Flaring, thermal power, and LNG
Warren True
Warren R. True, Editor
Two reports in late summer have implications for the global natural gas industry, especially LNG.
In August, results of a major study of global associated-gas flaring helped clarify flaring’s sources and magnitude. The Global Gas Flaring Reduction initiative released findings based for the first time on satellite observations of earth’s surface.
Also in August, Algeria reported on plans to reduce its dependence on natural gas by using the sun’s heat to produce electricity for export to Europe.
In both reports, implications for the struggle to reduce global production of greenhouse gases are obvious. Implications for continued supply of natural gas for LNG are more problematic.
GGFR; Hassi R’Mel
At the 2002 World Summit on Sustainable Development, the World Bank and the government of Norway joined forces to launch the GGFR initiative. Its goal was to eliminate gas flaring and venting.
GGFR is a “public-private partnership with participation from governments of oil-producing countries, state-owned companies and major international oil companies,” according to “A Twelve Year Record of National and Global Gas Flaring Volumes Estimated Using Satellite Data” that recounts what GGFR is and how it went about collecting flaring information.
The objective of the study of gas flaring and its sources was “to investigate the use of earth observation satellite data for the detection of gas flaring and estimation of gas flaring volumes.” The effort produced a series of “national and global estimates of gas flaring volumes” covering 1995-2006 for 60 countries and areas.
Of importance for the natural gas industry are the study’s findings.
One major finding seems counter-intuitive to anyone familiar with the industry and the problem of flaring: Nigeria does not lead the world in flaring the largest volume. Satellite data indicate that “Russia has more than twice the gas flaring volume of Nigeria,” says the report.
The second major finding is that flaring did not substantially increase-or decrease-over the years of the study, remaining “largely stable” in the range of 150-170 billion cu m.
Isolating 2004, which saw flaring of some 160 billion cu m, the study noted this amount compares to 25% of US natural gas consumption and represents “an added carbon emission burden to the atmosphere” of 84 million tonnes.
In a second, unrelated report that ran in many newspapers in August, the Associated Press covered Algeria’s efforts to reduce its dependence on exporting natural gas and to turn increasingly to exporting thermally generated electricity. Just think how much of Algeria is bathed for long hours in sunlight and you begin to understand the country’s logic.
Work on the first plant for thermally generated electricity began in July near Hassi R’Mel. The AP reports the plant, which could be operating by 2010, will be a hybrid, combining “gas and steam turbines with solar thermal input” to generate 150 Mw. Half will come from “giant parabolic mirrors” covering nearly 2 million sq ft.
The project’s long-term goal, subject to solution of massive financial and technical problems, is to export as much as 6,000 Mw of solar-generated power to Europe through subsea cables to Sicily and Spain.
Implications
The GGFR report noted a “growing array of technologies to capture and make use” of natural gas currently being flared. Not the least of which is finding ways to move it to markets “using pipelines.”
Pipelines? If gas now being flared or vented had access to pipelines, it wouldn’t be stranded.
It’s the growth of access to liquefaction that plays a larger role in reducing flaring. With much liquefaction construction under way and much more on order, the massive amounts of gas left in the ground or flared into the atmosphere will find markets.
But the GGFR report never mentions LNG or its current rapid growth. It had only to look at Nigeria-which it does mention-to see how effectively LNG has stepped into the equation for reducing flaring.
The timetable for the Algerian thermal generating project, on the other hand, is far too extended and the volumes that will feed it far too small for that project seriously to threaten supply for the country’s LNG industry, the world’s oldest.
The country’s plans should, nonetheless, remind the global LNG industry, lest it become smug in its recent rapid growth and future bright prospects, that natural gas has lots of options, only one of which is LNG.
Warren R. True
Editor
Oil & Gas Journal’s
LNG Observer
warrent@ogjonline.com
Volume 4 Issue 4
Oct 01, 2007
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