Network-based continuous methane emissions monitoring mitigates gas losses at scale

Methane emissions from oil and gas are an important component of global greenhouse gas emissions with added implications for local air quality. These emissions also represent loss of product for the oil and gas industry. Detecting and mitigating problematic emissions quickly is therefore of shared interest to society and the industry. Systems that can provide continuous and real-time detection of problems, as well as a continuous time history of overall emissions, provide critical benefits for industry development of best practices, regulator and society understanding of facility-level emissions, and the development of quantitative, measurement-based carbon accounting tools. A growing body of data shows that emission rates of methane along the natural gas supply chain are higher and more variable than previously understood. These studies show that emissions can be intermittent in time and that fugitive events follow a fat-tailed distribution. The finding that the highest proportion of emissions comes from infrequent and unpredictable events means that, for comprehensive and scalable emissions mitigation and monitoring, searching for leaks using discrete spot-check visits is akin to looking for a needle in a haystack. Continuous monitoring, in which automated systems provide round-the-clock monitoring and real-time reporting, is, for this reason, recognized as the gold standard in emissions monitoring. We show results from long-term monitoring of upstream and midstream facilities to demonstrate how access to immediate information on emissions activity lends substantial benefits to the industry and meets societal goals of emissions mitigation. We further demonstrate the benefits of long-term baseline emissions quantification and tracking for sustained overall emissions reductions. LongPath Technologies is a real-time and continuous methane quantification service based on Nobel Prize-winning technology and 3rd party blind tested and peer reviewed methodology. The LongPath system has been deployed commercially at production and storage facilities for periods of a year or more. LongPaths ground-based approach provides a top-down view of facility emissions in real-time to oil and gas operators and is deployed in a network fashion to provide accessibility to both small and large operators.