Chevron Corporation has published a methane report that builds on Chevron’s ongoing efforts to promote transparency on climate-related matters. This report details information on Chevron’s approach to detecting, measuring and reducing methane intensity. Since 2016, Chevron has reduced the company’s methane intensity by 50%. Chevron’s US upstream methane intensity is 85% lower than the US upstream production sector average as of 2020.
“Our strategy is clear – leverage our strengths to safely deliver lower carbon energy to a growing world. Effective methane management is important for lower carbon intensity oil and gas production,” says Balaji Krishnamurthy, corporate vice president of Strategy and Sustainability. “Chevron’s ambition is to be a global leader in methane emissions performance. Our goal is simple – keep methane in the pipe.”
Chevron is taking action to meet that aim through reducing methane intensity, improving methane detection and advancing measurement. In particular, Chevron aims to design and operate facilities to help prevent methane emissions and deploy technologies to validate performance, inform repairs and improve inventories.
In the Permian Basin, as part of the standard design, Chevron includes vapour recovery units for tank batteries and compressor stations. Since 2011, Chevron has included compressed air for pneumatic controllers to eliminate methane emissions from that source. In addition, Chevron has committed to designing, where possible, all new upstream facilities to operate without routine methane emissions.
Chevron is testing emerging technology and incorporating innovative solutions into its methane management programs. The company is working toward integrating comprehensive direct measurement into existing emission factor-based inventories as protocols are developed and technologies become more widely available to improve methane detection at both the site and source levels. Since 2016, Chevron has tested 13 advanced detection and measurement technologies. The full Methane Report is available here.
The report includes information that addresses a stockholder proposal requesting Chevron to report on the reliability of methane emissions disclosures, a proposal the Board of Directors recommended stockholders support, and which passed at the company’s 2022 Annual Stockholders Meeting in May.
