In Situ Sampling of NOx Emissions from United States Natural Gas Flares Reveals Heavy-Tail Emission Characteristic

Natural gas flaring is a common practice employed in many United States (U.S.) oil and gas regions to dispose of gas associated with oil production. Combustion of predominantly hydrocarbon gas results in the production of nitrogen oxides (NOx). Here, we present a large field data set of in situ sampling of real world flares, quantifying flaring NOx production in major U.S. oil production regions: the Bakken, Eagle Ford, and Permian. We find that a single emission factor does not capture the range of the observed NOx emission factors within these regions. For all three regions, the median emission factors fall within the range of four emission factors used by the Texas Commission for Environmental Quality. In the Bakken and Permian, the distribution of emission factors exhibits a heavy tail such that basin-average emission factors are 2–3 times larger than the value employed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Extrapolation to basin scale emissions using auxiliary satellite assessments of flare volumes indicates that NOx emissions from flares are skewed, with 20%–30% of the flares responsible for 80% of basin-wide flaring NOx emissions. Efforts to reduce flaring volume through alternative gas capture methods would have a larger impact on the NOx oil and gas budget than current inventories indicate.