EVENTS

The New Producers Group (NPG) is pleased to offer virtual training on ways to minimise GHG emissions from the petroleum sector, thanks to support from the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (NORAD), the African Natural Resources Centre (ANRC) at the African Development Bank (AfDB) and the Commonwealth Secretariat.

The NPG will also offer follow-up sessions to interested governments to support the development of government-led national solutions for key actionable issues identified during the training discussions. (policy labs).

Participants

The NPG invites all member countries with significant oil and gas discoveries to apply for the course (notably Mauritania, Mozambique, Ghana, Namibia, Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Suriname, Guyana, Timor-Leste, STP, as well as prospective new member Senegal) and will select 5-7 countries to participate, each with a delegation of approximately 8-12 people.

Interested governments will submit delegations including the petroleum regulator, environment regulator, line ministry, environment ministry, NOC, climate change unit and possibly ministry of finance.

Total number of participants: 70

Interested in benefiting from this training? Email Valerie Marcel

Rationale for the training

There is a wide range of emission intensity across petroleum producers and several international institutions and industry bodies have highlighted the huge opportunity for existing technologies and best practices to bring significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. In a carbon constrained world, oil and gas producers who can demonstrate that their projects will be at lowest emission standard could credibly argue that their resources should be prioritized over higher-emitting ones. Their lower GHG emissions intensive production should also increasingly be more competitive as the cost of carbon is increasingly reflected in oil and gas trade.

New producers could leap-frog mature producers and position themselves at the lower end of the emission intensity spectrum. New producers also need to be cognisant that the development of the sector can dramatically increase the country’s GHG emissions.  It is imperative that there is a clear understanding of the sector’s long term GHG profile to ensure that it is appropriately reflected in Nationally Determined Contributions (NDC). The workshop will explore the technologies, processes and oversight available to new producers for minimisation of a project’s GHG footprint.

Evidence to date demonstrates that even with strong policy commitments, delivery on GHG reductions is not easily realised. This training will also address the implementation challenges that have slowed progress and identify areas for NPG members to work together in developing nationally adapted solutions.

Learning objectives

• Increase understanding of the importance of building projects at best-standard in terms of emissions
• Increase understanding of the sources of GHG emissions in the oil and gas value chain and data required by other government agencies (e.g. NDCs, revenue forecasting)
• Increase participants’ awareness of tools for estimating GHG emissions and avenues for accessing support with the estimation, mitigation and monitoring of petroleum sector emissions
• Improve understanding of the opportunities new producers must develop the lowest possible emission intensity projects
• Inform and guide sectoral policy making and planning
• Improve awareness of the obstacles to successful emissions minimisation in the petroleum sector and identify means of overcoming these obstacles

Format

Date: 27 June to 8 July 2022

This will be a live, interactive course delivered via Zoom, with a series of 7 remote sessions across two weeks. Participants are expected to attend all the modules delivered. Participants will include officials from petroleum, revenue, planning, and environment agencies (and including NOC executives).  They will be given pre-course work to identify capacity levels and country priorities in terms of emissions reduction and to enable deeper treatment of issues during the course. The course will alternate between plenary sessions, which provide scene setting information and opportunities for governments to share their thinking with each other, and national workshops, which enable inter-agency exchanges and aim to improve policy design and identify implementation challenges.

It is expected that during the training participants will identify common implementation challenges and policy problems that would require further efforts to resolve. These could be addressed through the NPG’s policy lab process, a facilitated structured process to support national teams in developing fit for purpose solutions.

Pre-course work

Each delegation is expected to participate in the webinars organised in advance of the course (or view the recordings if they cannot attend them live). Each delegation and participant will be given pre-course work. Total commitment will be of approximately 4 hours before the course and 16 hours over the two-week duration of the course.

Reading & viewing:

1. View/participate in the below topic-related webinars (required)
2. Background paper – “Charting the Challenges Faced by Emerging Oil and Gas Producers in a Highly Competitive and Warming World” by Valerie Marcel, Naadira Ogeer, Patrick Heller, Ekpen Omonbude, Deborah Gordon, Glada Lahn (link to follow) (required)
3. CCSI, “A Policy Framework to Approach the Use of Associated Petroleum Gas (required)
4. Deborah Gordon, No Standard Oil, (optional)

Slides to prepare on country context (slide template to follow)

Draft course agenda

Webinars before the course:

These sessions are will public events, open to all member countries of the New Producers Group and partner organisations. (Session timings are subject to change. Confirmed speakers are marked with *)

• 26 May, 1pm BST Carbon Capture, Storage and Utilisation: What can new producers do in this space? Presentations from Nirvasen Moonsamy*, Oil and Gas Capacity Initiative (OGCI), Petrobras and Saudi Aramco on opportunities and challenges. Register interest

• 9 June, 2pm BST Understanding the source of emissions in the petroleum sector: Presentation by Deborah Gordon*, Rocky Mountain Institute: overview of methodology that is required to create a GHG emission profile for a project. Register interest

• 16 June, 1pm BST National carbon offsets Presentation by Emergent (invited). Register interest

• 23 June, 1pm BST Why design low emissions and even net zero? Presentation by Carbon Tracker on the risk of stranding of carbon intensive assets. Presentation by Maina Kigundu*, Stanbic on industry priorities regarding carbon intensity and the challenges of securing finance without a plan for minimising emissions. Presentation by Guillaume Quiviger, Vitol, on the business case for investing in flare control. Register interest

