ExxonMobil should prove it is using efficient gas flaring technology in oil operations offshore and it is also imperative that both Guyana and the company have stringent measures in place to monitor for leaks from its equipment as such emissions have stronger greenhouse effects, physicist and energy researcher Dr Robert Kleinberg says.
“I would recommend that the equipment, as it ages, be monitored for leaks, which have a much stronger greenhouse gas effect than flaring,” Dr. Kleinberg told the Sunday Stabroek in an exclusive interview, as he pointed to a study of 45 gas compressor stations in the United States’ natural gas transmission and storage system.
In that study, published in 2015 by the American Chemical Society (ACS), of the 45 stations studied, two were found to be “super-emitters” of methane, the main component of natural gas, with leak rates much higher than expected. (https://pubs.acs.org/doi/pdf/10.1021/es5060258)