62+ Oil & Gas Firms Partner to Tackle Methane Emissions with OGMP 2.0
As stakeholders become increasingly interested in methane mitigation efforts from oil and gas companies, and as producers look to highlight their emission reduction progress, emission reporting frameworks and best practice guidelines are being developed and adopted. Recently, frameworks that focus not only on reductions, but actual standards of performance, are growing in popularity. One such voluntary initiative launched in 2020 is the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP) 2.0 Framework, which falls under the umbrella of the United Nations Environment Programme's Climate and Clean Air Coalition initiative in partnership with the Environmental Defense Fund. To-date, 62 companies with assets on five continents representing 30 percent of the world’s oil and gas production have joined the partnership, including super-majors such as BP, Royal Dutch Shell, and Equinor.
OGMP 2.0 comes out on top of existing methane emission regulations and individual corporate pledges to reduce methane leaks. OGMP 2.0 claims it differs from other initiatives in that it requires members to report methane emissions at an asset level, rather than across the whole company, and doing so covers facilities in joint ventures, even if the operator of such sites has not subscribed to the framework. It therefore puts more pressure on oil and gas producers to actually measure methane leaks, rather than extrapolate from engineering calculations. Furthermore, it covers a company’s whole supply chain, crucial for methane-heavy commodities like gas, which often travels hundreds of kilometres through complex infrastructure.
OGMP 2.0 aims to deliver a 45% reduction in oil and gas methane emissions by 2025, and a 60-75% reduction by 2030. It has also set a target of reducing methane intensity to 0.25% by 2025 across its members’ operations, and includes reporting of all segments of the oil and gas sector on all known sources of methane emissions (i.e. fugitive and vented emissions). The standardized process involves 5 levels of reporting, with increasing granularity from asset-level methane estimates to site-level measurements, to reconcile all sources of methane emissions. The prerequisites to achieve the “Gold Standard” in methane reporting requires an emission report at the asset level and a granular plan per asset to achieve source-level measurements and sampling on a regular basis. Emission monitoring, leak detection and repair, and methane inventories are critical tools in the success of OGMP 2.0. Companies such as Arolytics can provide solutions that will enable companies to reach OGMP 2.0 emission reduction targets.
Arolytics and OGMP
Arolytics is uniquely positioned to provide oil and gas companies with reporting practices in line with OGMP 2.0 and related frameworks; from managing and tracking emissions data on all asset levels, to modelling leak detection and repair campaigns in line with the goals outlined by OGMP 2.0. The AROviz platform supports the Framework’s Level 4 (screening measurements) and Level 5 (source-specific asset-level measurements) reporting, while AROfemp modelling satisfies the follow-up evaluation requirements of OGMP 2.0’s reporting standard, as well as best practices for the measurement of methane inventories. Companies interested in achieving this globally recognized “Gold Standard” in methane reporting can contact us to learn more about the solutions available.
References
[1]http://ogmpartnership.com/sites/default/files/files/OGMP_2.0_Press_Release_FINAL.pdf