Page 6 - LatAmOil Week 10 2022

LatAmOil MEXICO LatAmOil

Study: Gas flaring rose nearly 50%

in Mexico between 2018 and 2020

MEXICO’S associated gas flaring volumes rose its gas flaring volumes, but it did say in its most
by nearly 50% between 2018 and 2020, accord- recently published quarterly report that it had
ing to a study that the Colorado School of Mines’ burned away 13% of all associated gas encoun-
Earth Observation Group (EOG) carried out for tered in the process of oil drilling and produc-
Reuters. tion. This is far in excess of the legal limit, which
The news agency said last week that EOG sci- is set at 2% under Mexican law.
entists had arrived at this conclusion after study- Reuters pointed out that the increase in
ing satellite images of flaring sites across Mexico flaring had begun the same year that Andres
during the period in question. The images – Manuel Lopez Obrador, Mexico’s current pres-
many of which covered sites operated by the ident, took office. Lopez Obrador has been a
national oil company (NOC) Pemex, such as champion of Pemex, calling on the government
the Cactus gas-processing complex in Reforma, to eliminate or weaken laws and regulations that
a city that straddles the border between Chiapas prevent the NOC from dominating the coun-
and Tabasco states – indicate that flaring vol- try’s oil and petroleum product sectors. ™
umes climbed from 3.9bn cubic metres in 2018
to 5.8 bcm in 2020.
This represents an increase of about 48.7%. It
also makes Mexico one of the world’s 10 largest
gas flarers, Reuters said.
Onshore gas flaring volumes were highest
in Chiapas, Tabasco and Veracruz states, while
offshore flaring sites were concentrated in the
southern Gulf of Mexico, it added.
The news agency indicated that the EOG
team had not yet determined how much
gas Mexico flared in 2021, as it did not have
complete data for the whole year. However,
it reported that data available for the first 10
months of last year showed that the country was
likely to have flared more gas in 2021 than it did
in 2020.
As of press time, Pemex had not commented
directly on the EOG study commissioned by
Reuters.
The NOC does not regularly publish data on Gas flaring went up 48.7% between 2018 and 2020 (Photo: IEA)

JAMAICA
Minister: Jamaica has enough crude oil

and fuel in storage to weather high prices

JAMAICA’S Minister of Science, Energy and nation’s energy security and sought to provide
Technology Daryl Vaz sought last week to assurances that Jamaica has sufficient petroleum
address concerns about potential fuel supply product reserves.
problems stemming from Russia’s invasion According to Vaz, Jamaica’s storage depots
of Ukraine. Speaking during a meeting of the contain enough refined fuels to cover three to
Standing Finance Committee of the House of four weeks of consumption at current rates, as
Representatives, he provided an update on the well as enough crude oil to last for six weeks.

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 10 10•March•2022