Cheniere Energy Inc. will collaborate with five pipeline companies to find ways to clean up the midstream piece of the LNG supply chain as part of the exporter's effort to respond to customer concerns about emissions.
The project, announced April 19, will build on collaborations with upstream producers and maritime shippers announced in 2021. Like those efforts, Cheniere and its midstream partners will focus on selected facilities to study planet-warming emissions and the deployment of "advanced monitoring technologies and protocols," the company said in a news release.
Researchers from academic institutions and methane detection technology providers will support the study, which will involve a combination of ground-based, aerial and drone-based equipment to quantify, monitor, report and verify greenhouse gas emissions specific to Cheniere's supply chain.
Midstream companies in the project include Williams Cos. Inc., Kinder Morgan Inc., MPLX LP, DT Midstream Inc. and Crestwood Equity Partners LP. Cheniere said it will participate in the program through its Cheniere Creole Trail Pipeline LP system and the Gillis compressor station, which help feed the company's flagship Sabine Pass LNG export terminal in Louisiana. The export facility is the largest in the U.S.
The project will investigate emissions at the midstream facilities over several months and will use monitoring technologies at multiple scales, according to study participant Dan Zimmerle, director of Colorado State University's Methane Emissions Program, whose comments were included in the announcement. Another researcher, Arvind Ravikumar of the University of Texas at Austin's sustainable energy development lab, said "empirically driven measurement protocols" that are independently analyzed by academics will be "vital for both public policy and science."
Cheniere has described its series of climate initiatives as critical in the growing competition among LNG exporters to offer the cleanest supplies. Cheniere said in 2021 that it would start providing emissions tags for each cargo it exports from 2022 onward to make its environmental footprint more transparent. Part of the idea was that customers could use the emissions tags to purchase offsets. Cheniere executives have also said the company wants to establish a baseline for life cycle emissions that it can then work to reduce, with offsets viewed as secondary to mitigation efforts.
"Together with our partners on this project and across our LNG value chain, we are working collaboratively to maximize the climate benefits and environmental competitiveness of U.S. natural gas and Cheniere's LNG," Cheniere President and CEO Jack Fusco said in a statement.
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