COST ESTIMATES AND METHANE ABATEMENT POTENTIAL IN NATURAL GAS TRANSMISSION PIPELINES

Resumen

This study aims to estimate methane emissions from a natural gas supply chain infrastructure and assess the potential and cost of abatement with the implementation of mitigation measures. To achieve this, we developed a generic case study for the natural gas transport stage, involving three pipelines of 113 km each and three compression stations. The methodology included infrastructure sizing using the Que$tor software, estimating methane emissions, evaluating abatement measures capable of reducing these emissions, and calculating both the abatement potential and associated costs. As a result, fugitive emissions represented more than 72% of methane emissions, while 28% were venting emissions. The case study showed that certain emission reduction measures offer potential economic returns from the recovered gas: three of the five measures evaluated were economically viable at all natural gas price levels considered. Additionally, all measures contributed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions, with a total potential to mitigate up to 87% of emissions from the sources analyzed in the case study.