In 2004 the World Bank published a report entitled ‘Regulation of Associated Gas Flaring and Venting, A Global Overview and Lessons from International Experience’.
Recommendations to develop policies with relevant primary and secondary legislation to empower regulators and reduce gas flaring and venting were set out for Governments that had not already done so. Regulators were encouraged to establish, monitor and enforce clear and efficient processes and procedures to achieve the reduction targets set by their Governments.
The now 15 year old report highlighted that 7 years on from the 1997 Kyoto Protocol* (with 61 countries having signed it at that time) most oil-producing countries lacked clear emissions policies and guidelines, including large oil-producing nations such as Algeria, Angola, Indonesia and Russia (which had no specific guidelines).
* – The Kyoto Protocol to the 1992 Convention was negotiated in 1997 and came into force in 2005. It is a legally binding agreement under which industrialized countries will reduce their collective emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2% compared to the year 1990. More details can be found here. The goal is to lower overall emissions from six greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulphur hexafluoride, HFCs, and PFCs.
22 years on from the Kyoto Protocol there are now 192 Parties to it. Further to this, the Paris Agreement* entered into force in 2016 and 185 of the 197 Parties to the Convention have now ratified. Despite these efforts, annual volumes of flared gas have plateaued over the past 10 years and have yet to fall substantially below 5TCF. Staggeringly, this waste volume is equivalent to the total annual gas consumption of Central and South America.
This has been regarded as progress given that oil production has continued to rise, but when viewed against ‘peak’ (post-1992) flare volumes in 2003, which reached an estimated 6.2TCF, it is clear that there is much progress still to be made. Data reliability also varies widely, meaning the true figures could be much higher. In 2018, 80% of global flare volumes have been attributed to fewer than 15 countries. The top four (Russia, Iraq, Iran and the US) are all Parties to the Convention and flared more than the next 30 nations combined.
* – The Paris Agreement came into force in 2016. To date, 185 Parties have ratified of 197 Parties to the Convention. Some elements are legally binding, whilst others reportedly aren’t. More details can be found here. The Paris Agreement’s central aim is to strengthen the global response to the threat of climate change by keeping a global temperature rise this century well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
Put into context, if the annual global flare volume of 5TCF could be converted to low carbon power, there would be sufficient electricity to power South Korea, Germany or Brazil, or almost enough for both the UK and Italy combined, based on 2018 data (68GWe ≈ 600TWh).
* – The Zero Routine Flaring by 2030 initiative was launched by the World Bank and the United Nations in 2015. So far, 36 oil companies, 32 governments (including Russia, Iraq and the US) and 15 development institutions have endorsed the initiative. More details can be found here. For new fields, operators should aim to develop plans that use or conserve all of the field’s associated gas without routine flaring. At existing oil fields, operators are asked to eliminate routine flaring when it is economically viable to do so as soon as possible, and no later than 2030.