API’s Director of Regulatory and Scientific Affairs Howard Feldman told reporters yesterday morning that a URS study prepared for API and the American Natural Gas Association showed that methane emissions from natural gas production were half what had been previously estimated by EPA. He called the new data the most robust the nation now has on this important subject:
“Our new report provides the best, most comprehensive estimate of methane emissions from U.S. natural gas production. It’s based on data from ten times as many wells as support the estimate EPA has been using.
“This emissions information is critically important because it allows oil and gas companies, citizens, and regulators to gauge the industry’s impact on the environment and allows companies to measure continued efforts to reduce their environmental footprint.
“The API-ANGA emissions estimate, which is half EPA’s estimate, is more accurate because it’s based on emissions from 91,000 wells operated by 20 companies, distributed over a much broader geographic area. EPA’s data were derived from only 8,800 wells.
“The fact that these emissions are much less than earlier, more limited estimates and the fact that operators are already working to reduce emissions from natural gas production is good news for the future of U.S. natural gas development and the game changing benefits of job creation and economic growth that will come with it.”
API represents more than 500 oil and natural gas companies, leaders of a technology-driven industry that supplies most of America’s energy, supports 9.2 million U.S. jobs and 7.7 percent of the U.S. economy, delivers more than $86 million a day in revenue to our government, and, since 2000, has invested more than $2 trillion in U.S. capital projects to advance all forms of energy, including alternatives.
[mappress] LNG World News Staff, June 05, 2012; Image: Chesapeake