Empirical quantification of methane emission intensity from oil and gas producers in the Permian basin

Methane (CH4) emissions from the oil and natural gas (O&G) supply chain have been demonstrated to be one of the largest anthropogenic greenhouse gas emission sources ripe for mitigation to limit near-term climate warming. In recent years, exploration and production (E&P) operators have made public commitments to reducing their greenhouse gas emission intensity, yet little empirical information has been made available in the public domain to allow an accurate comparison of their emissions performance. In this study, we utilize a series of aircraft surveys of large CH4 point source emissions (similar to 10(1)-10(4) kg CH4 hr(-1)) related to O&G production in the Permian Basin to enable comparison of company-level production-sector emission intensities. We calculate gas and total energy production normalized emission intensities for several of the largest E&P operators in the Permian Basin accounting for similar to 85% of production within the flight region. We find differences of more than an order of magnitude in emission intensity across operators, with nearly half demonstrating a > 50% improvement in performance from 2019 to 2021. With the availability of such publicly attributed emissions data anticipated to increase in the future, we provide methodological insights and cautions to developing operator metrics from future empirical datasets.

Automated summary

This study examines the methane emissions from oil and gas production in the Permian Basin and finds significant variations in emission intensity among different companies. It shows that nearly half of the operators have improved their performance by over 50% from 2019 to 2021.