NEW YORK - When leaders from Exxon Mobil and BP gathered last month with other fossil-fuel executives to declare they were serious about climate change, they cited progress in curbing an energy-wasting practice called flaring - the intentional burning of natural gas as companies drill faster than pipelines can move the energy away.
Flaring and venting are legal under state laws, and oil companies acknowledge the practices are wasteful. Typically, venting or flaring occur because there aren't pipelines close enough to a well to capture and transport the gas, or because gas prices are so low that it's cheaper to discard the gas than to try to sell it. Venting can also occur during equipment breakdowns.
BP said it was investing in upgrades at its Permian wells that would eliminate much of its flaring. The company also said it was not putting new wells in the area unless they had access to a gas pipeline, reducing the need to burn off or vent excess natural gas. But flaring releases carbon dioxide , a major greenhouse gas, into the atmosphere, where it traps the sun's heat, driving climate change. Venting directly emits methane, an even more potent greenhouse gas in the shorter term.Both practices are"a tremendous waste of a natural resource", said Riccardo Puliti, global director for energy at the World Bank, which leads a global public-private partnership that aims to reduce the practice.
"There's been no breakdown of how they arrived at that number. And we don't have all the facts, the transparency, to assess whether that's accurate or not."