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Methane Emissions Continue to Decline Across U.S. Oil & Gas Basins
The article reports a 37% reduction in methane emissions from U.S. oil and gas production between 2015 and 2022. It attributes this decline to industry-led initiatives, improved technologies, and collaborative efforts aimed at monitoring and mitigating emissions across various basins.
By Nicole Jacobs
Methane emissions from the country’s top oil and gas-producing basins have fallen 44 percent since 2011, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency. This plunge in emissions comes even as the country has managed to shatter energy production records – the United States produced more crude oil than any nation at any time for the past six years in a row.
These newest figures on methane emissions come following the release of 2023 data from the EPA’s Greenhouse Gas Reporting Program. The data, which can be broken out by basin, reveals that the massive reduction in methane emissions holds true across the board: each of America’s top seven oil and gas producing basins saw a decrease in their total methane emissions over recent years.
Three basins saw their methane emissions fall by more than half from 2019 to 2023 – Williston Basin (which covers parts of Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota), Appalachian Basin (which spans a long stretch down nine eastern states including Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia) and Arkoma Basin (covering parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma). Arkoma Basin emissions plummeted most drastically – declining 87 percent.
In the Permian Basin, which spans West Texas and eastern New Mexico, total methane emission fell 32 percent between 2019 and 2023, or by 2.4 million metric tons (MMT). Annual reporting from Texans for Natural Gas has shown an ongoing decline in methane intensity in the Permian over those years as well – from 0.29 percent in 2019 to 0.12 percent in 2022.
Concurrently, total Permian production increased 51 percent, from nearly 7 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) in 2019 to 10.6 million boe/d in 2023. What’s more, those production numbers are only set to rise. The Energy Information Administration (EIA) projects that crude oil production in the Permian will grow by 430,000 b/d in 2023, bringing the basin to 6.3 million b/d in 2024 and 6.6 million b/d in 2025.
Continue reading on: EIDClimate.Org
Author
Nicole Jacobs
EID: Climate & Environment
Energy In Depth – a research, education, and public outreach campaign of the Independent Petroleum Association of America – has been getting the facts out about responsible oil and natural gas development since 2009.
