S&P Global Commodity Insights to update several carbon intensity methodologies

The S&P Global Commodity Insights analytics team will update its methodology for calculating several carbon intensity values, effective July 15, 2025.

Commodities affected will be crude, natural gas, refined products, methanol and LNG. The updates to methodologies are all enhancements to ensure the best possible data are used in all of the monthly calculations.

Due to input data availability, a three-month lag is being introduced to all of the affected assessments. This means that when carbon intensities are published in mid-July, they will reflect data for the month of April. This change will allow for actual/historical data to be used, where in the past it was based upon estimated or forecast data. As a result, input data will be of higher consistency and quality. The key data parameters needed for emissions estimation include flaring volumes, methane emissions, production data, drilling data, and seaborne shipping data.

Some of the expected updates for each of the affected commodities are:

1. Crude: Flaring data will be included from satellite observations globally. Additionally, modeling assumptions will be updated to ensure consistent treatment between crude fields including coproduct treatment of natural gas.
2. Natural Gas: Satellite methane observations will be updated monthly for all basins. Additionally, production, flaring, and drilling data will be updated monthly. The expected result will be more representative emissions estimations.
3. LNG: The current Australia LNG carbon intensity will be derived from an updated model that includes flaring data ingestion from satellite, detailed equipment modeled per facility, and updated upstream production data that includes estimates of methane emissions from satellite observations. LNG assessments will be expanded upon to include US Gulf Coast, Northwest Australia and Eastern Australia. Detailed emissions estimations will also be included for seaborne shipping to key European and Asian markets.
4. Methanol: The US Gulf Coast methanol emissions estimation is dependent upon the US natural gas carbon intensity assessments and will change in response to the natural gas carbon intensity changes.
5. Refined Products: Initial updates will be to move away from the publicly available PRELIM model as the basis for emissions estimation to our in-house RCMA model as the basis. The in-house model contains several enhancements including historical production, utilization and capacity data. The model has recently been modified to be powered by an Aspen Unified PIMS engine.

Further details including expected impacts will be communicated in a forthcoming note for each respective commodity.

Please direct any questions or comments on the proposed methodology changes to emissionexcellence@spglobal.com.