The Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership (GGFR) supports national governments and the petroleum industry in their efforts to reduce flaring and venting of gas associated with the extraction of crude oil.
In 2004, the 150 billion cubic meters of natural gas flared were equivalent to 30 per cent of the European Union’s gas consumption, 25 per cent of the U.S. gas consumption, or 75 per cent of Russia’s gas exports.
It is estimated that if CO2 emissions from flaring were stopped, this would contribute to about 13% of committed emission reductions by developed countries under the Kyoto Protocol for the period 2008-2012.
More than 80 percent of global venting and flaring occurs in fewer than 15 countries (including Nigeria, Russia, Iran, Iraq, Angola, Qatar, Algeria, Venezuela, Equatorial Guinea, Indonesia, Brazil and Mexico).
Developing countries face considerable barriers to a more effective use of their valuable resources. The main barriers to reducing gas flaring and venting include:
A limited access to international gas markets as well as weak local markets
A lack of financing to put the necessary infrastructure in place
An undeveloped regulatory framework.
The GGFR work program, managed and facilitated by a World Bank team, focuses on four key areas to overcome the barriers to gas flaring reduction in partner countries:
Commercialization of associated gas
Regulations for associated gas
Implementation of the global flaring and venting reduction standard
Capacity building to obtain carbon credits for flaring and venting reduction projects.
GGFR has already achieved specific results aimed at reducing flaring, and will contribute to the progressive reduction of greenhouse gas emissions around the world. Some of these results include:
Endorsement of a “Global Standard for gas flaring reduction”
Implementation of demonstration projects for associated gas utilization in seven countries.
Assistance to Nigeria, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Algeria, Kazakhstan, and Qatar in meeting flaring out targets by specific dates
Potential avoided flared gas, through GGFR facilitated carbon projects, is approximately 12 billion cubic meters per year, equivalent to 115 million tons of CO2 emissions reduction by 2012.
Development of a web-based tool to report flared and vented data by country
Background
Launched at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in August 2002, the GGFR public-private partnership brings around the table representatives of governments of oil-producing countries, state-owned companies and major international oil companies so that they can together overcome the barriers to reducing gas flaring by sharing global best practices and implementing country specific programs in gas flaring countries.
The partners
The GGFR partnership, managed and facilitated by a small team at the World Bank in Washington, DC, includes the following partners: Algeria (Sonatrach), Angola, Cameroon, Canada (CIDA), Chad, Ecuador, Equatorial Guinea, Indonesia, Kazakhstan, Khanty-Mansijsysk (Russia), Nigeria, Norway, Qatar, U.K. Foreign Commonwealth Office, United States; BP, Chevron, ENI, ExxonMobil, Marathon, NorskHydro, Shell, Statoil, Total; OPEC Secretariat, and the World Bank. The EU will become a partner in 2007.
For more information on the partnership and gas flaring, please visit: www.worldbank.org/ggfr
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