In America's hottest drilling spot, vast volumes of gas go up in smoke
In America’s busiest oil field, roughly $1 million worth of natural gas goes to waste each day.
Shale drillers in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico say they have no way to move the gas—a byproduct of oil drilling—to market because there aren’t enough natural-gas pipelines. Instead, they are getting rid of the excess gas by setting it on fire, a practice known as flaring.
Companies flare about 3% of the gas they extract in the Permian. But production in the basin is so high that the volume of gas burned every day would be large enough to supply the daily needs of states such as Montana or New Hampshire, by some estimates. The flaring also produces greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to 2 million cars.
As Permian oil output continues to grow, Rystad Energy projects flaring will more than double in the next year, and won’t substantially drop until at least late 2019, when new gas pipelines are set to start operating.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/in-americas-hottest-drilling-spot-vast-volumes-of-gas-go-up-in-smoke/ar-BBMAUKR?li=BBnbfcN
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