Pemex promises to reduce methane emissions by 98%

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador met with the United States presidential special envoy for the climate, John Kerry, whom he notified that Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) will reduce its methane gas emissions by 98% by 2024, thus accelerating the energy transition towards the use of electrical energy without greenhouse gas emissions.

“Pemex presented the progress of its methane gas capture program and other emission reduction actions,” Mexican Foreign Minister Marcelo Ebrard explained in a conference after the meeting, according to whom Pemex’s actions to achieve the goal began in 2019.

At the same time, Ebrard highlighted that the United States has the commitment to be a s economy by 2035. The Secretary of the Environment and Natural Resources, María Luisa Albores González, also participated in the meeting, since it was held with the purpose of sharing with the United States government Mexico’s vision for the transition to clean energy without coal. According to the Mexican foreign minister, Albores presented her actions in charge of her and the estimate of how greenhouse gas emissions are reduced.

Likewise, he reported that these details will also be presented at the COP27 to be held in November in Egypt.

However, it should be remembered that just last September, in a research article published by Environmental Science & Technology Letters in June, scientists calculated from satellite data that Pemex emitted around 40,000 tons of methane from the Ku-Maloob-Zaap asset. for 17 days in December last year.

Their work is part of a larger study funded by the European Space Agency, in which scientists are working to detect and quantify human emissions from space.

The oil company said in a statement released Wednesday night that a study carried out by a third party authorized by the National Agency for Industrial Safety and Environmental Protection of the Hydrocarbons Sector (ASEA) revealed that there had been no large emissions of methane.

“The gas emissions into the atmosphere at the Zaap-C Process Center that occurred in an extraordinary manner, had a concentration of 22% methane gas, and the rest is made up of nitrogen and other gases,” Pemex replied in this regard.

The state company added that the images captured by the satellites referred to in the research article were considered incorrectly.

karol.garcia@eleconomista.mx