As pressure grows on the oil and gas sector to reduce its emissions, one Calgary-based company is banking on the potential to convert waste gas from oil wells into valuable— which owns and operates a network of crude oil and natural gas pipelines as well as processing and storage facilities in Saskatchewan and North Dakota — wants to become known as an industry leader in the relatively new space of flare gas recovery.
“To me it’s inefficient. If you’re flaring … you’re missing out on an opportunity, right? That’s a valuable product that can’t be used.”2 people dead after major fire in Old Montreal, police investigatingNatural gas is a byproduct that comes to the surface when companies drill oil wells. If the volumes of gas are small, and there are no pipelines nearby to transport the gas, companies often choose, for economic reasons, to dispose of it through flaring.
But its foray into the electricity space is new. Southward said in an interview that the company plans to invest $265 million to install new turbines and electrical substations at five of its Saskatchewan locations to convert the gas into electricity. The power produced at the sites will be “carbon efficient” in that it will put flare gas, a waste product, to productive use at a time when electricity demand is growing.
Steel Reef’s announcement also comes at a time when the practice of flaring is increasingly under environmental scrutiny. The combustion process involved in flaring releases a variety of byproducts and greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, including carbon dioxide, according to oil and gas data provider Enverus.The World Bank calls the practice of flaring “wasteful and polluting” and has identified the need to reduce flaring volumes globally as an urgent problem.