Mobilizing to Meet Global Standards on Methane Emissions at Petrobras

When Brazilian oil giant Petrobras signed an agreement with the UN’s Oil and Gas Methane Partnership (OGMP) 2.0 earlier this year, it cemented its commitment to a lower emission future.

OGMP 2.0 is a global initiative that focuses on the measurement and reporting of methane emissions in oil and gas operations in order to reduce them. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas and oil and gas operations account for approximately one third of human-caused  methane emissions.

In its strategic plan, Petrobras says that it aims to neutralize emissions by 2050 and is investing US $4.4 billion in decarbonization projects and technology.

In this interview, Rodrigo Suzart Alca Barbosa, Upstream Partnership Coordinator, and Roberto Gennaro Gomes Vairo, Planning Manager, both from Petrobras, talk about the national oil giant’s methane emission mitigation efforts, mobilizing support to reach OGMP’s gold standard, and the lessons they’ve learned along the way.

Diana Davis, IX Network: What is Petrobras planning to do this year to mitigate methane emissions in your operations?

Rodrigo Suzart Alca Barbosa, Petrobras: We have already reduced our methane emissions intensity on the upstream segment by 60% when compared to 2015, reaching 0.26 tCH4/k tons hydrocarbon production. This result was achieved by the implementation of several initiatives like a segment-wide program to reduce the volume of gas sent do flaring, the update of our flaring combustion efficiency and the adoption of new technologies like the flaring gas recovery systems (FGRS).

Our new oil and gas production projects are being developed on near zero methane and zero routine flaring concepts. We have had targets to mitigate methane emissions since 2019.

Our current target is to consolidate the 55% reduction in the methane emissions intensity in the upstream segment (base year 2015), reaching 0.29 tCH4/thousand tHC in 2025. But we need to go further.

We have the ambition to achieve a near zero methane intensity in 2030 on the upstream segment, aligned with the “Aim for Zero” methane initiative.

To achieve that we are implementing a mitigation portfolio for flaring, venting and fugitive emissions on our platforms, as part of our Carbon Neutral Program.

What is new for us this year is that we will now join forces with OGMP to improve our methane emissions estimative aiming for a gold standard report, which involves measurement and quantification instead of using generic emission factors.

We will be elaborating on our implementation plan this year and putting it through the test with some pilot projects.

Diana Davis, IX Network: As a fairly new member of OGMP what has it taken to mobilize internally to meet the OGMP standards?

Rodrigo Suzart Alca Barbosa, Petrobras: For the last decade, we have been using our operational parameters and the average emission factors of the industry to estimate our methane emissions. To reach a gold standard report it is required to calculate the methane emissions through specific emission factors, obtained by direct measurements or process simulations. This could be very challenging for offshore units, which compose most of our production portfolio.

It is important to appreciate that an offshore unit could be more than 200km away from the coast in deepwater and presents a complex production plant with more than 10.000 process components. Performing measurement campaigns in such units requires a complex logistics and different technologies approaches.

To tackle these challenges we created a multidisciplinary working group that are focused on constructing our implementation plan to reach gold standard.

Roberto Gennaro Gomes Vairo, Petrobras: It has been challenging to mobilize significant support internally because we have a huge upstream and midstream portfolio. It’s important to get the right people on board to make the gold standard for OGMP happen. The reality of the offshore world is complex. The people who work on these platforms need to be aware about a lot of issues, such as safety, production, and also emissions.

To engage them, we are running a lot of workshops involving not only the methane specialists but the operational segment as well to come up with our plans to achieve the gold standard in an effort to have our plans submitted to OGMP by the end of the year.

The influence of external stakeholders, such as investors or partners, has also been important here. We have some partners who were already in OGMP and were very helpful to accelerate our internal decision to join OGMP.

Diana Davis, IX Network: What did it take to really gain commitment?

