U.S. LNG producer Cheniere Energy will work with natural gas companies and academic institutions to quantify, monitor, report and verify (QMRV) greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at LNG production sites.
A subsidiary of Cheniere will be running the project. The natural gas producers joining the project are Aethon Energy, Ascent Resources, EQT, Indigo Natural Resources and Pioneer Natural Resources.
The project is supported by researchers from the Payne Institute for Public Policy at the Colorado School of Mines, Harrisburg University of Science and Technology, SLR International and other emissions monitoring technology providers, including Montrose Environmental, SeekOps, Bridger Photonics and GHGSat.
This initiative will use multiple ground-based, drone, aerial, and satellite monitoring technologies to establish baseline emissions levels. It will monitor sites for CO2 and for methane emissions. The initiative will also verify emissions performance and identify opportunities to reduce emissions.
Cheniere wants to improve the overall understanding of upstream GHG emissions and further the deployment of advanced monitoring technologies and protocols.
This collaboration will also support Cheniere’s climate strategy initiatives, including the company’s plan to provide Cargo Emissions Tags (“CE Tags”) to customers beginning in 2022.
It will also assess the technical and policy considerations related to GHG emissions management at production sites, including the scalability and efficacy of a QMRV program.
The initial effort will cover production wells in the Haynesville, Marcellus, Permian and Utica basins that collectively produce approximately 360 million standard cubic feet per day of natural gas, as well as multiple tank batteries.
Jack Fusco , president and CEO of Cheniere, said: “This collaboration reinforces our data-driven environmental transparency, supports our CE Tags and enhances our efforts with natural gas suppliers to monitor and verify emissions to maximize the climate benefits of Cheniere’s LNG.”