WWF seeks financing for satellite monitoring of gas flaring in Russia
MOSCOW. June 24 (Interfax) - The WWF plans to carry out a project for satellite monitoring of associated petroleum gas (APG) flaring in Russia, the head of WWF Russia's program for environmental policy in the oil and gas sector, Alexei Knizhnikov, said in Moscow on Monday.
Khanty-Mansii autonomous district has been selected as the site for the pilot project, to be carried out over the course of the year. The WWF is currently negotiating project financing with the World Bank.
Knizhnikov said that independent estimates say the actual amount of flaring is several times higher than official statistics indicate. "We have a big shortcoming: a lack of credible data concerning the amount of production and the volume of APG flaring. In our view, this is a very important and systemic problem. Even official data differs depending on the source, not to mention data from other countries, which departs from the Russian data several fold. For example, according to the official data, a total of 17 billion cubic meters of gas was flared in Russia in 2012. According to the World Bank, which relies on monitoring data, it was two times that figure," he said.
In order to resolve the problem, the WWF proposes introducing a system of satellite monitoring and stepping up efforts to install metering equipment on company flaring stacks.
The APG utilization rate in Russia rose to 76% in 2012 and to 85.8% in the first quarter of 2013, according to Natural Resources and Environment Ministry data. The targeted 95% utilization rate will not be reached until 2014 at the earliest, the ministry says.
Beginning on January 1, 2013, the coefficient for calculating the payment for flaring more than 5% of APG production rose to 12 from 4.5 in 2012. That coefficient will rise to 25 in 2014.
