As The Environmental Partnership celebrated its 5-year anniversary in 2022, its participants continued to demonstrate their commitment to reducing methane emissions through innovative facility design, improvements in operational practices and procedures, advancements in detecting and measuring emissions, and improved accuracy in data emissions reporting.
In 2022, participants reported that more than 4,000 zero-emission pneumatic controllers were installed at new sites and more than 61,700 gas-driven pneumatic controllers and 700 high-bleed devices were replaced or removed from service. Participating companies also continued to reduce their flaring, achieving a 2.4% reduction in flare intensity and a 14% reduction in total flare volumes reported from the previous year. And participating companies performed more than 202 million component inspections.
The Partnership is composed of over 100 companies, representing nearly 70% of the U.S. onshore oil and natural gas industry, committed to driving innovation and sharing best practices to reduce methane emissions in every major U.S. basin.
See our progress in the 2023 Annual Report (16 MB).
Vanessa Ryan
Chair, The Environmental Partnership
Manager, Carbon and Climate Policy, Chevron
“After five years as chair of The Environmental Partnership, I continue to be both impressed by and grateful for our participants’ ingenuity, creativity, and know-how for solving problems, powering our lives and reducing environmental impacts. I am proud of what we have achieved in just five years and look forward to continuing to grow the Partnership’s scope and membership.”
Emily Hague
Director, The Environmental Partnership
“In my first year leading The Partnership, this industry has taken on new challenges and new opportunities to improve our environmental performance, and I am proud of how The Partnership and our participating companies continue to meet the challenge of reducing methane emissions across the supply chain. Through innovative facility design, improvements in operational practices and procedures, advancements in detecting and measuring emissions and improved accuracy in data emissions reporting, we are achieving meaningful results, helping to ensure the continued production of affordable, reliable and cleaner energy for decades to come.”
2023 Environmental Performance Highlights
Pipeline Blowdown Program
- Emissions reduction practices implemented during more than 3,600 pipeline blowdowns
Manual Liquids Unloading Program
- Monitored more than 23,100 manual liquids unloading events
Leak Detection and Repair
- More than 202 million component inspections performed
- More than 664,000 surveys conducted
- More than 157,000 sites surveyed
- 0.07% leak occurrence rate, or less than 1 component leaking in 1,000
Pneumatic Controller Program
-
More than 61,700 additional gas driven controllers replaced or removed from service
-
More than 4,000 zero-emission pneumatic controllers installed at new sites
-
More than 700 high-bleed pneumatic controllers replaced, retrofitted or removed from service
-
61 participating companies no longer have high-bleed pneumatic controllers in their operations
Compressor Program
-
Rod packing changes on more than 4,800 reciprocating compressors
-
Approved emissions reduction practices utilized on more than 730 compressors
Progress on Flaring: Continued Focus on Flare Reduction
The progress reported by our participants reflect the ingenuity, creativity, and know-how of the women and men powering our lives while minimizing environmental impacts.
In 2022, participating companies continued to take action to reduce their flaring, achieving a 2.4% reduction in flare intensity and a 14% reduction in total flare volumes reported from the previous year, even as U.S. oil and gas production grew by 5.6% and 4%, respectively, during the same time period.
Taking Action to Reduce Emissions
The Environmental Partnership’s taking action, learning, and collaborating principles promote technological innovation and cultivate best practices to improve the industry’s environmental performance.
In 2022, The Partnership worked with key external partners on research initiatives, sponsored OGI camera training, and hosted workshops and meetings across the country to allow participants to convene, learn, and share valuable information about new strategies and technologies to drive down emissions.
“TEP’s initiative to better understand next generation sensing technologies will help validate and characterize the performance of new measurement techniques on gas compression engines. The interest and engagement of the wide range of operators that TEP brought together supported not only the study’s top-level goal, but also sparked inquiries on how to leverage new emission reduction opportunities from several subsidiary study observations.”
Tim Vaughn
Research Scientist, Colorado State University
“The participating companies of The Environmental Partnership understand that best practices regarding methane emissions are not a competitive edge. We know it is our responsibility to attend Partnership events and openly discuss our successes and challenges to help accelerate the industry’s march toward environmental excellence.”
Arica Gonzalez
Facilities Engineering Supervisor, Diamondback Energy
“I have spent my career in oil and gas operations, but I am new to the LDAR field. After taking the METEC class I am not only confident in operating the technology, but I know the specific techniques to utilize and effectively detect leaks on an oil and gas location. The real-world scenarios created for the course were an accurate mock-up of field conditions, and we were able to troubleshoot even the trickiest of leaks. I would recommend this class for both newcomers and veterans in the LDAR field.”
Dustin Westphal
Lead Operator, Ovintiv USA Inc.
Program Expansion: Liquid Pipelines
The Environmental Partnership is expanding its core mission to reduce emissions across the industry with the launch of two new liquid pipeline programs.
Developed in 2022, the two programs–Maintenance & Integrity and Energy Efficiencies in Operations– apply to liquid petroleum pipelines and facilities within the transmission and storage segments. Through these programs, companies will implement best practices that reduce energy consumption and that improve integrity and maintenance programs to reduce emissions and product releases to the environment.
See our progress in the 2023 Annual Report (16 MB).