A015-02
Empirical assessment of methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure in Mexico
Monday, 7 December 2020: 05:33
Virtual
Daniel Zavala Araiza1, Mark Omara2, Ritesh Gautam3, Mackenzie Smith4, Sudhanshu Pandey5, Ilse Aben6, Victor Almanza7, Stephen Conley4, Sander Houweling8, Joannes D Maasakkers5, Luisa Molina9, Tia Scarpelli10, Lu Shen10, Stefan Schwietzke11, Miguel A Zavala7 and Steve Hamburg12, (1)Environmental Defense Fund, Utrecht, Netherlands, (2)Environmental Defense Fund New York, Austin, TX, United States, (3)Environmental Defense Fund, Washington, DC, United States, (4)Scientific Aviation Inc., Boulder, CO, United States, (5)SRON, Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Utrecht, Netherlands, (6)SRON Netherlands Institute for Space Research, Utrecht, Netherlands, (7)Molina Center for Energy and the Environment, La Jolla, CA, United States, (8)VU University Amsterdam, Faculty of Science, Amsterdam, Netherlands, (9)Molina Center for Energy and the Environment, La Jolla, United States, (10)Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, United States, (11)Environmental Defense Fund, Berlin, Germany, (12)Environmental Defense Fund New York, New York, NY, United States
Abstract:
Empirically-based assessments of methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure in the US, Canada, and Europe have already provided critical information to reduce uncertainty on the scale and location of emissions. Nonetheless, few systematic measurements have been made in other countries, leaving emissions from roughly three quarters of global oil and gas production unconstrained by measurements. Measuring and characterizing methane emissions of diverse global oil and gas operations is crucial to the design of effective mitigation strategies.
Several countries (e.g., Canada, Colombia, Mexico, Nigeria, US) have announced pledges to reduce methane emissions from this sector. In the case of Mexico, the federal government recently published regulations supporting a 40-45% reduction of methane emissions from the oil and gas infrastructure.
We present results from top-down empirical estimates of methane emissions from Mexico’s major oil and gas production regions (both offshore and onshore). We used aircraft-based measurements at the regional-level and facility-level to construct emission estimates. Independent characterization of emissions using satellite data (i.e., TROPOMI methane data and VIIRS night-time flare data) allowed us to extend our estimates by averaging data over two years.
Our results provide the first empirically-derived estimate of total emissions in the sampled regions of Mexico, highlighting the large differences between empirically based estimates and bottom-up inventory-based estimates and the impact of these differences on defining emission reduction opportunities. We identify key emission hotspots. The main driver of inaccuracies in the inventory appears to be the use of generic emission factors developed in other countries. Our work highlights the central importance of empirical characterization of emissions if effective emissions mitigation is to be undertaken.
