Energy Exchange

For years, conversations at major oil and gas industry conferences focused on one thing: the shale revolution. Excitement about the surge in economical new supply of unconventionally produced oil and gas was palpable, as panelists spoke of the potential for shale to transform everything from the geopolitics of American energy supply to the price of hydrocarbons. With such an unexpected and seismic change, a supply side story carried the day, with a focus on “below ground” drivers of energy abundance.

But today, the shale revolution is simply the new normal and the conversation has changed. “Above ground” factors like increasing competition from renewables, greenhouse gas emissions, and social license to operate will affect demand for natural gas for years. How industry confronts such challenges – both in the United States and internationally – will have a lot to do with industry’s longevity in putting resources to productive use in a changing world demanding cleaner energy.

At last week’s World Gas Conference in Washington, DC, difficult questions swirled about whether industry has done enough to earn society’s trust and prove natural gas has a constructive role to play in the transition to a low carbon economy. The biggest buzz of all surrounded one key issue: methane emissions, a core strategic challenge for the oil and gas industry.

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A new paper published in Science last week is the culmination of an extensive amount of research conducted over the past six years examining methane emissions from the U.S. oil and gas supply chain. The study finds that the U.S. oil and gas industry emits 13 million metric tons of methane per year – 60% higher than the EPA Greenhouse Gas Inventory (GHGI) estimates. Some industry sources have questioned the conclusions drawn in the paper and the methods employed to which I respond below.

The 25 co-authors of this Science paper represent 16 different research institutions. These experts were collectively responsible for generating most of the data analyzed and directly involved in writing the paper, which was subjected to a rigorous independent peer review as a condition of publication in one of the world’s top scientific journals.

Informed critiques are a valuable part of the scientific process. But the key issues raised by Energy in Depth (EID) and the American Gas Association seem to reflect a deep misunderstanding of the approaches used in the paper and the underlying data. Here, I explain the methods used to avoid bias and resolve differences among multiple data sets.

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