COP28's Sponsoring Oil Company Has Been Flaring Natural Gas For Decades After Pledging To Stop; Bald-Faced Lies Continue [View all]

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State-owned oil and gas fields across the United Arab Emirates have flared almost constantly despite a long-standing policy to eliminate “routine” flaring in their operations, DeSmog can reveal. New data, produced exclusively for The Guardian and DeSmog, found that a single gas field in the United Arab Emirates run by state oil firm Adnoc flared more gas than all oil and gas fields in Norway last year.

The Adnoc LNG field and a number of others in the UAE appear to be constantly emitting and burning polluting methane despite Adnoc’s 20-year-old policy to reduce the environmentally damaging practice to zero in on day to day operations. The revelations come as world leaders prepare to head to Dubai for the UN’s annual climate summit, known as COP, to agree on ways to cut further catastrophic temperature rise. The conference, which starts 30 November, is set to provide a litmus test for the oil and gas industry’s position on flaring, which mostly burns off excess gas released when drilling for oil, but can also take place at LNG plants, where gas is liquified for export.

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In October, Al Jaber announced that 20 major oil and gas producers from around the world have pledged to eliminate gas flaring and methane emissions by the end of the decade. But according to the new data by the Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air (Crea), a number of fields in the UAE are flaring virtually every day. Flaring also allows the escape of some unburned methane gas, which is a powerful greenhouse gas. The analysis assessed flaring in 32 oil and gas fields in the UAE, 20 of which are run by Adnoc. It shows four fields flared on at least 97 percent of the days, with an average of just 14 days unavailable due to cloud cover.

The revelations have alarmed experts ahead of the critical COP28 climate summit, whose hosts have already been hit by accusations of greenwashing. Adnoc is the UAE’s top oil and gas producer and one of the world’s biggest producers of crude oil. “As the host of the upcoming Cop28,” said Hubert Thieriot, a data scientist at Crea who produced the flaring data, “it is critical that UAE further strengthens and respects its commitments if it wants to play a leader’s role in reducing flaring.” A spokesperson for Adnoc told the Guardian, in response to these findings: “The data on ADNOC presented in your article is misleading as satellite images may not distinguish between flaring or having a pilot flame ignited as part of normal operations.” Adnoc did not respond to a request for data on the company’s use of pilot flames.

EDIT

https://www.desmog.com/2023/11/17/uae-oil-fields-constantly-flaring-despite-20-year-old-commitment-to-stop-analysis-shows/