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Part 2: Gulf of America flaring and venting (2019-2025) – charts and summary table

Posted in natural gas, Offshore Energy - General, Gulf of Mexico, climate, flaring and venting, tagged , , , , , , on June 29, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Part 1

Gulf of America flaring and venting data for 2019-2025 are summarized in the attached table. The preferred performance indicators are the percentages of produced gas that are flared and vented both for oil-well gas (OWG, also known as associated or casinghead gas) and gas-well gas (GWG or non-associated gas).

The flaring and venting table was compiled using monthly data submitted to the Office of Natural Resources Revenue (ONRR). This is the best data source because reporting is mandatory and strictly enforced, and flaring and venting are accounted for separately. All volumes are in millions of cubic feet (MMCF).

The venting and flaring volumes are segmented for both OWG and GWG production. Venting produced gas (mostly methane) is a more significant environmental concern from both air quality and greenhouse gas (GHG) perspectives.

Observations and Comments:

  • The total volume of gas flared and vented in 2025 was 9.7 bcf (chart 1). 80% of that volume was flared, leaving 20% vented. OWG flaring (chart 5) reached a new high of 7.785 bcf in 2025, a near record oil production year for the Gulf.
  • Total venting and flaring in 2025 increased by 819 million cubic feet vs. 2024. However, the 7-year trend line remains favorable (chart 1).
  • Thinking that 2019, a record year for total flaring and venting, may have biased the trend line, I extended the chart back to 2015, the first year for which I have ONRR data. As you can see in chart 2, the overall trend is still favorable.
  • The % of produced gas that was flared or vented remains persistently above the historical 1.0% target (chart 3). Flared/vented volumes were below 1% of production prior to 2018.
  • The higher flaring/venting % may be because most gas production is now from oil wells, which typically have higher flaring rates associated with processing upsets.
  • The flaring and venting gap between GWG and OWG has narrowed, largely because of an increase in GWG flaring/venting. The combined rate for GWG more than doubled over the 7 year period, rising to 0.81% vs. 1.34% for OWG. (chart 3)
  • Total venting rose to 1.7 bcf in 2025, the highest venting volume in 3 years.
  • The % of GWG being vented doubled over the past 5 years to over 0.50% (chart 4). The growth in venting warrants further investigation.
  • The % of OWG vented increased slightly to 0.20%. Further reduction in OWG venting had been expected given that OWG production is increasingly from deepwater facilities with modern flaring systems.
  • A 2020 Univ. of Michigan study found “Large, older facilities situated in shallow waters tended to produce episodic, disproportionally high spikes of methane emissions. These facilities, which have more than seven platforms apiece, contribute to nearly 40% of emissions, yet consist of less than 1% of total platforms.” 
  • Platform specific data would be helpful in further assessing flaring/venting sources and trends.
chart 1
chart 2
chart 3
chart 4
chart 5

2025 flaring_venting – Sheet3Download

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GE Vernova: A Tale of Two Businesses

Posted in natural gas, Offshore Wind, Wind Energy, tagged , , , , , , on May 22, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Gas turbine business soars
wind turbine business slumps

Steve Milloy, National Center for Public Policy Research: GE Vernova is losing money on wind turbines and will continue to lose money for the foreseeable future. Wind losses are real and guided to persist at ~$400 million in 2026.

On the other hand, GE Vernova’s gas turbine business is booming. The gas turbine backlog and slot reservations surged from 83 GW to 100 GW in Q1, with a target of at least 110 GW by year-end. There is strong demand for reliable, dispatchable power to support data centers and grid stability. This segment is a major profit driver.

Milloy is asking GE Vernova shareholders to support the following resolution:

RESOLVED: Shareholders request that the Board of Directors of GE Vernova Inc. publish a report within the next year—prepared at reasonable cost and omitting proprietary or competitively sensitive information—assessing the extent to which the Corporation’s sustainability goals have been authorized and maintained on the basis of net-present-value and return-on-investment calculations.

The company’s Board of Directors has unanimously recommended that shareholders vote “AGAINST” this proposal, arguing that the Company already provides comprehensive, transparent disclosures on sustainability‑related risks, opportunities, goals, and progress.

Meanwhile, GE Vernova remains locked up in an ugly dispute with Vineyard Wind and is still prevented by court order from exiting that project.

We are approaching the 2 year anniversary of the GEV blade failure that rocked the offshore world.

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Platform Habitat ceased production more than a decade ago! Is the damaged structure fit for the resumption of decommissioning?

