Oil-producing nations will have to control gas flaring

Dubai: Companies in the Middle East will have to look at corporate sustainability seriously in the coming years as environment and climate change issues gain momentum, according to industry leaders.

“According to satellite data, in 2006, oil producing countries and companies burned about 170 billion cubic metres (BCM) of natural gas worldwide or nearly five trillion cubic feet,” said a latest World Bank report released yesterday, a copy of which was obtained by Gulf News.
“That is equivalent to 27 per cent of total US natural gas consumption and 5.5 per cent of total global production of natural gas for the year. If the gas had been sold in the US instead of being flared, the total US market value would have been about $40 billion. Gas flaring also emits some 400 million tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.”

[…]

“Gas flaring not only harms the environment by contributing to global warming but is a huge waste of a cleaner source of energy that could be used to generate much needed electricity in poor countries around the world,” says Bent Svensson, manager of the Bank’s Global Gas Flaring Reduction partnership (GGFR) partnership.

Gulfnews