Differentiated Gas Coordinating Council Calls for More Advanced Methane Monitoring Technology in the Oil And Gas Sector

Differentiated Gas Coordinating Council

For Immediate Release

January 20, 2023

Contact: info@dgccouncil.com

NEWS: Differentiated Gas Coordinating Council Calls for More Advanced Methane Monitoring Technology in the Oil And Gas Sector

WASHINGTON- The Differentiated Gas Coordinating Council (DGCC) urged the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to focus its efforts on continuous methane monitoring technology in its debut regulatory comment as a coalition.

The DGCC submitted comments for the EPA’s Request for Information on how to implement the Methane Emissions Reduction Program under Section 60113 of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA). The Program sets aside $550 million for the Environmental Protection Agency to fund and provide technical assistance for methane abatement in the oil and gas sector.

The comments describe the benefits of funding the deployment of advanced monitoring technologies, including continuous emission monitors, thereby lowering their costs, increasing economies of scale, and generally expanding their availability throughout the oil and natural gas sector.

Continuous monitoring infrastructure has many benefits, including creating reliable and robust data on methane emissions in the oil and gas industry, and therefore facilitating the opportunity to achieve our nation’s methane reduction goals. Better data will also lay the groundwork for a voluntary market for low-methane, “differentiated” gas, a burgeoning industry that stands to create an incentives-based framework for lowering emissions. 

According to the comments, “the funding available under the IRA is an outstanding opportunity for the nation to invest in a long-lasting methane monitoring infrastructure to enable oil and gas production, processing, and transmission with minimum associated methane emissions.” The coalition aims for a “technology-neutral” approach, which incentivizes the expansion of new technologies and tools while encouraging high standards in the present.

The DGCC is an ad hoc coalition of stakeholders across the natural gas supply chain dedicated to expanding the market for low methane, “differentiated” natural gas. Its members include academics; downstream, midstream, and upstream energy producers; gas customers; and technology companies. The DGCC’s goal is to facilitate a federal pathway for state regulators, utilities, and gas consumers to accept differentiated gas as an important option to meet their climate goals.

The comment submission is the DGCC’s first—established in May 2022, the coalition is new to the regulatory scene. However, individual members bring a wealth of policy and industry expertise. The comments were endorsed by DGCC members like Baker Hughes, Kuva Systems, Project Canary, PureWest Energy, Sempra Energy, Williams, Xcel Energy, Xpansiv, and Dr. Robert Kleinberg, Ph.D., Adjunct Senior Research Scholar at the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy. The coalition is managed and organized by Co2efficient, an energy and environmental strategic consultancy based in Washington D.C.

“We are hoping that our comments provide the necessary guidance to the EPA’s methane rulemaking and accomplish something even more important: setting the scene for more robust emissions data sets to enable regulatory harmonization and consistency among all rulemakings. With consistent, complimentary guidelines, we can continue to work towards our goal of scaling a voluntary differentiated gas market,” said Tom Hassenboehler, partner at COEFFICIENT and DGCC’s Executive Director. 

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Established in 2022, the DGCC is an ad hoc coalition of stakeholders across the natural gas supply chain dedicated to expanding the market for low methane, “differentiated” natural gas. Its members include academics; downstream, midstream, and upstream energy producers; gas customers; and technology companies. The DGCC’s goal is to facilitate a federal pathway for state regulators, utilities, and gas consumers to accept differentiated gas as an important option to meet their climate goals. We believe that the adoption of differentiated gas is the best way to rapidly reduce methane emissions in the oil and gas sector—a win for American energy producers, energy consumers, and the climate.

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