Blowout turned ExxonMobil well into methane super-emitter
A February 2018 blowout of a natural gas well in the US leaked more methane into the atmosphere in 20 days than many countries emit in a year.
Scientists have said that 60 kilotons of methane was released – more than the oil and gas industries of France, Norway, and the Netherlands release in a 12 month period.
The team of American and Dutch scientists published their findings in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences on the 16th December.
The team used data from satellites to find that an explosion at a natural gas well run by an ExxonMobil subsidiary in Belmont County, Ohio, caused a release of methane at a rate of 80 tons an hour – five times the amount originally estimated by ExxonMobil.
In a statement, ExxonMobil said: “We deeply regret the event occurred and have instituted systematic well design and monitoring procedures to prevent it from happening again. We are eager to learn more, and our scientists are currently reviewing the study and its assumptions.
“ExxonMobil is working with government laboratories, universities, NGOs and other industry participants to identify the most cost-effective and best-performing technology, including satellites, which can be adopted by all producers to detect, repair and accurately measure methane,” the statement added.
Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that is one of the largest contributors to global warming. The research by the American-Dutch team is thought to be the first time methane from an oil or gas incident has been both detected and quantified using satellite data gathered during a routine global survey.
Satellites are starting to be used to detect and track large emissions of greenhouse gas and can help enable corrective action in the fight against climate change. In November, Montreal-based GHGSat Inc said that one of its satellites had discovered a giant methane plume apparently deriving from unlit flaring in the Korpezhe oil and gas field in western Turkmenistan. The company then used US, Canadian and European diplomatic channels to alert the Turkmenistan field operator and the emissions were stopped.
EDF plans to launch its own satellite in 2022. The company estimates that emissions from the oil and gas sector are 60 per cent higher than estimates given by the Environmental Protection Agency.
It is thought that as a result of the 2018 blowout in Ohio, methane leaked from the well at a rate twice that of the 2015 Aliso Canyon disaster in California, one of the worst natural gas leaks in US history in terms of environmental impact.
The blowout in Ohio took 20 days to bring under control after an explosion occurred as workers completed the well. The resulting methane emissions were measured by the Tropospheric Monitoring Instrument (TROPOMI), a satellite launched by the European Space Agency just a few months before the event. The scientists say that the satellite was conducting a routine global survey of methane emissions and was able to calculate changes in well pressure and the speed of emissions from the Ohio well.
“To combat climate change and build a low-carbon economy, being able to accurately monitor greenhouse gas emissions is an essential prerequisite. Satellite-based instruments which regularly scan the entire globe provide a means to detect and quantify methane emissions, which are challenging to measure,” the scientists said in their recently published article.
Source: HazardEx Magazine