more on gas fugitives ...
The Bakken in North Dakota is an important unconventional (shale) hydrocarbon play. Gas flaring lights the fields at night so clearly they are visible by satellite. geology.com/articles/oil-f…
In the Bakken, oil is the commodity that drives investment, with gas a by-product, hence so much flaring. It is one big tight oil producer, but a bit player in gas, partly because of remoteness.
by late 2019, pre COVID, the Bakken was producing about 25 million tonnes of gas (annualised) of which about 80% found its way to market, with about 5 million tonnes reported as flared (equal to ~750 TJ/day or about half the demand of the Australian east-coast market, ex LNG)
just another reason why OZ gas emissions are not quite what our guv would want you to believe.
our conventional gas fields are quite rich in CO2, almost all* of which is directly vented from processing plants such as Longford.
*only Gorgon is mandated to re-inject
and Gippsland in detail, with Tuna particularly CO2-rich...
then add the 9-10% gas directly used in LNG processing, which vents CO2 from the likes of Curtis Island ....
tl;dr- latest Tropomi satellite retrievals show 1.2-1.6% of total gas production for US shale gas basins is directly vented to the atmosphere
Hold on, only 1.2-1.6% is ok, isn't it? Or is it.
Remember shale gas is purported to be the transition fuel allowing the US to switch away from coal with massive emissions savings, down about ~700 million tonnes per year of more than 10% since 2007, according to BP.
What's not to like about that.
Must remember, an awful lot of gas in these basins does not get to market but is flared and or vented on site, and so is not included in the CO2 emissions inventories such as BP.
“Over half of Australians still rely on gas as a source of energy, but few realise that there’s a more cost-effective, energy-efficient option – heat pumps”
In regards to the clamour for new gas supply and the "gas-fired recovery" the key question is
"if gas is so critical to industrial supply, then why are we wasting it heating homes?" when, as AGL says, more efficient options such as reverse cycle air conditioners are in homes
1. Queensland coal seam gas production has been increasing more than LNG exports since early 2018
2. So instead of southern gas flowing north to help fill LNG cargoes (at 300 TJ/day across 2016), northern gas is now flowing south again (at an average rate of 100 TJ/day across 2019), as it was prior to LNG exports starting in 2015.
"Ironically, [opponents] allege that current domestic and global gas prices are too low to cover the cost of launching Narrabri. This ignores the temporary collapse in global demand for gas amid a once-in-a-century pandemic."
But ...
gas prices started to collapse back in early 2019, way before COVID-19.
and why was this ...
because local QLD CSG supply finally started to deliver over and above LNG export demand