Posted in accidents, California, natural gas, Offshore Energy - General, Regulation, well control incidents, tagged , , , , , , , , on May 13, 2026| 1 Comment »

The Platform Habitat fire was extinguished at 11:40 a.m. on 5/11/2026 after burning for 5 hours.

All 26 workers were safely evacuated from DCOR’s Platform Habitat. The big question now is the fitness of the structure for continuing well plugging/abandonment and platform decommissioning.

As indicated in the attached letter, BSEE had informed DCOR that their Pitas Point Unit leases (where Platform Habitat is located) expired on 3/15/2016 owing to the cessation of well operations 6 months prior. Following the Interior Board of Land Appeals (IBLA) May 7, 2021 affirmation of BSEE’s directive, DCOR was notified that they must permanently plug all wells within one year of the lease termination (i.e. one year after the 2021 IBLA decision). I’ll include the informative IBLA decision in a future post.

Although details have not been shared, it appears that well plugging operations were still ongoing on 5/11/2026 when the fire occurred. According to BSEE’s borehole file, most of the Habitat wells have been temporarily abandoned, but few have been permanently abandoned, and several are still completed (i.e. neither temporarily nor permanently abandoned).

The risks and costs associated with delaying well plugging and abandonment have once again been demonstrated at Habitat. Fortunately, there were no casualties or pollution.

With regard to overall safety compliance, DCOR is the violations leader in the Pacific Region. In 2025 and 2026 (YTD) they were cited for 70 violations, 66 of which required component or facility shut-ins. The age of the 9 DCOR platforms (installed by others between 1968 and 1984) has likely contributed to the compliance challenges.

BSEE spreadsheets for 2020-2024 show 6 incidents at Platform Habitat. BSEE’s incident summaries are pasted in the second attachment.

Neither DCOR nor BSEE has issued a statement on the Habitat fire.

This serious incident further demonstrates the concerns expressed by John Smith and me about the relaxed decommissioning financial assurance regulations proposed by BOEM.

DCOR-Platform-Habitat-Decommissioning-ApplicationsDownload
Untitled documentDownload

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Add another 343.5 trillion cu ft to our natural gas resource base

Posted in energy, natural gas, tagged , , , , , , on May 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Scientific discovery, technological innovation, and human ingenuity are not finite!

The U.S. Geological Survey released its assessment of undiscovered gas and oil in the Bossier Formation along the Gulf Coast. USGS assesses that there are technically recoverable resources of 343.5 trillion cubic feet of gas – enough to supply the United States for more than 10 years at the current rate of consumption.

USGS Report

The USGS quantitatively assessed three continuous and one conventional AUs (assessment units) for undiscovered oil, gas, and natural gas liquid resources in the Bossier Formation. The estimated mean total resources in the four AUs are 3 million barrels of oil (MMBO), with an F95–F5 range from 1 to 8 MMBO; 343,499 billion cubic feet of gas (BCFG), or 343.5 trillion cubic feet of gas, with an F95–F5 range from 103,943 to 611,703 BCFG; and 374 million barrels of natural gas liquids (MMBNGL), with an F95–F5 range from 109 to 721 MMBNGL (table 2).

So much for the depletion of our natural gas resources! Long-time gas advocates knew that geologic studies, technology, and ingenuity would provide the resource, and that has been demonstrated in spades!

Kudos to USGS, headed by my former colleague Ned Mamula, for their important resource assessment studies!

Photograph of an outcrop of the Bossier Formation-equivalent Pimienta Formation in the central Huayacocotla Basin, State of Hidalgo, Mexico, showing alternating limestone, bentonite, and organic-rich shale deposited in a semirestricted marine setting. The Bossier Formation is restricted to the subsurface of the United States; therefore, outcrops of equivalent strata in Mexico provide valuable observations not obtainable in the U.S. Gulf Coast region. Geology hammer shown for scale. Photograph by Mario Martínez-Yáñez, used with permission.

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Appalachia leads the nation in natural gas production! OCS continues to lag.

Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, natural gas, Offshore Energy - General, pipelines, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 19, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Marcellus drill site, Lycoming County, PA

Per EIA data, the Appalachia, Permian, and Haynesville regions accounted for 67% of the total marketed gas production in the US in 2025 and 81% of the growth last year.

In 2025, more natural gas was produced in the Appalachia region of the Northeast than in any other US region, accounting for 31% of marketed natural gas production. (See the chart below.) Were it not for pipeline capacity limitations, recent growth in Appalachia production would have been greater.

