Scholarly record

NATIONAL GREENHOUSE GAS EMISSION FACTORS AT OIL AND GAS CONDENSATE PRODUCTION AND TREATMENT FACILITIES IN RUSSIAN FEDERATION

A. I. Nakhutin, Nikita Popov, Vladimir Berdin, А. А. Миронов, Anastasia Uledova, Daria Kozlova

Abstract

Accurate estimation of greenhouse gases in national inventory reports, submitted by countries every year under the UNFCCC and the Paris Agreement is an important task. Fugitive greenhouse gas emissions from oil production, gathering and treatment is a key category in the Russian national inventory report. Total emissions from this category accounted to more than 30 million tons of CO2 equivalent in 2021. Since in Russian inventory the default IPCC emission factors from these operations are used, in the framework of government project -Russian climate monitoring system- new country-specific CH4 and CO2 emission factors has been developed. Three main tasks were completed. First, representative sample of 18 oil-producing field which relevantly represents type of production, gathering and treatment technologies and oil mode of occurrence in each of 3 major petroleum provinces, or macro-regions of Russia were selected. Second, data on oil and associated petroleum gas production, technical losses and gas composition, CH4 as pollutant emissions, gas to oil ratio, and other characteristics we collected for each field. Third, actual and retrospective values of CH4 and CO2 emission factors were calculated on the base of collected data and approved methodology and emissions were estimated as well. Comparison of the results of our study with the estimates included in the Russian national inventory report submitted in 2023 shows that average estimate of annual emissions for the whole period from 1990 to 2021 is 23 million tons lower than the estimate currently included in the national inventory.

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