Reconciling Multiple Methane Detection and Quantification Systems at Oil and Gas Tank Battery Sites

Emission rates were estimated for >100 oil and gas production sites with significant liquid-handling equipment (tank battery sites) in the Permian Basin of west Texas. Emission estimates based on equipment counts and emission factors, but not accounting for large uninventoried emission events, led to ensemble average emission rates of 1.8-3.6 kg/h per site. None of the site-specific emission estimates for individual sites, based on equipment counts, exceeded 10 kg/h. On-site drone-based emission measurements led to similar emission estimates for inventoried sources. Multiple aircraft measurement platforms were deployed and reported emissions exceeding 10 kg/h at 14-27% of the sites, and these high-emission rate sites accounted for 80-90% of total emissions for the ensemble of sites. The aircraft measurement systems were deployed asynchronously but within a 5 day period. At least half of the sites with emission rates above 10 kg/h detected by aircraft had emissions that did not persist at a level above 10 kg/h for repeat measurements, suggesting typical high-emission rate durations of a few days or less for many events. The two aircraft systems differed in their estimates of total emissions from the ensembles of sites sampled by more than a factor of 2; however, the normalized distributions of emissions for sites with emission rates of >10 kg/h were comparable for the two aircraft-based methods. The differences between the two aircraft-based platforms are attributed to a combination of factors; however, both aircraft-based emission measurement systems attribute a large fraction of emissions to sites with an emission rate of >10 kg/h.