A gas flare at the Marathon Petroleum Corp. Catlettsburg refinery in Catlettsburg, Kentucky, US © Bloomberg
The volume of unwanted gas burnt off in flares by the oil industry has risen in the past five years, according to new World Bank data, showing that efforts to reduce waste still have a long way to go.
Rapid growth in Iraq and the US, where oil production has been rising in recent years, was responsible for most of the increase from 2013-15, more than offsetting reductions in Nigeria, Libya and a handful of other countries.
Gas is often present along with crude in oil reservoirs. If a producer does not have the infrastructure needed to process the gas, the safest way to dispose of it is generally to burn it off in a flare.
However, flares can cause local pollution, as well as releasing carbon dioxide which causes climate change, and depositing soot on the Arctic ice cap, accelerating its melting.
Flaring also wastes gas that could be used as fuel. The World Bank calculates that in 2015 the oil industry worldwide flared off 147bn cubic metres: equivalent to the combined consumption of the UK, Germany and Switzerland. If burnt in power plants, it could supply the electricity consumption of the whole of Africa.
The total volume flared has been increasing. The World Bank has in the past four years used new satellite-based sensors to identify and evaluate gas flares more accurately. On Tuesday it is publishing its updated estimates showing a 4 per cent increase in flaring over 2013-15.
The increase is disappointing for the World Bank, which launched a Global Gas-Flaring Reduction partnership back in 2002 and calls for an end to all routine gas flaring by 2030.
However, there are reasons to expect that the increase may be shortlived. Iraq has seen a sharp increase in flaring because its oil production has been rising, but it joined in a commitment to cut output agreed by Opec countries on November 30.
The US shale oil boom has catapulted the country from outside the top 10 flaring nations worldwide in 2008 to number four, behind Russia, Iraq and Iran, although US crude production is also now falling. Shale producers in North Dakota have made strides in finding uses for their gas, cutting flaring from 36 per cent of its gas production in January 2014 to just 10 per cent by March 2016.
The US and Nigeria, which reported the greatest fall in flaring over 2013-15, are among the 62 oil-producing countries and companies that have signed up to the World Bank initiative. Other signatories include BP, Eni, Total and Royal Dutch Shell among the companies, and countries including Russia, Norway and Kazakhstan.
Uzbekistan is the worst in terms of flared gas per barrel produced, according to the World Bank, followed by Cameroon and then Turkmenistan, with Gabon, Libya and Algeria also showing relatively high levels of flaring relative to their output.
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