GHG emissions management program
Aramco already has one of the lowest upstream carbon footprints in the industry.
Our low upstream carbon intensity — a measure of the amount of greenhouse gas emissions in the creation of one barrel of oil — is not just a geological perk.
Instead it is also the result of our decades-long reservoir management and production approach, both below and above the ground, which includes leveraging advanced technologies, and minimizing emissions and flaring.
Methane emissions
Our methane emissions are also consistently among the lowest in the industry — a vitally-important metric when you take into consideration the fact that methane holds many times the greenhouse gas warming potential of carbon dioxide.
Long-running approaches and activities, such as our Master Gas System and our highly-advanced flaring reduction and monitoring program, have been essential contributors to our reduction efforts.
And, when combined with our Leak Detection and Repair program (LDAR), launched in 2018, these efforts have helped us achieve impressively low methane-intensity levels.
Our next dimension in methane monitoring
While our on-the-ground methane monitoring and control protocols, such as LDAR, continue to pay dividends, we’re always looking for ways to enhance what we do. This is why we’re planning on utilizing cutting-edge space-based sensor technology to give us insights into our emission sources with an incredible new level of detail and accuracy.
A network of satellites, the GHGSAT Satellite Constellation, is currently being deployed that our engineers and specialists will be able to use to monitor methane emissions from Aramco’s In-kingdom operations, and help us track down emitters more easily than ever before.
The launch of this new corporate methane detection and minimization program in 2022 follows-on from a successful trial of the technology between February and December of 2021 that covered 7 of our upstream and downstream facilities.
Minimizing gas flaring
Extracting crude oil releases natural gas.
If not dealt with properly, the gas can be dangerous.
Burning the gas — known as flaring — releases carbon dioxide (CO2), and other pollutants into the atmosphere.
Flaring also wastes useful resources.
Instead of flaring, since 1977 we capture the natural gas for Saudi Arabia’s Master Gas System.
In addition, since 1980, we have installed multiple flare gas recovery systems at our onshore and offshore facilities.
We monitor our flaring operations in real time from our Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) Center in our Dhahran headquarters.
We are a signatory to the World Bank’s "Zero Routine Flaring by 2030" initiative.
Today, our flaring efficiency is among the best in the world, and we are committed to sharing our best practices and knowledge with peer companies.
Master Gas System
We began building Saudi Arabia’s Master Gas System in 1975.
We collected gas from oil production that would have otherwise been flared, and commenced using it for domestic power generation, and other industrial processes.
Today, the system’s energy mix includes nonassociated gas.
Gas, a cleaner, affordable and consistent fuel, is widely considered an important fossil fuel in the energy transition.
The Master Gas System was an important environmental breakthrough, and in 1977 King Khalid ibn ‘Abd Al-‘Aziz Al Sa’ud inaugurated the system’s first facility, Berri Gas Plant.
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