Appalachia production is primarily from the Marcellus and Utica shales in PA, WV, and Ohio.

OCS gas production, 80% of which is now associated gas from deepwater oil wells, continues to lag the shale basins. This is a big change from 25 years ago when the OCS produced more gas than any state but Texas. (See the chart below.) Interest in ultradeep (subsurface) OCS shelf gas prospects remains scant despite favorable demand forecasts and technological advances.

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Meanwhile, New York continues to block development of the State’s ample shale gas resources. foregoing the economic and environmental benefits.

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Israel’s offshore production curtailments mirror those during the June 2025 conflict

Posted in energy policy, natural gas, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , on March 2, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Argus reports that Israel’s energy ministry has instructed Chevron and Energean to suspend production at their offshore Leviathan and Karish gas fields.

Although, the Israeli facility shut-ins will result in the curtailment of exports, Egypt has implemented a backup plan to ensure adequate supply.

There is no indication that Chevron’s Tamar field has been shut-in.

Summary table:

field
(operator)		2024 production
(billion cubic meters)
(% of Israel’s total)		June 2025 conflict2026 conflict
Leviathan
(Chevron)		11.33
45%		shut-inshut-in
Tamar
(Chevron)		10.09
37%		producingproducing?
Karish
(Evergean)		5.96
18%		shut-inshut-in

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Celebrating natural gas – DOE (2/24/2026) and BOE (2/4/2010) 😉

Posted in energy policy, natural gas, tagged , , , , on February 25, 2026| 2 Comments »

The natural gas revolution is cause for celebration! How about a parade down Constitution Ave?😉

In light of the Dept. of Energy’s announcement commemorating the 10th anniversary of the first export cargo of U.S. liquefied natural gas (LNG), I’m linking a 16 year old BOE post asking why we weren’t celebrating the emerging natural gas bonanza. Keep in mind that 20 years ago we were planning for LNG import facilities in the Gulf!

Quote from DOE about the transformation of the US into the world’s leading LNG exporter:

“This transformation was made possible by the Shale Revolution, an era of breakthrough technologies including horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing that unlocked vast domestic oil and natural gas resources.”

The “Natural Gas Revolution” (Yergin) is an important part of our history that deserves national attention.

DOE graphic
Natural Gas for the win!

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Reality check for Denmark; North Sea licenses to be extended beyond 2042?

Posted in energy policy, natural gas, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , on February 24, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Tyra gas hub, North Sea, Danish sector

Excerpts from Argus article:

The Danish government will “initiate a process” to look at possibly extending one or more production licences in the Danish North Sea until 2050, to contribute to European energy security and independence, it said.

The government has asked the Danish underground consortium (DUC) — which operates the Tyra hub — to “explore an extension” beyond the current 2042 expiry.

Europe is in dire need of energy independence, and while renewables expansion can help the bloc achieve that goal, natural gas will still play a significant part of the energy mix in the coming year, the Danish government said. “Europe must stand on its own two feet,” Danish industry and trade minister Mortern Bodskov said

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AAPG: “A Gulf Coast Gas Crunch is Imminent”

Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, natural gas, Offshore Energy - General, tagged , , , , , , on February 3, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Excellent AAPG article

“We have not been finding enough new fields.” That’s William DeMis, president of Richelle Court, LLC, who said that, in addition to not finding enough, we keep erecting new ways to export what we’re not finding.

The way, he said, to avert the coming shortage is for people to find new sources of gas outside of Haynesville field, which for years, considering its proximity to the Gulf Coast, and the petrochemical plants of Southwest Louisiana, as well as pipelines, made it a swing producer for natural gas.

“But I can tell you from bitter experience over the last three years that finding people to fund greenfield exploration is darn near impossible. There is scant capital to drill natural gas wildcats in the U.S.” said DeMis.

Reiterating that it’s time for another look at ultradeep shelf gas in the Gulf. Should BOEM consider royalty incentives?

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“Alternatives to New England’s Energy Affordability Crisis” – natural gas saves hundreds of $billions

Posted in climate, energy policy, natural gas, Wind Energy, tagged , , , , , , on January 21, 2026| Leave a Comment »

The Always On Energy Research report is attached. Conclusion:

“In other words, dispatchable generation saves New England hundreds of billions of dollars and avoids blackouts. In the end, the idea that New England can run its electric grid on wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries is a dangerous and unserious proposition.“

1.13.2026 Alternatives to New Englands Energy Affordability CrisisDownload

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