Presented by: Drew Pomerantz – Schlumberger (SPE Distinguished Lecturer)

Abstract

The world has entered an energy transition where the future role of energy sources will depend partially on their greenhouse gas footprint.  While that transition is expected to take a generation, some changes will occur quickly.  One of the fastest ways to combat climate change is to reduce emissions of methane, not carbon dioxide.  Methane is the main component of natural gas and a more potent greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.  The oil and gas industry handles a large quantity of methane, and a small amount of that methane leaks to the atmosphere.  Because methane is such a potent greenhouse gas, those emissions are small in volume but large in environmental impact: methane is the dominant source of our industry’s direct greenhouse gas emissions, above other sources like flaring.  This lecture describes the main sources of methane emissions, the market and political drivers to reduce methane emissions, and the new technologies being developed to find and fix methane leaks.

 Biography

Andrew (Drew) E. Pomerantz is an Energy Transition Technology Advisor at Schlumberger, based in Boston, Massachusetts.  He focuses on new technologies that reduce direct greenhouse gas emissions from the upstream and midstream oil and gas industry, particularly novel methods to detect fugitive methane emissions.  Drew graduated from Stanford University with a PhD in chemistry in 2005 and has co-authored 100 peer-reviewed publications and 25 granted US patents.  He founded the Boston chapter of the Society of Petrophysicists and Well Log Analysts (SPWLA).