A015-01
Quantification of methane emissions from oil & gas platforms in the Norwegian Sea & North Sea
Monday, 7 December 2020: 05:30
Virtual
Amy Foulds1, Grant Allen1, Jacob Shaw1, Prudence Bateson2, Patrick Barker1, James D Lee3, Shona Wilde3, Pamela Dominutti4, Ruth Purvis5, David Lowry6, James L France6, Rebecca Fisher6, Magdalena Pühl7, Anke Roiger8, Stephen Conley9, Tom Lachlan-Cope10, Ignacio J Pisso11, Stefan Schwietzke12 and Daniel Zavala Araiza13, (1)University of Manchester, Manchester, M13, United Kingdom, (2)University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom, (3)University of York, Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratories, Department of Chemistry, York, United Kingdom, (4)Wolfson Atmospheric Chemistry Laboratories, University of York, York, United Kingdom, (5)University of York, Department of Chemistry, York, United Kingdom, (6)Royal Holloway, University of London, Egham, United Kingdom, (7)German Aerospace Centre (DLR) Oberpfaffenhofen, Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Wessling, Germany, (8)Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR), Institute of Atmospheric Physics, Oberpfaffenhofen, Germany, (9)Scientific Aviation Inc., Boulder, CO, United States, (10)NERC British Antarctic Survey, Cambridge, United Kingdom, (11)Norwegian Institute for Air Research, Kjeller, Norway, (12)Environmental Defense Fund, Berlin, Germany, (13)Post Doctoral Scientist, Austin, TX, United States
Abstract:
CH
4 is an extremely potent greenhouse gas, with ever-increasing global emissions expected to have a significant influence on the Earth’s climate. The Oil and Gas sector is considered to be a significant source of CH
4 to the atmosphere, estimated to make up approximately 22% of global emissions. Offshore facility emissions are poorly ground-truthed, with their quantification being heavily dependent on “bottom-up” scaling of inventory data. It is therefore important to devise reliable methods for locating these emissions and to pinpoint their sources, as this will aid emission quantification and validation against reported data.
As part of the United Nations Climate and Clean Air Coalition (UN CCAC) project, this study aims to characterise CH4 emissions from oil and gas infrastructure in the southern North Sea and Norwegian Sea. The campaign comprised surveys of selected operational oil and gas platforms in these regions and included targeted observations of CH4. These surveys included 10 flights in the southern North Sea in April 2018 and April/May 2019, which employed the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) Twin Otter research aircraft. Surveys of the Norwegian Sea were conducted by the Facility of Airborne Atmospheric Measurements (FAAM) and Scientific Aviation Mooney research aircrafts in July and August 2019, with a total 14 flights. Fluxes are derived using a mass balance approach and aircraft sampling. The Lagrangian particle dispersion model “FLEXPART” is used to aid the attribution of the observed CH4 emissions to the platform(s). We will present results for derived fluxes and uncertainties for individual facilities in the North Sea and Norwegian Sea and compare with operator-supplied annualised emissions data.
