Colorado air regulators are set to begin patrolling the state’s oil fields and the skies over them to tally how much methane the industry’s wells, tanks and pipelines are spewing into the air.
The measurements are part of the first-in-the-nation methane intensity rule, aimed at helping meet the state’s statutory requirement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 26% in 2025; 50% by 2030; and 90% by 2050.
State oil and gas air regulations have been focused on “detection,” looking for leaks and fugitive emissions. This will be the first time regulators try to add up all the methane emissions the industry is generating.
The oil and gas industry is the third largest source of greenhouse gases in Colorado after transportation and electricity generation and it accounts for 60% of all the methane emitted in the state, according to state data.
Methane is 30 times more potent than carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, but shorter lived in the atmosphere.
The intensity regulation was adopted by the Air Quality Control Commission in July. Since then, there have been months of negotiations over a testing protocol among Air Pollution Control Division officials, industry representatives, environmental groups and local governments.
That protocol, adopted May 2, lays out how the state or an individual company would go about measuring emissions, The first tally is due at the end of this year.
“There was no method to quantify methane emissions,” said Nini Gu, a regulatory and legislative manager for the Environmental Defense Fund. “We have all these statutory emission targets, but how do we know if we are on track to meeting those targets if we aren’t quantifying those emissions.”
Under the rule, which takes effect in 2025, oil and gas operations will be limited to a certain level of methane emissions per barrel of oil and gas equivalent or BOE. To get their intensity per barrel, operators divide their emissions by their production.
For example, in 2025 oil companies producing more than 10 million BOE a year can emit no more than the equivalent of 11 tons of carbon dioxide for each 1,000 BOE. Operators below that level could emit the equivalent of 34 tons of carbon dioxide per 1,000 BOE.
The allowed levels will be ratcheted down in 2027 and 2030. All new oil and gas operations will have even tighter emission limits.
How intensity targets are met – what control technologies are used or what steps are taken to shut down high-emitting operations – will be left up to the companies.
“Our specific goal is to get to a programmatic improvement rather than specifying a specific technology,” said Stefanie Shoup, the manager overseeing the APCD’s planning and air quality data. “We are trying to find a way to provide options for multiple technologies.”
The key to the rule, however, is measuring the emissions.
Under the protocol, the APCD will take measurements for a nine-county area of the Front Range, a three-county area on the West Slope and also calculate an emission level for the rest of the state, except tribal lands.
The division will employ what it calls “regional flux” methods, such as aircraft over flights and satellite readings. The oil and gas emissions will have to be teased out from other methane sources, including agriculture, wetlands and landfills.
This will be buttressed by on-the-ground measurements of a sample of facilities and then using statistical techniques to generate an emission estimate across each region.
Of the 258 Colorado oil and gas operators only six – a mix of large and mid-sized companies – chose to do their own measurement programs. The rest opted to use state figures, Shoup said.
Oil and gas companies already file an annual report estimating their emissions, but these estimates are largely based on modeling.
APDC will take its measured emission number and compare that with the company reported emissions inventories and adjust company emission based on the state measurements.
For example, if the state calculates that a region’s emissions are 70,000 metric tons and the annual reports for that region total 50,000 metric tons – the state number is divided by the report’s number for a “factor” of 1.4.
All the company reported emissions are multiplied by the factor and that is the emission number used to determine intensity for each company. The factor can not be less than 1 according to the rules.
“This is the first time anyone has tried this and it will continually be evaluated,” Shoup said.
To meet the 2030 goal, the state calculates the industry must reduce methane emissions by 140,000 metric tons a year — the intensity program is supposed to come up with 39% of the cuts.
The rest will come from other regulations tightening emissions that have been adopted by the AQCC.
“The recently released GHG Intensity Verification Protocol continues Colorado’s leadership by taking the guesswork out of emissions estimates through the use of real-world data,” Laurie Anderson, a field organizer for Moms Clean Air Force, said in a statement.
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