Rodrigo Suzart Alca Barbosa, Petrobras: I think it comes down to culture, which is key to the decarbonization journey in general. Every year, we are getting more and more committed at all levels of the company here at Petrobras.

Roberto Gennaro Gomes Vairo, Petrobras: I’d add that we started with our high-level corporate commitments. Then we started to include methane emissions on our top score cards and slowly started to create the culture regarding the topic. It's a process that we are addressing more each year. In particular, I believe that it’s not only about emissions, but it's also about process reliability. It’s good to measure emissions and good to reduce them, but it’s also good to have a more reliable process.

Diana Davis, IX Network: Methane emissions themselves are a global challenge, and yet every operator is going to be operating under national and local regulations. How are local regulations and requirements with regards methane emissions impacting your operations?

Rodrigo Suzart Alca Barbosa, Petrobras: Brazil is a signatory of the Global Methane Pledge and currently has strong regulation for flaring. In Petrobras we also have strict safety standards to detect gas leaks.

Brazil and Petrobras have currently low levels of flaring when compared internationally and that also has an effect on methane emissions. The profile of the country is actually different from most of the world, with less than 3% of methane emissions from O&G industry. However, internally we operate with our ambition for near zero methane, which goes beyond regulations. We do expect that regulations on this theme should evolve.

Roberto Gennaro Gomes Vairo: I believe that we are pushing the boundaries faster than the local regulation requires. However, regulations – both on methane emissions and emissions in general - will follow sooner or later.

We see a lot of value in better managing our methane emissions whether it is a regulatory requirement or not. Also, regulations can be an ally for us in our initiatives. It is important that regulations are created from comprehensive discussions with all stakeholders (companies, organizations, governments, civil society).

Diana Davis, IX Network: What are the big challenges that you see in the year ahead as you move forward with this?

Roberto Gennaro Gomes Vairo, Petrobras: There is a lot of work that we need to undertake that is new for us, such as direct measurement and new reporting requirements. A lot of this will depend on technology. We need to assess which technologies will be best to achieve a higher standard of emissions management.

We expect it to be a learning curve. We will get some parts right and some parts wrong. We will need to learn from those experiences and try again. We also need to get all segments of the business engaged in the program.

Rodrigo Suzart Alca Barbosa, Petrobras: Another challenge that I would add to this is the technology availability side. Some of the technologies that are readily available in Europe and the United States are not yet available in Brazil.

We need to improve access to these technologies by engaging with external partners and helping to evolve the national market for these technologies. Some technologies like methane measurements from satellites are not yet fully available for offshore units, that compose most of our portfolio, what limits our methodologies selection.

Diana Davis, IX Network: What would be your advice to other operators that are looking at getting started with reducing their methane emissions?

Rodrigo Suzart Alca Barbosa, Petrobras: It’s so important to engage with the partners who are already in OGMP. We engaged with Shell, TotalEnergies, and Repsol, in order to understand the challenges of meeting the commitments. The second piece of advice is that nothing happens without the support of company leaders. It’s critical to engage the leaders with this important theme.

Roberto Gennaro Gomes Vairo, Petrobras: I agree with Rodrigo and would add that you need to get people working on this who really believe in it because you need a lot of determination to make it happen. There are no overnight fixes.

Diana Davis, IX Network: What are you hoping to get out of the Global Methane Mitigation Summit that you're coming to in June?

Roberto Gennaro Gomes Vairo, Petrobras: For me, a big part of the event is sharing our experience at Petrobras and learning from others. We want to listen to the other companies - not only other operators but also the organizations, suppliers and other stakeholders to see how we can solve this problem together.

Interested in learning more about this topic?

Join over 150 oil and gas leaders at the Methane Mitigation America on December 5-7, 2023 in Houston. You'll learn how methane reduction is being shaped by the global regulatory landscape, understand the key pathways to lowering emissions, discover how to build innovative partnerships to accelerate abatement efforts and explore how to improve the reliability and credibility of methane emissions data. Download the event agenda for more information.