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AER Drafts of Directive 060 & Directive 017 – April 2018

This week the Alberta Energy Regulator finally released its long-awaited draft updates of Directive 060 and Directive 017.

AER Directive 060

Directive 060 governs upstream petroleum industry flaring, incinerating and venting, and feedback on this draft directive is being accepted until May 28, 2018.

AER Directive 060 Draft download April 2018
Directive 060 Draft download

AER Directive 017

Directive 017 governs measurement requirements for oil and gas operations. If you’re interested in providing feedback on this draft directive, it’s also being accepted until May 28, 2018.

AER Directive 017 Draft download April 2018
Directive 017 Draft download

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BC Flaring and Venting Reduction Guideline

BC flag British ColumbiaAs has already happened in Alberta and Saskatchewan, British Columbia has developed its own Flaring and Venting Reduction Guideline.

The guideline gives guidance and regulatory requirements for flaring, venting and incinerating in B.C., along with procedural information for items such as: dispersion modeling, flare approval requests and reporting and measuring of flared, vented and incinerated gas.

Flaring and venting are associated with a wide range of energy development activities and operations, including disposal of gas associated with:

  • Oil production (solution gas)
  • Oil & gas well drilling, completion & testing
  • Gas production
  • Unplanned non-routine de-pressuring of process equipment & gas pipelines due to process upsets or emergency
  • Planned non-routine de-pressuring of processing equipment & gas pipelines for maintenance

Significant economic benefits will accrue to the upstream oil and gas industry, as well as the Province of B.C., with the data gathered and volumes totaled. It will help to provide for new investments in gas gathering systems, additions to gas processing facilities to conserve associated gas and to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Click here to download the:
BC-Flaring-Venting-Reduction-Guideline-October-2011 version 4.2

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Saskatchewan: S-10 & S-20 final regulations in place

The Province of Saskatchewan recently announced the introduction of Directive S-10 Saskatchewan Upstream Petroleum Industry Associated Gas Conservation Directive and S-20 Saskatchewan Upstream Flaring and Incineration Requirements. This will be of interest to oil and gas well and facility licensees.

With the release of the S-10 and S-20 regulations, it’s an important step forward for Saskatchewan in terms of reducing flaring and venting volumes and beginning the process of the collection of data to comply with the new regulations.

With a timeline of up to four years to comply with regulatory guides there is an opportunity for industry to have flaring and venting emissions data gathered and an estimate of volumes for the reduction and or conservation of unmetered volumes in place well ahead of the implementation dates.

Download Directives S-10 and S-20:

 

The province of Saskatchewan, as well as the upstream oil and gas industry, will realize significant economic benefit with the data gathered and the volumes totalled to provide for new investments made in developing gas gathering systems, additions to gas processing facilities for the conservation of associated gas and reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

At D&I Services Ltd we believe there is a positive development within the timeline for the implementation and recording of existing volumes for production accounting departments and production operations to account for the reporting of all unmetered upstream or downstream flared, vented, and fuel gas volumes.

We provide the companies with their own FlareCheck application for use of the .flr file and completed flarevent log with total summaries for every location requested by the corporation.

The customized logs built from site visits or as built from operator information are provided back to them for daily use to record all unmetered flare, vent, and fuel gas use for their production accounting dept to be used monthly for reporting of volumes.

We also identify economical, practical and reliable methods of reducing air pollutant emissions while improving the efficiency and competitiveness of the industry compliance with on site audit trail for ER inspections.

 

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Saskatchewan Upstream Petroleum regulations – S-10, S-20

Saskatchewan released its regulations for the upstream petroleum industry associated gas conservations standards and upstream flaring and incineration specifications. (S-10 & S-20)

Flaring and venting emissions reduction in the upstream oil and gas industry will be an
important factor in reducing Saskatchewan’s overall greenhouse gas emission.
Conservation of flared and vented associated gas could also allow Saskatchewan to
realize significant economic benefit. The economic benefits include new investments
made to develop gas gathering systems and gas processing infrastructures to collect and
process the conserved associated gas.

D&I Services believes this is a positive development and will give everyone in the upstream petroleum industry more certainty in relation to flaring, incineration and gas conservation practices as well as a time line for the implementation and recording of existing volumes. This plan also identifies economical, practical and reliable methods of reducing air pollutant emissions while improving the efficiency and competitiveness of the industry by capturing associated gas that would have been flared or vented and allowing it to be sold.