Online sessions Day 1 through 9 are open only to selected government delegations and invited expert speakers. Deliberations will be under the Chatham House Rule of non-attribution, allowing free and honest sharing amongst participants. (Confirmed speakers are marked with *)

Day 1 Plenary session: Estimating project and national GHG emissions

27 June, 1-3pm BST

Presentations:

• What’s at stake: why minimizing petroleum sector GHG emissions is the condition for entry
• Overview of key points from webinars, highlighting the various ways of estimating project/national emissions
• Presentation from Norwegian Petroleum Directorate on how Norway estimates emissions
• Instruction on available tools, Deborah Gordon*, Rocky Mountain Institute

Breakouts: Small group manipulations of the OCI tool plus gas

Plenary presentation and discussion

• Challenges of benchmarking and ongoing monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV)

Day 2 Oil workshop on estimating emissions

28 June, 1-3pm BST

• Worked examples with emissions trajectory over the life of the project (onshore oil vs. deepwater, small refinery)
• Identification of the largest levers for emissions reduction through the value chain

Country breakout discussions

• Exercise to minimize petroleum emissions and assess scope for national offset
• Cross agency data sharing

Day 3 Gas workshop on estimating emissions

29 June, 1-3pm

• Worked example with emissions trajectory over the life of a project (LNG vs. gas into domestic power)
• Identification of the largest levers for emissions reduction through the value chain

Country breakout discussions

• Exercise to minimize petroleum emissions and assess scope for national offset
• Cross agency data sharing

Day 4 Plenary session: ZRF, venting and methane: Country opportunities and challenges

30 June, 1-4pm

• Case study: Colombia Ministry of Mines and Energy on its introduction of methane regulations
• Case study from the Nigerian Upstream Petroleum Regulatory Authority on lessons learned in regulatory reform process
• Presentation by Zubin Bamji*, Program Manager of the World Bank’s Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership, on the GGFR trust fund, the Zero Routine Flaring initiative, and resources to support regulatory capacity-building
• Case study from Alexandre Rodrigues and Bruno Gullo*, ANP Brazil on lessons learned regarding enforcement of flaring regulation

Discussion

• Presentation on the challenge of planning, sequencing, and financing the gas infrastructure and value chain (including gas masterplan that accurately assesses affordability and domestic/regional demand).

Discussion

Day 5 Breakout sessions on ZRF, venting and methane leakage

1 July, various times

1. Gas value chain and methane, 10-12pm

• Opportunities and challenges
• Presentation on methane certification, Rocky Mountain Institute
• Discussion
• Break out by country
• Report back and discussion

2. Associated gas, 2-4pm

• Presentation by Perrine Toledano*, Columbia Center for Sustainable Investment (CCSI): Overview of implementation challenges
• Discussion
• Break out by country
• Report back and discussion

Day 6 Free day with clinics

4 July, various times

Opportunity to pre-arrange calls with experts from week 1, to review the project or national emissions profiles the country team generated, gas utilisation plans or regulatory frameworks.

Day 7 Plenary – Integrating renewable energy

5 July, 2-4pm BST

Presentations

• How leverage the development of the petroleum sector to build out RE capacity for the country
• Need for resource assessments
• Leverage Field Development Plan (FDP) approval to obtain assessments of RE potential

Discussion

Day 8 Break out onshore/offshore discussions

6 July, 2-4pm BST

• Minimum required for the greening of the operations
• Leveraging the project RE for a national rollout
• Taking into consideration the role and capacity of the utility sector, grid development, price and risks

Day 9 Plenary session – Obstacles to implementation or progress

7 July, 2-4pm BST

Presentation: Range of obstacles

• Capacity challenges (including coordination, data collection etc)
• Regulatory and legal frameworks
• Establishing domestic gas markets in developing countries
• Ineffective review and approval of Field Development Plans
• Fast tracked developments
• Commercial issues (cost of designing low emission, appetite of investors, available finance)
• Obstacles and challenges related to alignment of incentives within government and across involved parties (investor, line ministry, environment, utilities).

Discussion

Break out groups by country to identify next steps

Learning and delivery process:

Selection of participants

1. Engagement with the targeted countries in early Q2 2022, helping define their policy needs and build the country delegations that will participate in the training.

2. Selection of participating countries on the basis of proposed delegation and clear identification of need for the course.

Pre-course work

3. Participating countries submit slides that provide the country context and learning questions.

4. Pre-course interviews and survey to identify needs and capacity.

5. NPG develops a typology of national circumstances that could impact emissions reduction.

Training and national workshops

6. Alternate between plenary sessions with peer-to-peer learning and country focused discussions

7. Strong emphasis on sourcing country experience in implementing the known areas for reducing emissions to facilitate transfer of knowledge/experience amongst peers. Facilitate discussions through which participants identify policy/regulatory problems they want to resolve through a policy lab process

8. Polls: provide data for analysis

9. Summaries produced during the training that extract the key learnings and identify challenges faced by governments in implementing best practice emissions reduction.

Post-course

10. Survey participants to measure knowledge level after the course and understand its impact

11. Produce knowledge resources with recommendations for new producers– September/October 2022

12. For countries that nominate a policy or regulatory problem to solve through a policy lab process, the NPG team engages with the line ministry to refine the problem and identify stakeholders who should be on the policy lab team.

13. NPG facilitates a structured policy lab process for interested countries to develop government-led solutions to identified implementation challenges that would prevent minimising GHG emissions.