French quintet joins methane emissions reduction initiative

A French quintet including Elengy, GRDF, GRTgaz, Storengy and Teréga joined the OMGP partnership aiming to cut methane emissions from their respective operations.

The Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 is launched by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) with the support of the European Commission.

The OGMP’s objective is to provide a framework for the companies of the oil and gas sectors for their efforts to reduce the methane emissions generated by their activity, LNG terminal operator Elengy noted in its statement.

The main French gas infrastructure operators jointly decided to partner with this initiative to highlight the progress already made by their industry and raising their objectives in this regard.

They target an overall 45 per cent reduction in methane emissions from infrastructure between 2016 and 2025.

In 2016, methane emissions related to their gas infrastructure accounted for 0.26 per cent of total national greenhouse gas emissions and less than 0.2 per cent of the gas consumption in France.

Operators have been implementing actions to detect and reduce emissions and prevent accidents.

The operators of gas infrastructures also contribute to the development of renewable gases which make it possible to reduce methane emissions from other sectors of activity such as agriculture or waste.

This dynamic is based on sectors that are already deployed at an industrial scale (anaerobic digestion) or still emerging (gasification of biomass, hydrothermal gasification), which produce renewable gas from agricultural residues, waste of local territories, or industrial waste.