- Announced by Energean (see details)
- Athena gas well
- 283 bcf
- De-risks other nearby prospects
Archive for the ‘natural gas’ Category
Another East Mediterranean gas discovery
Posted in natural gas, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Athena, Eastern Mediterranean, Energean, Israel on May 9, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Gulf of Mexico flaring data sets don’t match
Posted in climate, Gulf of Mexico, natural gas, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Argonne, BSEE, EIA, flaring data, Gulf of Mexico, ONRR, UMich, venting, World Bank on May 5, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Given the importance of flaring and venting from both environmental and resource conservation standpoints, accurate and reliable data are necessary and should be readily available to the public. ONRR has advised me that they will begin posting flaring and venting data on their website within 2 months. This is a positive step. Currently, data from the 3 primary sources differ considerably.
Data Sources:
- US Energy Information Administration (EIA): Per EIA, their flaring and venting data are received directly from the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE).
- Office of Natural Resources Revenue: ONRR is a sister bureau of BSEE within the Department of the Interior. Per BSEE regulations, all flared or vented gas must be reported to ONRR. As noted above, ONRR will begin regularly posting flaring and venting data within the next 2 months. This is a most welcome and positive step and may help address these inconsistency issues.
- World Bank Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership: “a multi-donor trust fund composed of governments, oil companies, and multilateral organizations committed to ending routine gas flaring at oil production sites across the world.”
Comments:
- The EIA (from BSEE) and ONRR flaring/venting numbers should be the same given that the ONRR data are reported in accordance with BSEE regulations, and BSEE is presumably providing ONRR data to EIA. This needs to be clarified.
- The World Bank’s gas flaring estimates are based on observations from satellites. This explains their lower numbers given that vented gas would not be detected and some flares might be missed.
- In a 1/2021 interview with World Oil, the exiting BSEE Director commented that the “industry has consistently achieved a ratio of less than 1.25% of flared, vented gas to produced gas.” However, based on EIA flaring and venting data (from BSEE per EIA) and EIA gas production data, the volume of gas flared/vented exceeded 1.25% of the gas produced from 2016-2020 and was as high as 1.8% in 2019. (See the chart below.) Even if the lower ONRR flaring/venting totals are used, those volumes exceeded 1.25% in 2019 (1.5%).
- BSEE/ONRR should make more detailed flaring/venting data available so that the differences between facilities and sectors (e.g. deepwater vs. shelf) could be assessed. Efforts should also be made to post these data in a more timely manner. At this time, 2021 data are still not available.
Reports of interest:
- Argonne report for BSEE (2017):
- p. 17 – “The 2015 BSEE/BOEM study on reducing methane emissions observed that “while natural gas production has declined, …vented and flared gas volumes as a percentage of produced natural gas are increasing” and noted that additional investigation is needed to determine why.” This is consistent with my observations and is probably due in large part to the fact that most gas production is now from oil-wells (e.g. associated gas).
- p. 24 – “Argonne estimates, in 2015, platform startups for deep-water floating structures accounted for roughly 15% of the total annual flaring volume on the OCS and an additional 20% of the annual total resulted from monthly spikes associated with compressor outage, pipeline maintenance, and well-unloading.”
- Univ. of Michigan study (2020): “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.”
Germans and Dutch agree to gas development in the sensitive Wadden Sea, but the US govt can’t hold an oil and gas lease sale anywhere on our massive continental shelf
Posted in energy policy, natural gas, Offshore Energy - General, tagged germany, Netherlands, Wadden Sea on May 2, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Germany will work with the Dutch exploration and production company, ONE-Dyas, to operate a gas field in the North Sea above Schiermonnikoog and the German Wadden island of Borkum, Dutch broadcaster NOS reported on Wednesday.
The announcement was made on Tuesday by Bernd Althusmann, economy minister of the state of Lower Saxony, NOS reported.
“We cannot afford to ask the Netherlands for more gas and continue to refuse to extract our own gas,” Althusmann said.
EURACTIV
Meanwhile, the US offshore program continues to be paralyzed.
Reminder about the massive natural gas resources in the eastern US
Posted in energy, natural gas, pipelines, tagged Marcellus Shale, Ohio, Pennsylvania, US natural gas, West Virginia on April 13, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Linked is a good article by geologist Gregory Wrightstone about the stunning non-conventional natural gas resource potential of the Appalachian Basin of the eastern US. Unsurprisingly, development of these resources is constrained by pipeline capacity and the legal and administrative challenges associated with new pipeline construction. Also note that New York has blocked development of its natural gas resources. Fortunately, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, and Ohio have shown better judgement.
According to Bill Zagorski, who was given the moniker of the “Father of the Marcellus,” the gas-in-place of the Marcellus dwarfs all conventional fields in the world. The size is so large that the ten largest conventional fields in the world combined do not equal the in-place reserves of the Marcellus.
