BP Announces New Plan to Lower Methane Emissions
March 13 2019 - 12:23PM
Dow Jones News
By Dieter Holger
BP PLC (BP.LN) said Wednesday it has partnered with U.S.
advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund to lower methane
emissions in its supply chain over the next three years through a
mix of research, emerging technologies and joint ventures with
other oil-and-gas companies.
"The Environmental Defense Fund and BP don't agree on
everything, but we're finding common ground on methane," said Fred
Krupp, president of EDF.
Methane stays in the atmosphere shorter than carbon dioxide but
is 84 times more potent than CO2 for the first 20 years, BP said.
During oil drilling and extraction, trapped methane releases into
the air.
The British oil-and-gas giant said it will grant up to $500,000
in 2019 to Colorado State University for research developing
methane detection and measuring technologies using drones and
stationary systems to speed up detection time.
BP said these new technologies need to be rigorously
demonstrated before regulators will accept them in the
industry.
The energy company said it will also announce a project
considering machine learning, artificial intelligence and augmented
reality to manage and reduce methane emissions.
Finally, BP said it will identify partnerships with other
oil-and-gas companies to lower methane emissions and hold a
workshop with industry players on the issue this year.
"We've made great progress driving down emissions across our own
business, including meeting our industry-leading methane intensity
target of 0.2 percent, but there is much more work to do," said
Bernard Looney, BP's upstream chief executive.
On Tuesday, the Financial Times reported that BP had lobbied
against methane regulations at the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, despite having some of the lowest global methane emissions
among major energy companies and publicly championing the
issue.
In response to the article, a BP spokeswoman said the company
had lobbied for "well-designed" regulations.
"We believe the EPA regulation should be flexible enough to
allow for a range of technologies rather than rigidly bound to
current tools that may become obsolete tomorrow," she said.
Write to Dieter Holger at dieter.holger@dowjones.com;
@dieterholger
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
March 13, 2019 12:08 ET (16:08 GMT)
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