Emissions

Fuel-Based Oil and Gas (FOG) Inventory

This inventory is developed using fuel information on drilling and oil & natural gas production from the U.S. Energy Information Admistration (EIA), and downscaled to a gridded 4 km x 4 km inventory using well-level production data from Enverus Drillinginfo. The emissions are mapped on the standard National Emissions Inventory (NEI) domain. The emissions are created for 2015 to coincide with the Shale Oil & Natural Gas Nexus (SONGNEX) 2015 field study.

NO_x emissions are estimated from fuel use using emission factors from the EPA Oil & Gas Tool and described by Gorchov-Negron et al. (2018).

CH₄ emissions are inferred using tracer to tracer correlations from in-situ aircraft measurements during the Southeast Nexus (SENEX) Study 2013 and SONGNEX 2015 field studies.

Similarly, NMVOC emissions are inferred using tracer to tracer correlations from in-situ field campaigns in conjunction with basin oil/gas production ratio information from Enverus Drillinginfo.

The gridded emissions are provided as an ArcGIS Shapefile, and columns as follows:

CO2_mtpd is CO₂ estimates in metric tons/day
NOx_mtpd is NO_x estimates in metric tons/day
CH4_mtpd is CH₄ estimates in metric tons/dayy
NMVOC_mtpd is Non methane volatile organic compound estimates in metric tons/day

For more information refer to:

Francoeur, C.B., B.C. McDonald, J.B. Gilman, K.J. Zarzana, B. Dix, S.S. Brown, J.A. de Gouw, G.J. Frost, M. Li, S.A. McKeen, J. Peischl, I.B. Pollack, T.B. Ryerson, C. Thompson, C. Warneke, and M. Trainer, Quantifying methane and ozone precursor emissions from oil and gas production regions across the continental US, Environmental Science & Technology, doi:10.1021/acs.est.0c07352, 2021.
Gorchov Negron, A.M., B.C. McDonald, S.A. McKeen, J. Peischl, R. Ahmadov, J.A. de Gouw, G.J. Frost, M.G. Hastings, I.B. Pollack, T.B. Ryerson, C. Thompson, C. Warneke, and M. Trainer, Development of a fuel-based oil and gas inventory of nitrogen oxides emissions, Environmental Science & Technology, doi:10.1021/acs.est.8b02245, 2018.

For more information or questions, contact Brian McDonald.

Fuel-Based Oil and Gas (FOG) Inventory Flaring Emissions 2020-2021

Flaring specific emissions from FOG have been produced for 2020 and 2021 and are used in Plant et al. (2024).

The emissions are mapped on the standard National Emissions Inventory (NEI) domain. Additional information is provided in the ReadMe file. For more information or questions, contact Brian McDonald.

For more information refer to:

Plant, G., E.A. Kort, A.M. Gorchov Negron, Y. Chen, G. Fordice, C. Harkins, and M. Smith, In situ sampling of NOx emissions from United States natural gas flares reveals heavy-tail emission characteristic, Environmental Science & Technology, doi:10.1021/acs.est.3c08095, 2024.