Estimation of natural methane emissions from the largest oil sand deposits on earth

Abstract

Worldwide methane emission by various industrial sources is one of the important human concerns due to its serious climate and air quality implications. This study investigates less-considered diffusive natural methane emissions from the world’s largest oil sands deposits. An analytical model, considering the first-order methane degradation, in combination with Monte Carlo Simulations, is used to quantitatively characterize diffusive methane emissions from Alberta’s oil sands formations. The results show that the average diffusive methane emissions from Alberta’s oil sands formations range from 1.20×10-5 to 1.56×10-4 kg/m2/year with a 90% cumulative probability. The results also indicate an annual diffusive methane emissions rate of 0.857±0.013 MtCO2e/year from Alberta’s oil sands formations. This finding suggests that natural diffusive leakages from the oil sands contribute an additional 1.659±0.025% and 5.194±0.079% to recent Canada’s 2019 and Alberta’s 2020 methane emissions estimates from the upstream oil and gas sector, respectively. The developed model combined with Monte Carlo Simulations can be used as a tool for assessing methane emissions and current inventories.

Unveiling Unprecedented Methane Hotspots in China's Leading Coal Production Hub: A Satellite Mapping Revelation

“…Mine-level comparison with the GEM inventory preliminarily reveals that there is an overestimation of the inventory by a factor of about 4.1. Previous top-down studies typically reveal that emissions inventories are underestimated in most regions (Kort et al, 2014;Sadavarte et al, 2021;Wei et al, 2023). However, in the Shanxi region, our findings contradict this trend.…”