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Spatiotemporal Variability of Methane Emissions at Oil and Natural Gas Operations in the Eagle Ford Basin.
Lavoie, Tegan N; Shepson, Paul B; Cambaliza, Maria O L; Stirm, Brian H; Conley, Stephen; Mehrotra, Shobhit; Faloona, Ian C; Lyon, David.
Affiliation
  • Cambaliza MOL; Department of Physics, Ateneo de Manila University , Loyola Heights, Quezon City 1108, Philippines.
  • Conley S; Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California , Davis, California 95616, United States.
  • Mehrotra S; Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California , Davis, California 95616, United States.
  • Faloona IC; Department of Land, Air and Water Resources, University of California , Davis, California 95616, United States.
  • Lyon D; Environmental Defense Fund, Austin, Texas 78701, United States.
Environ Sci Technol ; 51(14): 8001-8009, 2017 Jul 18.
Article in En | MEDLINE | ID: mdl-28678487
Methane emissions from oil and gas facilities can exhibit operation-dependent temporal variability; however, this variability has yet to be fully characterized. A field campaign was conducted in June 2014 in the Eagle Ford basin, Texas, to examine spatiotemporal variability of methane emissions using four methods. Clusters of methane-emitting sources were estimated from 14 aerial surveys of two ("East" or "West") 35 × 35 km grids, two aircraft-based mass balance methods measured emissions repeatedly at five gathering facilities and three flares, and emitting equipment source-types were identified via helicopter-based infrared camera at 13 production and gathering facilities. Significant daily variability was observed in the location, number (East: 44 ± 20% relative standard deviation (RSD), N = 7; West: 37 ± 30% RSD, N = 7), and emission rates (36% of repeat measurements deviate from mean emissions by at least ±50%) of clusters of emitting sources. Emission rates of high emitters varied from 150-250 to 880-1470 kg/h and regional aggregate emissions of large sources (>15 kg/h) varied up to a factor of ∼3 between surveys. The aircraft-based mass balance results revealed comparable variability. Equipment source-type changed between surveys and alterations in operational-mode significantly influenced emissions. Results indicate that understanding temporal emission variability will promote improved mitigation strategies and additional analysis is needed to fully characterize its causes.
Subject(s)

Full text: 1 Collection: 01-internacional Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Natural Gas / Methane Type of study: Prognostic_studies Country/Region as subject: America do norte Language: En Journal: Environ Sci Technol Year: 2017 Document type: Article Country of publication:

Full text: 1 Collection: 01-internacional Database: MEDLINE Main subject: Natural Gas / Methane Type of study: Prognostic_studies Country/Region as subject: America do norte Language: En Journal: Environ Sci Technol Year: 2017 Document type: Article Country of publication: