Quantifying oil and natural gas system emissions using one million aerial site measurements

Abstract

Aerial methane surveys of oil and natural gas systems have discovered large emissions, which are missing or vastly undercounted in official estimates. We integrate approximately one million aerial site measurements into regional emissions inventories, employing empirically-grounded emissions simulations to estimate small emissions. We infer emissions inventories for six regions in the United States comprising 52% of onshore oil and 29% of gas production over fifteen aerial campaigns. Total estimated emissions range from 9.63% [9.03%, 10.37%] of natural gas production, roughly nine times the US government estimate, to 0.75% [0.65%, 0.85%] in a high-productivity gas-rich region. Aerially measured emissions at 0.05%-1.44% of well sites contribute 50%-81% of total emissions in twelve of fifteen campaigns. The social cost of methane emissions from these measured regions is roughly $9.4 billion per year, in addition to roughly $1 billion in lost sales. This highlights the importance of incorporating comprehensive remote sensing surveys into emissions inventories and efforts to benchmark and reduce methane emissions.

Evaluating methane emission quantification performance and uncertainty of aerial technologies via high-volume single-blind controlled releases

“…That study evaluated the Kairos Aerospace system, collecting > 200 single-blind aerial measurements [17]. Testing additional technologies at higher-end release volumes in the range of 100-2,000+ kg h -1 CH4 is needed to improve our understanding of quantification performance at these large emissions sizes, observed frequently in the field [3], [19], [20].…”

Toward Multiscale Measurement-Informed Methane Inventories: Reconciling Bottom-Up Site-Level Inventories with Top-Down Measurements Using Continuous Monitoring Systems

“…The Inflation Reduction Act requires accurate emission estimates at this scale, and voluntary methane mitigation initiatives such as OGMP 2.0 require source- and site-level reconciliation of measurements with inventory estimates. While accurate basin-level emission estimates can be obtained through aerial surveys with large sample sizes, , site-level estimates for individual operators require detailed temporal characterization of intermittent emission events. Information on such emission events, obtained through CMS in this work, will be critical for effectively creating site-specific, measurement-informed inventories.…”

Towards multi-scale measurement-informed methane inventories: reconciling bottom-up inventories with top-down measurements using continuous monitoring systems

“…The Inflation Reduction Act requires accurate emissions estimates at this scale, and voluntary methane mitigation initiates such as OGMP 2.0 require source-and site-level reconciliation of measurements with inventory estimates. While accurate basin-level emission estimates can be obtained through aerial surveys with large sample sizes, 29,30 site-level estimates for individual operators require detailed temporal characterization of intermittent emission events. Information on such emission events, obtained through CMS in this work, will be critical for effectively creating site-specific measurement-informed inventories.…”