A Matter of Trust, Part 3 - How Midstreamers Are Reducing Their Pipelines' GHG Impact

In the recently fervent efforts of oil and gas companies to mitigate their environmental impact and improve their standing with investors and lenders, they are progressively striving to cut their own emissions of greenhouse gases and to offset the GHG emissions that are unavoidable through the use of carbon credits. Cutting emissions from well sites, pipeline operations, refineries, and the like won’t be easy or cheap, but at the least the results are measurable and provable — before, we emitted X, and now we emit X minus Y. The true value of voluntary carbon credits is more difficult to calculate. Sure, each credit is said to equal one metric ton of carbon dioxide or its equivalent, but how do you really measure with any certainty how many metric tons of CO2 will be absorbed by 1,000 acres of preserved forest in Oregon, or how much methane won’t be produced by changing the diet of 1,000 cows in Wisconsin? And how can you be sure that slice of Oregon wouldn’t have been left in place anyway, or that the dairy farmer has actually changed what he’s feeding his herd? In today’s RBN blog, we look at voluntary carbon credits, concerns about their validity, and ongoing efforts to ensure that they actually accomplish the goal of GHG reductions.

Many leading energy companies have come to accept the reality that environmental, social, and governmental (ESG) matters are now front-and-center concerns to an increasing number of investors and lenders. Their challenge, of course, is that the hydrocarbon-based commodities they produce, process, transport, and refine are by their very nature prospective generators of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases that the ESG movement is targeting. What’s an energy company to do? For many midstream companies, the answer — for now at least — is to focus on minimizing the release of methane, carbon dioxide (CO2), and other GHGs from their gas processing plants, pipelines, storage facilities, and fractionators, and on switching to renewables to power their operations. Today, we continues our series with a look at how midstream companies are addressing investors’ and lenders’ concerns about the sector’s GHG releases.

In case you hadn’t noticed, there’s a big push by the government, industry, and the broader public to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and to offset those that do occur. Given its carbon-intensive nature, the oil and gas sector is at the heart of this activity, with almost daily announcements about carbon-neutral LNG shipments, carbon-dioxide capture and sequestration projects, and other efforts. The problem is, it can be difficult sometimes to figure out what’s real and what’s not — that is, which efforts have an actual, measurable impact and which are sort of vague or fuzzy and need to be sussed out. Today, we discuss the latest round of announcements by producers, midstreamers, refiners, and others to “green up” their operations and products.