Thermography reveals methane leaking from European gas plants

The potent greenhouse gas methane is spewing out of natural gas infrastructure across the European Union because of leaks and venting, video footage made available to Reuters shows. Using an infrared camera, non-profit Clean Air Task Force (CATF) found methane seeping into the atmosphere at 123 oil and gas sites in Austria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Romania this year.

Methane, the biggest cause of climate change after carbon dioxide (CO2), is the main component of natural gas and over 80 times more potent than CO2 in its first 20 years in the air. Currently, the EU does not regulate methane emissions in the energy sector, meaning companies running the sites surveyed by CATF are not breaking laws because of leaks or venting. While some member states require firms to report some emissions there is no overarching framework forcing them to monitor smaller leaks or fix them. That's set to change. The EU is proposing laws this year that will force oil and gas companies to monitor and report methane emissions, as well as improve the detection and repair of leaks.

In the energy sector, methane is emitted intentionally through venting and by accident from sites such as gas storage tanks, liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals, pipeline compressor stations and oil and gas processing sites. CATF visited over 200 sites in the seven EU states and found the emissions by placing the infrared camera in public vantage points to detect hydrocarbons such as methane that are invisible to the naked eye.

“The images I've taken, I've taken over the last three months and I've been to over two hundred sites across Europe,” said James Turitto, the CATF campaigner who filmed the emissions.

“Most of these sites have been leaking emissions in some way or another. And some sites I actually go back to, to see if they're continuing to leak. And I'm finding that they are.”

Altogether, CATF counted 271 separate incidents, with some sites leaching methane from several places. Turitto said over 90% of the sites he visited in the Czech Republic, Hungary, Italy, Poland and Romania were emitting methane while his hit rate in Germany and Austria was lower.

A selection of the CATF thermography, which shows hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds, was reviewed by five technical experts contacted by Reuters. Given emissions were at installations handling natural gas - and methane is its main component - they concluded the emissions in the footage were almost certainly methane.

Tim Doty, a consultant in thermographic imaging in the energy sector and a former official at the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said the footage showed the stacks were venting hydrocarbon emissions “invisible to the bare eye”.

“The camera has a filter in there that lets you see it. And so, from what I’ve reviewed for Clean Air Task Force they are correct in their interpretation of detecting hydrocarbons and methane,” Doty told Reuters.

At one gas plant owned by Italy's Eni <ENI.MI> near the town of Pineto on the country's Adriatic coast, methane appears to be leaking from a rusty hole in the side of a tank.

“You see that could have been detected with a leak detection and repair programme and then the company could have gone and fixed the tank,” said Turitto.

He added that when he called an emergency number for reporting leaks at the site, the line was dead. Eni said the leak at Pineto was from a water tank which would have had negligible amounts of gas and that it had been detected and fixed during regular maintenance. The video footage captures a snapshot of each site's emissions on a given day so it cannot quantify the amount of methane being emitted over longer periods. What it does reveal is emissions that could be avoided if infrastructure owners used commercially available measurement and abatement technology, emissions experts said.

The International Energy Agency says about three-quarters of methane emissions from global oil and gas operations could be avoided using existing technology. The European Commission put energy companies on notice in October that it would target them with new rules on gas leaks and was also considering restrictions on venting or flaring of methane. An EU official has said since that because the EU has few methane "super emitters", the legislation would focus on tackling the smaller but far more frequent emissions that occur throughout energy sector infrastructure. Experts say the new rules will shake things up for every oil and gas firm in Europe - not least because the EU is considering forcing companies to find and fix even the smallest leaks. It is unlikely the new rules would take effect before 2023 but Brussels wants to get them in place early enough to contribute to its goal of cutting net emissions of all greenhouse gases by 55% by 2030 from 1990 levels.

The EU is not alone. U.S. President Joe Biden's administration plans to propose new rules this year to reduce methane emissions.

The New York Times used an infrared camera to identify large methane leaks at U.S. oil and gas sites in 2019 while satellite footage made available to Reuters revealed massive methane leaks from Russian gas pipelines. CATF's footage shows Italian energy company SNAM was venting hydrocarbons consistently over three dates during a two-week period from two stacks at its Panigaglia LNG terminal near the town of La Spezia on the Mediterranean coast. At a SNAM underground storage facility at Minerbio near Bologna, the footage showed a plume of methane flowing out of a vent stack. SNAM said it was a member of the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP), a voluntary group of energy companies that is committed to improving methane measurement and abatement. Eni is also a member.

"Emissions recorded by CATF at the Minerbio and Bordolano storage sites are fugitive emissions resulting from blowdown valves that are internally leaking ... the full replacement, starting in 2021, will be completed in 2024," SNAM said.

"The (Panigaglia) emission recorded by CATF at the vent stacks was due to the temporary mechanical failure of an air compressor ... we are confident to be able to fix the air compressor during the second half of 2021," it said. Globally, the concentration of methane in the atmosphere is rising. The U.N. said in April that without deep cuts in methane emissions this decade, the Paris Agreement's goal of limiting warming to 1.5 Celsius would slip out of reach.

Once methane is in the atmosphere, it is all but impossible to trace it back to a specific source which means better monitoring at the point of emission is key.

A growing web of satellites searching for methane means major leaks of hundreds or thousands of tonnes a year are easier to identify but many smaller leaks go unnoticed.

Meanwhile in Austria, at an OMV oil facility near onshore wells north of Vienna, the CATF camera showed a number of smaller leaks.

OMV said it fully supported the upcoming EU methane rules. It said minor leaks at the site had been fixed and that it was planning to replace pressure regulation systems that release methane with equipment that prevents such emissions.

“We’re specifically talking about Europe at this point, but obviously the picture here is much bigger than Europe, it’s worldwide,” said Doty. “So, this is just a small snippet of really what’s out there.”

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