Energy Exchange

Negishi LNG Terminal, Yokohama City, Kanagawa Pref., Japan

Announced at COP 27, the joint declaration by key natural gas exporters, the United States, Norway and Canada, and importers, the European Union, Japan and Singapore, demonstrates the growing recognition that the supply and demand sides of energy markets must work together to reduce global methane emissions.

Methane, the main ingredient of natural gas, is a powerful climate pollutant, and the oil and gas industry is a main source of global emissions. As methane has shot up the international climate agenda, a great deal of attention has focused on countries that produce the lion’s share of the world’s oil and gas. But big energy importers like Japan, which often don’t have significant domestic fossil fuel resources, also have significant opportunities to stimulate and speed emission reductions industrywide.

A new analysis conducted for Environmental Defense Fund by independent global research firm Rystad Energy explores how Japan can leverage its unique market position to drive global methane reductions.

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Last year, for the first time, EDF and McGill University mapped every existing documented orphan well across our country. Shortly after, Congress passed the Infrastructure and Investment Act, IIJA, which included $4.7 billion to document, plug and remediate orphan wells.  This new funding, secured through EDF’s leadership, provides federal support for the first time for states, Tribes, and federal land management agencies to find and plug orphan oil and gas wells that are inactive and unplugged with no solvent owner of record.

Prior to this legislation, states, which oversee 90% of the wells in the country, had a fraction of the funding needed to plug wells with the unfortunate result that they often sat unplugged for decades. Now, we’re publishing an updated orphan wells map that draws on newly available data to offer decision makers and the public a clearer picture of the issue.

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