ConocoPhillips tops list of methane emitters, study says
Jun 20 2016, 19:11 ET | About: ConocoPhillips (COP) | By: Carl Surran, SA News Editor
Eleven of the biggest U.S. oil and gas producers leak so much methane gas into the atmosphere every year that the emissions would be the equivalent of running seven coal-fired power plants for a year, according to a new report from the Center for American Progress.
Using 2014 data, the report says the top five U.S. methane emitters were ConocoPhillips (NYSE:COP), Exxon Mobil (NYSE:XOM), Chesapeake Energy (NYSE:CHK), EOG Resources (NYSE:EOG) and BP America.
The Obama administration has announced a goal to lower methane emissions from oil and gas by 40%-45% from 2012 levels by 2025, and the EPA also is preparing standards for methane emissions for current oil and gas wells.
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Methane is a supercharged global warming pollutant that is 87 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year time scale.1 In the United States, the oil and gas industry is the largest industrial source of methane pollution—releasing 33 percent of all methane emissions in 2014.2
As part of its broader climate change mitigation strategy, the Obama administration set a goal of reducing methane emissions from the oil and gas sector by 40 percent to 45 percent from 2012 emissions levels by 2025.3 In May 2016, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, finalized
limits on methane emissions from new sources in the oil and gas sector.4 Although the limits on pollution from new and modified sources are important, the EPA will also have to set strong standards for existing wells and equipment—meaning those that are already in opera- tion—in order to achieve the administration’s methane emissions reduction goal. The EPA has initiated an information collection process to help shape a future rule-making on existing sources.5 The Bureau of Land Management, or BLM, also is moving forward with rules to reduce methane leaks from oil and gas production on public and Native American lands.6
The EPA already collects facility-level greenhouse gas data from the top emitting sectors of the U.S. economy through the Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program, or GHGRP. The Center for American Progress analyzed these data for 2014—the most recent data available—to identify which companies in the onshore oil and gas production sector are responsible for the most methane emissions and which regions of the country experience the most methane pollution.
The key findings for the 2014 data include:
• emissions totaled more than 48 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent, or CO2e, in 2014. This is the equivalent of 14 coal-fired power plants powered for one year, according to the EPA’s conservative methodology for calculating emissions equivalency
• Eleven companies were responsible for almost half—49 percent—of the meth- ane emissions reported from onshore oil and gas production in 2014. The EPA collected methane emissions data from 211 companies in this sector in 2014.
• ConocoPhillips, ExxonMobil Corp., Chesapeake Energy, EOG Resources Inc., and BP America ranked first through fifth for the most methane emissions
from onshore production. However, the biggest emitters were not necessarily
the biggest natural gas producers. For example, ConocoPhillips—the top meth- ane emitter from onshore oil and gas production—was the sixth largest natural gas producer in 2014. EOG Resources Inc., which ranked fourth for methane emissions, was the 14th largest natural gas producer that same year.
• Some companies reported emitting more methane on a per-well basis than
others. For companies that reported at least 1,000 wells in 2014, the companies with the highest per-well emissions in the onshore oil and gas production sec- tor included Lewis Energy Group, QEP Resources Inc., EOG Resources Inc., Samson Energy Company, and EP Energy E&P Company.
• The parts of the country experiencing the most methane pollution from
onshore oil and gas production include the following: the Anadarko Basin of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas; the Gulf Coast Basin of Louisiana and Texas; the San Juan Basin of Colorado and New Mexico; the Permian Basin of New Mexico and Texas; and the Appalachian Basin in the eastern part of the United States.
• The San Juan Basin of Colorado and New Mexico experienced the most meth- ane emissions per well in 2014, followed by the Arkoma Basin of Arkansas and Oklahoma; the Strawn Basin of Texas; the Green River Basin of Colorado and Wyoming; and the Uinta Basin of Utah.
These EPA data show that oil and gas wells already in operation are releasing significant volumes of methane across the United States. The best way to curb these emissions is for the EPA to set strong mandatory standards for existing sources in the oil and gas sector in order to complement the new source standards finalized in May 2016. The BLM also should finalize a strong rule that
ensures oil and gas companies find and repair wasteful methane leaks in their operations on publicand Native American lands.
Endnotes
1 Gunnar Myhre and others, “Climate Change 2013: The
Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group
I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change” (Geneva, Switzerland:
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, 2013),
available at http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/
ar5/wg1/WG1AR5_Chapter08_FINAL.pdf.
2 Environmental Protection Agency, Inventory of U.S.
Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990–2014 (2016),
available at https://www3.epa.gov/climatechange/
Downloads/ghgemissions/US-GHG-Inventory-
2016-Main-Text.pdf.
3 The White House, “Fast Sheet: Administration Takes
Steps Forward on Climate Action Plan by Announcing
Actions to Cut Methane Emissions,” Press release, January
14, 2015, available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/
the-press-office/2015/01/14/fact-sheet-administrationtakes-
steps-forward-climate-action-plan-anno-1.
4 Environmental Protection Agency, EPA’s Actions to
Reduce Methane Emissions from the Oil and Natural Gas
Industry: Final Rules and Draft Information Collection
Request (2016), available at https://www3.epa.gov/
airquality/oilandgas/may2016/nsps-overview-fs.pdf.
5 Ibid.
6 Bureau of Land Management, Waste Prevention, Production
Subject to Royalties, and Resource Conservation;
Proposed Rule (U.S. Department of the Interior, 2016),
available at http://www.blm.gov/style/medialib/blm/
wo/Communications_Directorate/public_affairs/
news_release_attachments.Par.15043.File.dat/VF%20
Proposed%20Rule%20Waste%20Prevention.pdf.
7 The carbon dioxide equivalent is a measure used to
translate different greenhouse gas emissions into a
standard unit based on global warming potential. To
calculate the carbon dioxide equivalency for methane,
the EPA uses the 100-year global warming potential, or
GWP, as calculated in the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, or IPCC, “Fourth Assessment Report.”
For more information, see the methodology section of
this report for more details.