Discrepancies in the current capabilities in measuring upstream flare volumes in the Permian Basin

Abstract

The Permian Basin in Texas is the largest and fastest-growing oil and gas producing region in the United States. Along with this growth, there have been increased methane emissions and natural gas flaring. The volume of flared gas can be measured by various methods. In this study, flared gas volumes obtained from satellites are compared with the flared gas volume and oil production reported by the operators to the State of Texas. The novelty of this study arises from the fine-grained perspective with which it is conducted, that is, the data points are spatially narrowed down to ten different flare sites located in the Permian Basin and temporally narrowed down to monthly volume comparisons. It is found that satellite data matches reported data at some sites, while in other sites it is higher or lower than the operator-reported data. The trend in flaring is compared with oil production from the wells associated with the ten flare sites. At the sites where the data matched the gas flaring was also correlated with the oil production data. This suggests that the reported flare volumes are more accurate (i.e. match with the satellite) under routine flaring, and are less accurate for episodic flaring. Only five out of the ten flares showed a correlation with oil production. For the ten sites, cumulatively, the satellite observed volumes were 16% of the operator-reported volume in 2018, 21% in 2019, 41.5% in 2020, and 111% in 2021. A discussion is included on how changes in regulations may affect these comparisons going forward.