Electrifying oil and gas facilities could reduce 80 percent of emissions from industry production globally, according to a new analysis from Rystad Energy.
Even partial electrification would cause a significant drop in emissions, the Norwegian energy research company said. The report identified 30 oil and gas basins — including several in the U.S. — that contain more than 80 percent of the world’s oil and gas.
If facilities in the basins were electrified to reduce 50 percent of their emissions, more than 5 metric gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions could be avoided by midcentury, preventing .025 degrees Celsius of warming, the report said.
“Emissions intensity is something that operators pay a lot of attention to, and their investors care about it,” said Matt Hale, Rystad’s senior vice president of drilling and wells research. “The world’s going to demand certain volumes of oil and gas, well, what’s the least emissions intensive way to do that?”