You can check out the regulations on the Saskatchewan Energy & Resources site through the link above, or download them here:

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Alberta natural gas flaring

Alberta tends to get a lot of flak from environmentalists about how dirty they think the oil and gas industry is in Alberta, but we’re actually doing a pretty good job overall.

One area where Alberta is a world leader is in reducing natural gas flaring and venting. According to the statistics quoted in this CBC Calgary story on natural gas flaring, 96 per cent of gas is conserved in Alberta, helping to conserve an estimated 7.2 million tons of carbon in the nine years prior to this story from 2007.

Have a look at this video. It starts about 15 seconds in:

“That’s equivalent to one and a half million vehicles off the roads in Alberta for an entire year,” said Darin Barter of the EUB in the story (now ERCB – Energy Resources Conservation Board).

Alberta's done a good job in reducing natural gas flaring, particularly since the early 1990s.

Alberta’s done a good enough job that it’s an example that the World Bank thinks Alberta’s natural gas flaring guidelines should be used around the world. I knew that a lot of natural gas flaring was done around the world, but I had no idea of the scale of the problem until I watched this video.

Bent Svensson of the World Bank said in the story that the amount of natural gas flared in the world contributes to “almost 1,200 million tons of CO2 being emitted each year.” The reporter said that if that alone was done, the targets of the Kyoto Protocol would be met.

To get an idea of how much natural gas flaring is done around the world, take a look at this video from the World Bank. Such a waste!

It’s interesting to note that in 2007, Canada’s demand for natural gas was 3,114 BCF (billion cubic feet).  To convert that to BCM (billion cubic metres), divide it by 35.3. That puts Canadian natural gas demand at about 88.2 BCM.

According to World Bank estimates, Nigeria and Russia’s flaring alone add up to around 66 BCM, or enough to supply 75% of Canada’s entire natural gas demand for a year. That’s a lot of gas and I’m not even including the natural gas flared by the other major gas flaring countries.

So next time you hear someone criticizing how Alberta handles natural gas flaring, point them to some of the links and videos here. Alberta, Saskatchewan (proposed new Saskatchewan flaring and venting regulations) and the rest of Canada are actually doing a pretty good job. We can do even better and that’s what we’re working towards.

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Alberta flaring & venting 2008

ERCB-Alberta-logoERCB Report: Flaring and Venting of Solution Gas Increases 7.6% in 2008

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News Release

July 30, 2009

Calgary, Alberta (June 30, 2009) According to a new report released by the Energy Resources Conservation Board (ERCB), of the 14,877 million cubic metres of solution gas produced in 2008, 723 million were flared and vented compared to 672 million in 2007, a 7.6 per cent increase. The increase is primarily attributed to higher bitumen well drilling in 2008.

Nonetheless, solution gas flaring in Alberta has been reduced by 77 per cent since 1996, and solution gas venting has been reduced by 41 per cent since 2000. Flaring is the burning of natural gas that cannot be conserved. Venting is the release of natural gas into the atmosphere. Solution gas is natural gas produced in association with crude oil and bitumen production.

The ERCB’s ST60B-2009: Upstream Petroleum Industry Flaring and Venting Report also indicates that in 2008, the upstream oil and gas industry conserved 95.1 per cent of all solution gas produced in Alberta last year for use or sale, rather than flaring and venting it.

Flaring of solution gas dropped 5.8 per cent in 2008. In total, 306 million cubic metres of solution gas were flared in 2008 compared to 325 million in 2007.

Venting of solution gas increased 20.1 per cent in 2008. In total, 417 million cubic metres of solution gas were vented in 2008 compared to 347 million in 2007, primarily due to an increase in the number of new crude bitumen wells that produce small volumes of solution gas. These volumes are neither sufficient to keep a flare stack lit nor meet the ERCB’s test for conservation. Although the amount vented per facility is small, the growth in the number of crude bitumen operations was sufficient to increase the overall amount of solution gas vented.

The Clean Air Strategic Alliance (CASA) Flaring and Venting Project Team, which is composed of stakeholders from environmental groups, the petroleum industry, the ERCB, Alberta Energy, Alberta Environment and other government agencies, is working on a number of recommendations for regulatory changes to address solution gas venting in crude bitumen production operations and other facilities. One of the issues currently under review is the economic test currently utilized to determine if oil facilities must conserve solution gas.

This news release is available on the ERCB website at www.ercb.ca

For more information, please contact:
Bob Curran
ERCB Communications
Phone: 403-297-3392
Email: bob.curran@ercb.ca

NR 2009-19