LNG projects should give a boost to Gulf of Mexico natural gas production
Posted in energy policy, Gulf of Mexico, natural gas, Offshore Energy - General, tagged Gulf of Mexico LNG, Louisiana, New Fortress Energy on April 3, 2022| Leave a Comment »
New Fortress Energy’s Fast LNG liquefaction solution is particularly interesting.
New Fortress Energy Inc. (NASDAQ: NFE) (together with its affiliates, “NFE”) today announced that it has concurrently filed applications with the U.S. Maritime Administration, the U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Department of Energy to request all necessary permits and regulatory approvals to site, construct and operate a new offshore LNG liquefaction terminal off the coast of Louisiana (“the Project”) with a capacity of exporting approximately 145 billion cubic feet of natural gas per year, equivalent to approximately 2.8 million tons per annum (MTPA) of LNG.
The Project will be located in federal waters approximately 16 miles off the southeast coast of Grand Isle, Louisiana, and will access abundant U.S. gas supply by leveraging existing infrastructure. Procurement of all long-lead materials is complete and modular assembly of equipment is underway. Subject to the receipt of all required permits and approvals, NFE targets beginning operations in the first quarter of 2023.
businesswire
Remember when the US was strictly an LNG importer?
Posted in energy policy, natural gas, tagged Daniel Yergin, LNG exports on March 28, 2022| Leave a Comment »
Technological advances, most notably horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, and private initiative on private land changed all of that.
“The US is going to emerge this year as the world’s largest LNG exporter, and it is clear that US LNG is a geopolitical asset for the United States and for Europe.”
Daniel Yergin
It’s a good thing most US shale production is on private land
Posted in energy policy, natural gas, Offshore Energy - General, tagged EIA', natural gas production, oil production, US OCS vs. PA, US OCS vs. TX on February 11, 2022| Leave a Comment »
- My home State (Commonwealth) of Pennsylvania is producing nearly 10 times as much natural gas as the US OCS (Federal offshore). Who would have dreamed this was possible 20 years ago? Among the states, PA is second to Texas in gas production.
- Oil production in Texas is now nearly 3 times as high as on the OCS. In 2010, US offshore production was substantially higher (567 million barrels vs. 427 million barrels).
- Thanks largely to Texas, North Dakota, and New Mexico, US oil production is rebounding.
- Thanks to TX, PA, LA, AK, WV, OK, NM, and OH, US gas production has also strengthened.
EIA production data through 11/20/2021:
Germany’s high risk energy strategy
Posted in climate, energy policy, natural gas, UK, tagged Aissatou Sophie Gladima, energy policy, energy transition, germany, UK, Yergin on January 17, 2022| Leave a Comment »
By the end of 2022, Germany will have switched off its last 8.1 GW of nuclear power. Another 6.4 GW of coal capacity are scheduled for shuttering by 2023. Recent events and publications have given ammunition to those who fear a collapse of the system.
In 2018, Germany’s influential energy industry association BDEW said that Germany would run into a “shortfall in secured capacity by 2023 at the latest”, and that the country shouldn’t rely on its neighbors to make up the difference. Three years later and a lot closer to the nuclear phase-out, BDEW head Kerstin Andreae says: “For a secure energy supply, we also need new gas-fired power plants, as this is the only way to obtain the required controllable power.”
Clean Energy Wire
Germany will need back-up and supplemental power from gas plants, but the EU has excluded gas-fired energy generation from the list of sustainable investments and the associated incentives. Per Kerstin Andreae of the BDEW:
“We need to build these new power plant capacities now. Although they will initially run on natural gas, they are already capable of using hydrogen as an energy source in the future and will thus ultimately become climate neutral,” she said. But without a clear decision from the Commission „ important energy transition investments are at risk”
Clean Energy Wire
Meanwhile, oilprice.com reports that “UK peak-hour power prices for Monday evening through 6 p.m. surged to the highest level in a month due to low wind power generation during the weekend.” In what is becoming a familiar story:
Coal closures and no immediate replacements for nuclear power have exposed the UK’s vulnerabilities to the whims of the weather, with cold winters stoking natural gas demand and still weather lowering wind power generation.
oilprice.com
Daniel Yergin reminded us that energy transitions take time. Countries that ignore those realities are likely to suffer the consequences, both economically and environmentally. Per Aissatou Sophie Gladima, the energy minister of Senegal:
Restricting lending for oil and gas development, she said, “is like removing the ladder and asking us to jump or fly.”
German government acknowledges the obvious
Posted in energy policy, natural gas, tagged Deutschland, energy transition, Green Party, natural gas on January 7, 2022| Leave a Comment »
“We will need gas throughout the transitional phase,” government spokesman Steffen Hebestreit said.
oilprice.com
Germany has a very strong Green lobby that has now become part of the ruling coalition. Despite an anti-fossil fuel discourse, the Greens have now apparently accepted the necessity of at least one fossil fuel, perhaps not least because Germany has plans to shut down all of its nuclear power plants by the end of this year.
oilprice.com
