Articles | Volume 23, issue 18
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-10399-2023
https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-23-10399-2023
Research article
 | 
20 Sep 2023
Research article |  | 20 Sep 2023

High potential for CH4 emission mitigation from oil infrastructure in one of EU's major production regions

Foteini Stavropoulou, Katarina Vinković, Bert Kers, Marcel de Vries, Steven van Heuven, Piotr Korbeń, Martina Schmidt, Julia Wietzel, Pawel Jagoda, Jaroslav M. Necki, Jakub Bartyzel, Hossein Maazallahi, Malika Menoud, Carina van der Veen, Sylvia Walter, Béla Tuzson, Jonas Ravelid, Randulph Paulo Morales, Lukas Emmenegger, Dominik Brunner, Michael Steiner, Arjan Hensen, Ilona Velzeboer, Pim van den Bulk, Hugo Denier van der Gon, Antonio Delre, Maklawe Essonanawe Edjabou, Charlotte Scheutz, Marius Corbu, Sebastian Iancu, Denisa Moaca, Alin Scarlat, Alexandru Tudor, Ioana Vizireanu, Andreea Calcan, Magdalena Ardelean, Sorin Ghemulet, Alexandru Pana, Aurel Constantinescu, Lucian Cusa, Alexandru Nica, Calin Baciu, Cristian Pop, Andrei Radovici, Alexandru Mereuta, Horatiu Stefanie, Alexandru Dandocsi, Bas Hermans, Stefan Schwietzke, Daniel Zavala-Araiza, Huilin Chen, and Thomas Röckmann

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Cited articles

Allen, D. T., Torres, V. M., Thomas, J., Sullivan, D. W., Harrison, M., Hendler, A., Herndon, S. C., Kolb, C. E., Fraser, M. P., Hill, A. D., Lamb, B. K., Miskimins, J., Sawyer, R. F., and Seinfeld, J. H.: Measurements of methane emissions at natural gas production sites in the United States, P. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 110, 17768–17773, https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1304880110, 2013. 
Allen, G., Hollingsworth, P., Kabbabe, K., Pitt, J. R., Mead, M. I., Illingworth, S., Roberts, G., Bourn, M., Shallcross, D. E., and Percival, C. J.: The development and trial of an unmanned aerial system for the measurement of methane flux from landfill and greenhouse gas emission hotspots, Waste Manag., 87, 883–892, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wasman.2017.12.024, 2019. 
Andersen, T., Scheeren, B., Peters, W., and Chen, H.: A UAV-based active AirCore system for measurements of greenhouse gases, Atmos. Meas. Tech., 11, 2683–2699, https://doi.org/10.5194/amt-11-2683-2018, 2018. 
Baray, S., Darlington, A., Gordon, M., Hayden, K. L., Leithead, A., Li, S.-M., Liu, P. S. K., Mittermeier, R. L., Moussa, S. G., O'Brien, J., Staebler, R., Wolde, M., Worthy, D., and McLaren, R.: Quantification of methane sources in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region of Alberta by aircraft mass balance, Atmos. Chem. Phys., 18, 7361–7378, https://doi.org/10.5194/acp-18-7361-2018, 2018. 
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Short summary
In this study, we quantify CH4 emissions from onshore oil production sites in Romania at source and facility level using a combination of ground- and drone-based measurement techniques. We show that the total CH4 emissions in our studied areas are much higher than the emissions reported to UNFCCC, and up to three-quarters of the detected emissions are related to operational venting. Our results suggest that oil and gas production infrastructure in Romania holds a massive mitigation potential.
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