Use of Drone Technology for Methane Emissions Quantification - Level 4 and Level 5 Reconciliation as Per OGMP

Abstract Methane emissions are the most potent Green House Gases from the Oil & Gas Industry. ADNOC Onshore is developing across its assets several technologies to monitor and quantify these emissions as per Oil & Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 (reference #1: United Nations Environment Programme). This paper is developing a case with the use of Drone technology -first application within ADNOC- and how it has been used to make the reconciliation between level 4 and level 5 monitoring. ADNOC Onshore pioneered in 2023 across all ADNOC Group Companies the use of Drone to monitor and quantify methane emissions from a Central Degassing Station (CDS). All the methane emissions sources were monitored by the Drone: Fugitives, Flares, Gas Fired Heaters, Oil storage and Produced Water tanks allowing to have a quantification and mapping of the methane emissions. The use of others ground technologies, High Flow Sampler (HFS) and Optical Gas Imaging Camera (OGI), in comparison with Drone's sensors has allowed us to identify some gaps between technologies and consider these gaps in our global methane quantification. A reconciliation between level 4 and level 5 measurement has been conducted as per Oil & Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 (OGMP 2.0) requirements. OGMP 2.0 is the new reporting framework aiming to improve reporting accuracy and transparency of CH4 emissions in the Oil&Gas sector. This reconciliation has been an opportunity to improve site measurement / calculations for emissions and increase the awareness to the operational teams. Reconciliation is the process of comparing source-level (Level 4) inventories with independent site-level measurements to produce Level 5 asset emissions estimates. Site-level measurements complement - rather than replace - source-level estimates, and the process of reconciliation helps improve accuracy, thoroughness and confidence in reported emissions. Reconciliation is an iterative process of investigation, year over year, and should not be thought of as a one-off comparison of two independent values. The process, like knowledge, will evolve over the years – the focus is on making credible progress year over year (reference #1: United Nations Environment Programme). This paper is sharing the operational feedback on the use of Drone for methane measurement and as well the lessons learned following the reconciliation process with concrete recommendations. Some insights on observations made with the use of different technologies to quantify the methane emissions are developed.