With more third-party data becoming available to the public, such as that from the recently launched Environmental Defense Fund MethaneSAT satellite, it is likely the market will see more transparency, according to Tom Sharp, director of permitting intelligence at consultancy Arbo. “This type of data could be used to provide some sort of check against any standards for certified gas,” he told Energy Intelligence. “There will only be more and better climate data going forward.”
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US lawmakers have recently stepped up scrutiny of the growing certified natural gas space, but Williams CEO Alan Armstrong says he is not bothered by the heightening criticism. “We're going to be very transparent about what we know, we're going to be very transparent about the measurement processes that we're using,” Armstrong told reporters at the CERAWeek by S&P Global conference last week in Houston. “And we fully expect all kinds of scrutiny around it, and we
fully welcome that because we want to get it right.”
Williams, which says it moves one-third of the nation’s gas on its pipeline network, is among several large companies that have teamed up with third-party firms to verify the greenhouse gas emissions linked to their operations. The company has developed a marketing platform it calls “NextGen Gas,”which tracks and certifies the emissions footprint both at the wellhead and along the midstream
chain, although third parties verify the findings. Williams has so far sold packages of its NextGen Gas into three different markets, Armstrong said.
But the science isn’t always perfect, he acknowledged. “Detecting what is background versus what is being emitted by your operations is very difficult. And you don't always get the same read depending on which technology you're using. So for people to act like it's perfectly accurate, and they know exactly what it is, we're just not there yet.”
It’s this last point that has lawmakers concerned. Last month, a group of progressive senators called on the Federal Trade Commission “to investigate and crack down on unfair and deceptive environmental claims" made by gas companies and by third-party certifiers such as Project Canary and MiQ.
Building Trust
Other speakers at CERAWeek stressed the importance of trust in developing a market for differentiated gas. “If you want to create a market for certified gas, if you have customers that are willing to pay a premium for gas that has very low upstream emissions … and if you can't trust the numbers that are coming out, it's impossible for this market to develop,” said Brookings Institution Director Samantha Gross.
“The whole idea of developing your market is to drive further reductions. And so you get into this unfortunate cycle of, if people don't believe that these emissions reductions are actually happening, nobody's willing to pay for them, and so the reductions don't happen. So the trust in this independent monitoring and verified body is extremely important.”
With more third-party data becoming available to the public, such as that from the recently launched Environmental Defense Fund MethaneSAT satellite, it is likely the market will see more transparency, according to Tom Sharp, director of permitting intelligence at consultancy Arbo. “This type of data could be used to provide some sort of check against any standards for certified gas,” he told Energy Intelligence “There will only be more and better climate data going forward.”
Also, the development of a uniform standard for certifying gas “would go a long way” toward creating the transparency needed to build confidence in that market, he added. “Absent that, the closer pipelines offering certified gas can get to something that looks like a peer reviewed ecosystem with a lot of transparency, the better. And although they historically have made uncomfortable bedfellows, partnering with any willing and credible environmental groups would certainly garner trust. We’ve seen it to some degree in the past with the move to shift away from coal. So it's possible.”
