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Carbon Dioxide Emissions and Gas Flared
Total offshore CO
2
releases have also been benchmarked separately from total offshore atmospheric emissions.
Figure 25 shows that oil requires more energy (more emissions) to produce than condensate and gas.
Gas is flared on the UKCS for maintenance, well testing and for safety reasons, all of which produce atmospheric
emissions. When the data are broken down by operator, there is a general link between the mass of gas flared and
the mass of CO
2
emitted by oil-producing installations; both increase in Figure 25.
Some of those operators may
also produce condensate or gas (and contribute to those emissions rankings), and so the comparison is limited.
The amount of CO
2
emitted during oil production varies with operational circumstances. Some installations may
use cold vent systems rather than flaring for operational and safety reasons. Venting is the controlled release of
gases into the atmosphere without burning, which does not produce CO
2
but does produce other gases, such
as methane.
Figure 25: Total CO
2
Emissions per Operator by Hydrocarbon Production Type in 2014
0
20
40
60
80
100
120
0
0.2
0.4
0.6
0.8
1
1.2
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X
Gas Flared (Thousand Tonnes)
Total CO
2
Emissions (Thousand Tonnes)
Oil
Gas
Condensate
Mobile
Gas Flared
Source: EEMS June 2015
Coding refers to each hydrocarbon type separately – for example, the operator ranked A for oil producing
installations may be operator X for mobile installations. Gas flared is plotted for the same ranked operator as oil
producing installations
Asset Type
2014
Oil
Condensate
Gas
Mobile
Emissions
8,367,600
2,228,900
1,225,100
764,100
% of total emissions
66%
18%
10%
6%
Average per asset
105,200
66,300
22,900
23,000
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2
3
4
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