., Marathon Petroleum, ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil and Chevron say it was no surprise when TIPRO’s Texans for Natural Gas affiliate reported that the Permian Basin’s rate of methane emissions fell by 76 percent while production jumped by 345 percent between 2011 and ’21.
The main constituent of natural gas, methane is a colorless, odorless and highly flammable gas composed of carbon and hydrogen that is a potent greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming.
“From 2020 to ‘21, methane intensity in the Permian Basin fell by 20 percent, which was a significant reduction over the course of just one year,’ said TIPRO President Ed Longanecker from Austin.
“Flaring intensity in the Basin decreased by over 34 percent from 2020 to ’21, when statewide Texas dramatically reduced its flaring intensity by 60 percent.” Longanecker said. “In 2021 when compared to the Basin, flaring intensity was 2,621 percent higher in Venezuela and 339 percent higher in Russia.”
Contrary to the alarms raised by the Biden Administration, he said, American producers between 2019 and ‘21 cut their volumes of methane flared from oil and gas wells without connections to gas pipelines by 49.3 percent to stand first in the world.
“Texas’ role as a global energy leader extends well beyond volumes,” Longanecker said. “Our state and the Permian specifically produce some of the world’s cleanest natural gas.
“That matters more than ever today as global unrest is creating energy challenges everywhere. We have what it takes to power the homes, businesses and industries of Americans and our allies. Leaders at home and abroad should take note of the progress Texas producers have made in cutting methane and flaring intensity as they develop policies impacting our industry.”
Apache spokeswoman Alexandra Franceschi said her company “has a long-standing commitment to reduce our emissions.
“We set challenging goals and are focused on near-term actions so we can drive immediate and impactful results,” Franceschi said from Houston. “In 2021 we eliminated routine flaring in our onshore U.S. operations and in ’22 we set a long-term incentive compensation goal to eliminate at least one million tons of annualized emissions by year-end 2024.
“For this year, we will continue to identify new projects to support our efforts.”
A spokesman for Marathon Petroleum, which works in the midstream and downstream sections of the industry, said MPLX, his company’s midstream partner, “expanded its methane emissions intensity reduction target to 75 percent below 2016 levels by 2030.
“The target applies to MPLX’s natural gas gathering and processing operations and it is an expansion of our existing 2025 target to lower methane emissions intensity by 50 percent below 2016 levels, which we are closing in on through MPLX’s Focus on Methane program, a holistic approach to voluntarily reduce methane emissions across its natural gas gathering and processing operations,” the Marathon spokesman said.
ConocoPhillips spokesman Dennis Nuss said from Houston that his company’s near-term focus is on cutting the flaring and methane emissions that provide the best opportunities to reduce near-term greenhouse gas impacts.
“Our targets are to achieve zero routine flaring by 2025, five years sooner than the World Bank’s goal of 2030, and to meet an additional 10-percent methane emissions intensity reduction target by 2025 from a 2019 baseline, adding to the 65-percent reduction that we have achieved since 2015,” Nuss said.
“We are also working with stakeholders on the development of sector-wide methane targets that set a comparable standard.”
The ConocoPhillips spokesman said his company’s decision to join the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 Initiative “is reflective of our commitment to improve emissions measurement and reductions performance by collaborating with industry peers to accelerate best practices in our operations.
“As part of OGMP 2.0, we plan to report methane emissions for all material sources from both operated and non-operated assets,” Nuss said. “In line with the initiative’s guidance, we will incorporate source-level and site-level measurements when estimating methane emissions from our operations.”
Nuss said ConocoPhillips allocated $200 million in its 2022 capital budget to energy transition activities, some on a multi-year timeline including a recurring annualized reduction of one million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent with operational efficiency measures, methane and flaring intensity reduction initiatives and asset electrification projects.
ExxonMobil spokeswoman Meghan Macdonald said her company has more than doubled its production in the Permian Basin since 2019 while lowering emissions from its operated assets.
“We have one of (the) industry’s most aggressive plans in the Permian Basin to achieve near-zero emissions by 2030,” Macdonald said from Spring, north of Houston. “ExxonMobil is installing new state-of-the-art technologies across its 1.8 million-acre Permian Basin operations in New Mexico and Texas, assisting the company with its detection of and response to methane leaks.
“As a responsible operator, we continue to share best practices for continuous monitoring with other operators and researchers. Additionally, we have long advocated for federal regulations as the most effective way to reduce emissions at scale.”
Last year, Macdonald said, ExxonMobil filed a comment letter with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in support of the EPA’s proposed regulation of new and existing sources of emissions.
“While voluntary efforts by companies like ExxonMobil to reduce methane emissions are important, they only capture a fraction of overall global emissions,” she said. “Achieving a broad and durable impact requires uniform regulations that apply to all actors.”
Specifically, she said, ExxonMobil eliminated all high-bleed pneumatic devices from its American fracking operations in 2020.
“Building on this, we’re working to eliminate all of our natural-gas driven pneumatic devices by 2025 in our key U.S. unconventional operated assets and to accelerate the phaseout of these devices across all of our global operated assets where technically feasible.”
Macdonald said ExxonMobil has significantly cut flaring in the Permian Basin, bringing down volumes in 2021 by more than 75 percent compared to 2019.
“To minimize non-routine flaring, we are securing alternative natural gas delivery points across the Basin,” she said. “This allows us to redirect gas to another delivery point in the event a third-party has an upset and is not able to take delivery.”
Chevron says on its website that its “goal is simple, keep methane in the pipe.
“Our ambition is to be a global leader in methane emissions performance and we are taking action to meet that aim,” Chevron says from San Ramon, Calif. “We start with designing and operating facilities to prevent methane emissions and deploying technologies to validate performance and inform repairs.
“Our upstream intensity has decreased by 50 percent since 2016.”
A Chevron spokesman said his company’s off-shore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico “are some of the lowest carbon intensity-producing assets in the world and they are designed for no continuous routine venting or flaring.
“The methane intensity of Chevron’s U.S. upstream operations is 85 percent lower than the U.S. upstream production sector average as of 2020.”
Since 2016, Chevron reports, the company has tested 13 advanced methane detection technologies including satellites to identify super emitters, planes to scan hundreds of sites per day, drones to access difficult-to-reach areas and fixed cameras and sensors to enable around-the-clock surveillance.
“These find and fix campaigns can analyze detected emissions and make immediate or timely repairs,” it said. “Deployed in concert, these comprehensive surveillance tools can help drive our mission for an overall reduction in methane intensity.”
