Methane emissions higher than reported: new study
CALGARY — Two new reports from environmental groups say methane emissions in Canada’s oil and gas sector are higher than previously thought, as debate continues on how urgently they need to be reduced.
The David Suzuki Foundation partnered with St. Francis Xavier University on a study that found methane emissions from oil and gas sites in British Columbia to be 2.5 times higher than previously reported.
“Our finding is quite staggering,” said Ian Bruce, director of the Suzuki Foundation’s science and policy department. “B.C.’s methane pollution problem, and certainly Canada’s, is much bigger than previously estimated by government and industry.”
The peer-reviewed findings, drawn from measures at over 1,600 well pads in the Montney shale gas formation in northeastern B.C., estimate that operations in the region leak and intentionally release more than 111,800 tonnes of methane a year.
“This is a concern because methane is a very potent greenhouse gas, 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide over a 20-year period,” said Bruce. He said the effects of methane means it’s important for the federal government to return to its original timeline for reducing those emissions, rather than the at least three-year delay it recently made after pressure from industry.
Meanwhile, an Environmental Defence report highlighted data produced by GreenPath Energy Ltd. for the Alberta government that shows methane emissions in that province are 60 per cent higher than previously thought.
GreenPath surveyed 676 oil and gas wells on 395 sites across Alberta’s gas producing regions and found the number of pumps and controllers on sites that could leak methane was much higher than expected. It concluded the areas it studied would have 489,951 annual tonnes of methane emissions from those devices, compared with a 2014 report of 306,213 tonnes of methane a year from unreported venting in 2010 for all of Alberta.