Gas wastage ‘could power 760k homes’

FOSSIL fuels giants should cut gas leakage and end gas venting and flaring to halt wasting enough energy to supply more than 760,000 homes a year, a think tank has warned.

According to analysis by the Green Alliance think tank, a lack of regulation by the UK Government is allowing the oil and gas industry to waste at least 28 billion cubic feet of gas every year.

According to the research, the wasted gas is more than can be expected to come from the new North Sea fields at Rosebank and Jackdaw over the next five years.

The industry has been accused of “laziness” in allowing wastage.

The next two winters are likely to be the highest risk for gas supply, as gas suppliers across the continent scramble to reduce demand and find alternatives to Russian gas. Reducing wastage over the next two to five years would be one of the fastest ways of ensuring security of supply.

The research by Green Alliance highlights that the cost of preventing most of the wastage would be less than the value of the recovered gas.

By mandating monthly leak detection and repair activities, a proposal under consideration by the EU and common practice in Norway, as well as banning routine venting and flaring, the UK could drastically reduce gas wastage.

The analysis is part of a new report by Green Alliance on interventions the government could make to meet its obligations under the Global Methane Pledge, a commitment to reduce methane by 30 per cent by 2030.

Since natural gas is mostly composed of methane, these measures would help the UK to reduce methane emissions by 9% this decade, almost one third of the reductions needed.

Dustin Benton, policy director at Green Alliance, said: “While people across the country are doing everything they can to save energy at home, and the government is under huge pressure to do more to insulate people’s homes, the lazy fossil fuel industry is raking in record profits while making no effort to cut waste.

“If the industry isn’t going to act to reduce leakage and stop practices like flaring, then the UK Government should intervene to force them to.”

Tessa Khan, executive director of Uplift said: “Oil and gas producers claim they’re committed to supporting our energy security, but all the while they are deliberately burning off gas because it’s unprofitable to capture it and would require some investment on their part to fix. Even at a time when they’re making record profits.

“The Government needs to ban flaring, no question, but it also needs to free us from our dependency on this industry, whose only motivation is profit, through growing renewables, putting a stop to new oil fields like

Rosebank, which will do nothing to lower bills, and with a properly funded nationwide energy efficiency drive.”

Labour’s Colin Smyth said: “If we are serious about hitting our net zero targets , we need to get serious about the cutting our dependence on fossil fuels.

“Action to end wasteful leakage and unnecessary venting and flaring must be central to tackling emissions.

“We know we can’t just switch off the oil and gas taps – but pouring gas into our atmosphere is bad for the environment, bad for security of supply and bad for customers facing rocketing bills.”

Will Webster OEUK’S energy policy manager, said: “As the North Sea Transition Authority’s own emissions monitoring report confirmed, the oil and gas sector has cut its emissions, but more needs to be done if we are to deliver greater reductions.

“We must build on the good progress we’ve achieved through actions including platform modifications, streamlining planned shutdowns and investing in ways to rationalise energy consumption.

“OEUK will continue to secure input from operators and the supply chain to accelerate this change and to ensure flaring, venting reduction and abatement technologies are widely applied across production facilities on the UK Continental Shelf.”

The UK Government did not respond to requests for comment.