MOSCOW (MRC) -- Environmental Defense Fund Europe welcomes the European Commission's Methane Strategy released this week as one of two new initiatives executive vice-president Frans Timmermans outlined to support a green recovery, said Hydrocarbonprocessing.
At least 25% of the planetary warming we experience right now is caused by methane emissions from human activities, including agriculture, production and use of fossil fuels, and landfill waste. Oil and gas methane present a particularly important opportunity, as it offers the most immediate and lowest cost option to reduce a potent greenhouse gas.
According to the International Energy Agency, the oil and gas industry can deliver a 75% reduction in methane emissions with technology available to it today, with more than half of this achievable at no net cost to the industry. "This new strategy puts Europe in the vanguard of international policy to reduce methane pollution. As the terrible effects of climate change bear down on all of us, Europe is recognizing that reducing oil and gas methane emissions is the most immediate and cost-effective step to slow the rate of warming now, and is a necessary complement to efforts to drive carbon dioxide pollution out of the economy.
"As the largest importer of internationally traded gas, the EU has a special responsibility to take on methane emissions. We are pleased to hear the Commission will evaluate the feasibility of an import standard on methane in parallel with continuing international dialogues and cooperation. We believe that a swift introduction of gas standards is essential to energy system integration and achieving the goals of the Green Deal, and we stand ready to assist the Commission in its investigations of how this could be done.
"Past progress has been hindered by difficulties in tracking emissions. But monitoring and detection technologies to reduce methane are improving every day. Europe's TROPOMI and Prisma satellites provide access to measured emissions data, while new satellites like MethaneSAT will generate even more precise information on methane emissions from oil and gas operations in remote corners of the world.
"Environmental Defense Fund Europe advocates for market-based solutions that help people and nature prosper. As a leader in advancing methane science and innovative policies to reach a net-zero energy future, we look forward to working with EU leaders to develop enabling legislation built off the Methane Strategy."
As MRC informed earlier, The European Commission has recently presented its 2030 climate target plan, in which it sets out a program to reduce EU greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by at least 55% by 2030, compared with 1990, despite a call from the European Parliament in September for GHG emissions to be reduced 60% by 2030. The raised target puts the EU on a balanced pathway to reaching climate neutrality by 2050 and underlines the EU's continued global leadership in this area, ahead of the next UN climate conference (COP26).
As MRC informed earlier, in October, 2020, the European Commission adopted the EU's chemicals strategy for sustainability, describing it as the first step towards a zero-pollution ambition for a toxic-free environment announced in the European Green Deal.
We remind that Russia"s output of chemical products rose in August 2020 by 5% year on year. At the same time, production of basic chemicals increased year on year by 5.3% in the first eight months of 2020, according to Rosstat"s data. According to the Federal State Statistics Service of the Russian Federation, polymers in primary form accounted for the greatest increase in the January-August output. August production of primary polymers rose to 888,000 tonnes against 838,000 tonnes in July due to increased capacity utilisation at ZapSibNeftekhim, Stavrolen and Gazprom neftekhim Salavat. Overall output of polymers in primary form totalled 6,630,000 tonnes over the stated period, up by 15.2% year on year.
Ethylene and propylene are feedstocks for producing polyethylene (PE) and polypropylene (PP).
According to MRC's ScanPlast report, Russia's estimated PE consumption totalled 1,496,500 tonnes in the first eight months of 2020, up by 5% year on year. Shipments of all ethylene polymers increased, except for linear low desnity polyethylene (LLDPE). At the same time, PP shipments to the Russian market reached 767,2900 tonnes in the eight months of 2020 (calculated using the formula - production minus exports plus imports - and not counting producers' inventories as of 1 January, 2020). Supply increased exclusively of PP random copolymer.
MRC