This week we’re talking about something not many people know about, which is the massive greenhouse emissions being released from the fossil fuel - gas - and LNG (liquefied natural gas).

Those emissions are so big that in one major oil and gas producing area – the Permian Basin in the U.S. - they have likely wiped out all energy emission reductions since 2010 for the whole country.

If only 3% of gas produced is leaked, gas is worse for the climate than coal.

Yet it's more than 3%. BP says it's 3.2%. And a recent study of the Permian Basin found that 3.7% was lost in the production process.

What's this telling us? This is the gas industry's 'Volkswagen' moment.

Bruce Robertson is IEEFA’s LNG and gas analyst, and he talks about the extent of the gas industry's emissions in this latest podcast.

Further reading:

Bruce Robertson. Volkswagen lied about emissions from their vehicles, and the gas industry is also lying about their emissions. IEEFA. March 2020.

Yuzhong Zhang et al. Quantifying methane emissions from the largest oil-producing basin in the United States from space. Science Advances. April 2020.

Earth System Research Laboratories. Trends in Atmospheric Methane. Global Monitoring Laboratory.

CSIRO. Whole of Life Greenhouse Gas Emissions Assessment of a Coal Seam Gas to Liquefied Natural Gas Project in the Surat Basin, Queensland, Australia, Final Report for GISERA Project G2. July 2019

Additional reading:

John Robert. The Australian LNG industry’s growth – and the decline in greenhouse gas emissions standards. IEEFA. April 2020.

Clark Williams-Derry. Financial prospects falter for LNG projects. IEEFA. April 2020.

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The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis is a public interest think tank. This industry overview should not be taken as personal financial advice. Please refer to our website at ieefa.org for our disclosures and mission statement.

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