MUSCAT -- Oman has made notable strides in reducing gas flaring in recent years, but would still need to do more to lose its current place on the list of the world's top 20 flaring nations, according to a key executive of The World Bank. Fabrice Mosneron Dupin, Advisor at the World Bank's Global Gas Flaring Reduction (GGFR) project, said the Sultanate was among a number of Gulf oil producers that have achieved significant cuts in the outputs of associated gas flared or vented as part of their oil and gas exploration and production operations. However, environmental concerns coupled with the immense potential for the utilization of flared gas for power generation and economic development has made it imperative for producers to gradually eliminate flaring altogether, he told delegates at the Gas Flaring Reduction Day workshop held at the Grand Hyatt Muscat yesterday.
The daylong event, organised by The Energy Exchange, sets the tone for the annual Gas Arabia Summit, which will be formally inaugurated today by Oil and Gas Ministry Under-Secretary Nasser bin Khamis al Jashmi. A GGFR survey of the world's 20 biggest gas flaring nations places the Sultanate in the 19th position, with satellite data estimating the quantum of flaring or venting at 1.6 billion cubic metres (bcm) of gas in 2011. Flared volumes have been on the downtrend over the past five year, dropping from 2.0 bcm in 2007 to 1.9 bcm in 2009. Flaring figures for 2012 are yet to be released, although experts note that a series of landmark initiatives by the Omani government, as well as major oil and gas producers in the Sultanate, are expected to have a positive impact on flaring trends. In August this year, the Ministry of Oil and Gas unveiled a groundbreaking initiative centring on the recovery and utilisation of gas that would otherwise be flared or vented from oil wells in Occidental Oman's Safah field in Block 9. The recovered gas will be processed and delivered into the national gas pipeline, thereby helping meet the country's galloping energy needs.
The flaring reduction initiative has since been registered as a Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project under the United Nations' Kyoto Protocol, in the first such venture of its kind to be launched in the Sultanate. Equivalent savings in carbon dioxide emissions, a greenhouse gas responsible for global warming, amount to 775,000 metric tons per annum. Additionally, the project will be able to monetise the Certified Emission Reductions (CERs) issued by the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), which administers CDM projects. Oman's maiden CDM initiative is in line with the Oil & Gas Ministry's long-term strategy to reduce the carbon footprint across the energy sector. Oil and gas producers have been encouraged to collect, process and channelise any associated or non-associated gas into the gas grid even during early testing and appraisal phases of their respective fields.
For its part, Petroleum Development Oman (PDO), the Sultanate's dominant producer of oil and gas said it had employed an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (drone) to undertake its first ever live flare inspection at one of its interior oilfield locations. The aerial mission was part of PDO's ongoing efforts to minimise the impact of its operations on the environment, production interruptions and HSE exposure. GGFR is a World Bank-led partnership between governments, national oil companies and international oil companies that have jointly decided to reduce flaring around the world. GGFR's mission is to facilitate these collaborative public-private efforts toward minimizing flaring as a concrete contribution toward improving energy efficiency, expanding access to electricity, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate impact on climate change.
© Oman Daily Observer 2013
