Methane Emissions from Process Equipment at Natural Gas Production Sites in the United States: Pneumatic Controllers
Abstract
Emissions from 377 gas actuated (pneumatic) controllers were measured at natural gas production sites and a small number of oil production sites, throughout the United States. A small subset of the devices (19%), with whole gas emission rates in excess of 6 standard cubic feet per hour (scf/h), accounted for 95% of emissions. More than half of the controllers recorded emissions of 0.001 scf/h or less during 15 min of measurement. Pneumatic controllers in level control applications on separators and in compressor applications had higher emission rates than controllers in other types of applications. Regional differences in emissions were observed, with the lowest emissions measured in the Rocky Mountains and the highest emissions in the Gulf Coast. Average methane emissions per controller reported in this work are 17% higher than the average emissions per controller in the 2012 EPA greenhouse gas national emission inventory (2012 GHG NEI, released in 2014); the average of 2.7 controllers per well observed in this work is higher than the 1.0 controllers per well reported in the 2012 GHG NEI.
Additional Information
© 2014 American Chemical Society. This is an open access article published under an ACS AuthorChoice License, which permits copying and redistribution of the article or any adaptations for non-commercial purposes. Received: August 18, 2014; Revised: November 11, 2014; Accepted: November 21, 2014; Published: December 9, 2014. We thank the sponsors of this work for financial support, technical advice and access to sites for sampling. The sponsors were Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, BG Group plc, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, Encana Oil & Gas (USA) Inc., Pioneer Natural Resources Company, SWEPI LP (Shell), Southwestern Energy, Statoil, and XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil. Funding for EDF's methane research series, including the University of Texas study, is provided for by Fiona and Stan Druckenmiller, Heising-Simons Foundation, Bill and Susan Oberndorf, Betsy and Sam Reeves, Robertson Foundation, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, TomKat Charitable Trust, and the Walton Family Foundation. We thank the experts who reviewed the data on high emitting devices.Attached Files
Published - es5040156.pdf
Supplemental Material - es5040156_si_001.pdf
Supplemental Material - es5040156_si_002.xlsx
Files
Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 55049
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20150220-105538803
- Environmental Defense Fund (EDF)
- Anadarko Petroleum Corporation
- BG Group plc
- Chevron
- ConocoPhillips
- Encana Oil Gas (USA) Inc.
- Pioneer Natural Resources Company
- SWEPI LP (Shell)
- Southwestern Energy
- Statoil
- XTO Energy
- Heising-Simons Foundation
- Robertson Foundation
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- TomKat Charitable Trust
- Walton Family Foundation
- Created
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2015-02-20Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field