Wintershall Dea reinforces global Zero Methane Emissions initiative

Europe’s largest independent gas and oil producer Wintershall Dea has joined the international Aiming for Zero Methane Emissions Initiative, whose backers also include companies such as bp, Chevron, Equinor, ExxonMobil, Petrobras and Shell.

Rapidly reducing methane emissions is an essential tool for mitigating climate change and achieving global climate goals, Wintershall Dea said in a statement announcing its support for the initiative.

“The gas and oil industry, too, must and will make its contribution here. At Wintershall Dea, we have already been very consistently reducing the methane emissions from our production activities for several years,” Mario Mehren, CEO of Wintershall Dea, said in a statement.

“We share the conviction that much of our industry’s methane emissions can and should be avoided,” he added. “It is initiatives like this that make me optimistic that the gas and oil industry will successfully transform our business and be part of the solution in fulfilling climate targets and meeting the world’s growing energy needs,” Mehren said.

The Aiming for Zero Methane Emissions Initiative is taking an all-in approach to take climate protection as seriously as the oil and gas industry takes safety: the target is “zero”, and all members strive to achieve this goal, Wintershall Dea said.

In an exclusive interview with Energy Connects Editor-in-Chief Julian Walker in June, Bjorn Otto Sverdrup, the Chair of the Oil and Gas Climate Initiative's (OGCI) Executive Committee, outlined how the initiative represents a major shift for the oil and gas industry.

Promoted by the OGCI, Aiming for Zero Methane Emissions Initiative encourages its members companies to accelerate the energy transition through deep reductions in greenhouse gases.

The initiative also calls for concrete technology-related measures, such as with venting and flaring, but also for transparent and regular reporting of methane emissions. At the same time, it supplements other voluntary initiatives, such as the Methane Guiding Principles and the Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 (OGMP 2.0), both of which Wintershall Dea is already participating in.

In order to effectively reduce methane emissions, it is crucial to have precise information about the quantities emitted and the sources of emissions. For this reason, Wintershall Dea launched a global leak detection and repair (LDAR) campaign in 2021 to further reduce emissions, the company said.

LDAR will make it possible to detect and quickly plug even the smallest leaks. “We started the campaign in Germany and have just completed most of the measurements. Now we are analysing the results in order to get even better and to work in a targeted manner on additional reductions,” Hugo Dijkgraaf, Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Wintershall Dea, said in a statement.