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Oil, gas industry launches voluntary methane reduction program, to criticism

Some of the largest oil and gas producers in the country are pledging to trim methane emissions from their operations, signing up for a voluntary program launched by the industry's most influential trade group.

Though the program was quickly criticized by environmental advocates who questioned its potential effectiveness, the industry said the goal is to track down leaks, repair or replace high-emitting pneumatic devices and more closely monitor methane emissions while removing liquids from gas wells.

So far, 26 companies have signed on to participate in the voluntary program, the American Petroleum Institute said Dec. 5. Participants include the U.S. operating arms of Royal Dutch Shell plc, Pioneer Natural Resources Co., BP Plc, XTO Energy Inc. and Statoil ASA. While participating companies are not required to partake in all three emission reduction tracks, API said during a Dec. 5 conference call that the association expects most of the companies that partake in the Environmental Partnership will pursue all three approaches.

The program plans to publish annual scorecards for the companies participating, making public information such as how many leaks were repaired, how many pneumatic controllers were replaced and how many liquids unloading procedures were monitored.

"We've made significant progress in the U.S. [on emissions]," Erik Milito, API's upstream and industry operations group director, said during the conference call. "What we want to do moving ahead is bring all the industry together."

When asked whether the program has any specific methane emission reductions targets, in percentages or cubic feet, Milito said the program is not focused on figures.

"We focused on action. We could get wrapped around percentages, but we're going to continue to look at the [U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] data," he said during the call, noting that the program's three specific areas were based on data from the EPA on parts of the oil and gas sector that contribute most to emissions. "This was a very surgical approach we took."

Matt Watson, the Environmental Defense Fund's associate vice president of climate and energy, said that "surgical approach" is too narrow and the lack of concrete numeric goals reflected a lack of ambition on the industry's part.

"The scope is too limited. The ambition is too limited. The timeline is way too long. The requirements for participants are too wide open. The reporting as it's described on the website is so high level and opaque as to be virtually useless," Watson said in a Dec. 5 interview.

The program targets replacing or retrofitting all existing high-bleed, or high-emitting, pneumatic controllers within five years, but Watson said many producers have already been replacing these components and a five-year target for complete replacement "would have been a good goal about eight years ago."

Watson said that even if it had more teeth, the program would not eliminate the need for regulations preventing methane emissions from existing oil and gas sources. The EPA had started the process of collecting information to put out a rule governing these types of emissions, but since the Trump administration came into office, the information collection request has been withdrawn, effectively delaying any regulation along those lines indefinitely. API and the industry fought against the Obama-era EPA's attempts at regulating methane emissions.

Greg Guidry, Shell's executive vice president for upstream Americas unconventionals, said during the conference call that the voluntary program was not intended to dissuade regulators from imposing methane rules on the industry.

"The industry is proactively doing something to enhance the improvements we've already made," Guidry said, adding that the industry is not trying to stave off oversight. "Smart regulation that's well-founded in science and technically-based does make sense."

Still, the Sierra Club called the program "a cynical ploy for public goodwill" and criticized the industry for working with the Trump administration to undermine other methane regulations. The group contended in a Dec. 5 emailed statement that the program falls short of what is necessary to meaningfully impact greenhouse gas emissions from the oil and gas sector.

Watson acknowledged that voluntary methane reduction programs have the potential to be effective.

"It's good to see these 26 companies acknowledging the importance of reducing methane. A number of those companies have already been active leaders on the issue. For some of them, it's the first time we're seeing them at the dance, and that's good," Watson said. "Unfortunately, this API program is so weak it's not going to move the needle."