OREANDA-NEWS. December 12, 2012. Qatar Petroleum (QP) and the World Bank-led Global Gas Flaring Reduction (GGFR) partnership today agreed to extend their cooperation in reducing the flaring of gas associated with oil and gas production as a concrete contribution to improving energy efficiency and mitigating climate change, reported the press-centre of QP.  

High-level representatives from QP and the World Bank, who are also participating in the United Nations Climate Change Conference, signed the respective documents, including the Administrative Agreement for Qatar’s participation in phase 4 of the GGFR partnership, covering the period 2013-2015.

"This partnership agreement supports Qatar’s ambition of becoming an energy leader that provides critically needed lower emission and environmentally friendly LNG to all corners of the globe, while maintaining economic diversification and environmental stewardship. I am confident that this phase of the partnership will deliver measurable GHG reductions and I look forward to our continuous and productive cooperation with the World Bank,” said His Excellency Dr. Mohammed bin Saleh Al-Sada, Minister of Energy and Industry and Chairman & Managing Director of QP.

Qatar joined the GGFR partnership in January 2009 and was the first Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) country to do so.

Signing the agreement in Doha today, Rachel Kyte, World Bank Vice President for Sustainable Development, said: “Without ambitious climate action, the science tells us we could experience a 4°C warmer world this century – the consequences would be catastrophic.  The world must tackle the problem of climate change more aggressively. Qatar’s support and concrete contributions to minimizing emissions from gas flaring are critical actions to help limit global warming."

Over the past few years, the Government of Qatar, at the highest levels, has been proactive in reducing gas flaring within a context of dramatic increase in its oil and gas production.

The Qatar National Development Strategy 2011-2016, for example, sets out as a key objective the halving of flaring between 2008 and 2016. It also mentions the development of a detailed flaring monitoring tool as one of the ten priorities of its environmental strategy for 2016.

According to satellite estimates, since the year 2000, whilst the oil and gas production in Qatar increased by almost four fold, gas flaring has been halved. Qatar flared nine cubic meters of gas per barrel of oil equivalent (boe) produced in 2000, versus 1.1 m3 per boe in 2011. This was achieved through the implementation of a number of gas flaring reduction projects in various oil fields as well as in the mega gas plants of Ras Laffan.

GGFR’s cooperation with Qatar Petroleum has also been productive. Several workshops were organized on the potential role of the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) in making flaring reduction projects more economically viable, on improving measurement and reporting, and on identifying flaring reduction projects.

The GGFR partnership, which recently marked its 10-year anniversary with a major Global Forum in London, has already helped reduce gas flaring by 20%, from 172 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2005 to 140 bcm in 2011. This cut has prevented some 274 million tons of CO2 emissions, roughly equivalent to taking 52 million cars off the road. At the recent event, Qatar also received two awards for major flare reduction projects on the Al Shaheen oil field and on the Jetty Boil-Off Gas Recovery Project.