Reducing Global Flaring – Angola’s Good Intentions (Part 1)

As the second largest oil producer in Africa, Angola is also second in terms of total flare volumes.

• Based on 2015 emissions data (Elvidge et al. 2018), the country was ranked 9th in the world, flaring an estimated 146BCF (2GWe or 17.5TWh) – enough to power Cuba. 
• Based on 2016 Cedigaz data (EIA, 2019), combined venting and flaring amounted to 254BCF (3.5GWe or 30.5TWh) – almost enough to power Denmark.

For many fields, natural gas associated with the oil has no cost-effective route to market and as a result is being flared or vented into the atmosphere – a considerable wasted resource.  Last year, Reuters reported that the Ministry of Resources and Petroleum of Angola is taking steps to ensure this wasted resource can instead be monetised.  Fertilizer factories are mentioned, and LNG construction is underway (Angola LNG, Soyo plant expansion).  In our mind, this raises two critical questions:

1. How much of the currently flared and vented gas volumes will remain unutilised?
2. What unused volume comes from mature/declining fields and how might it be utilised?