https://insideclimatenews.org/news/26032024/permian-basin-methane-flaring/ By Martha Pskowski , Inside Climate News.  Excerpt: As the new federal methane rule enters the home stretch, stranded gas in the Permian Basin could contribute to more flaring this year. [Sharon] Wilson documented widespread flaring, venting and other methane releases during a week in the Texas Permian Basin this month. Natural gas prices in the Permian Basin fell below zero during March. When natural gas prices are low, companies are more likely to vent or flare methane. Pipeline capacity to transport the gas out of the Permian Basin is currently limited, which can also result in more flaring. That’s bad news for efforts to fight climate change. Natural gas is mostly made up of methane and the Permian Basin is the single-largest source of methane emissions in the U.S. oil and gas industry. As a greenhouse gas, methane is about 80 times more potent at warming the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over a 20-year...

https://news.berkeley.edu/2023/11/13/capturing-wellhead-gases-for-profit-and-a-cleaner-environment By Robert Sanders , UC Berkeley News. Excerpt: Burning of natural gas at oil and gas wells, called flaring, is a major waste of fossil fuels and a contributor to climate change. But to date, capturing the flared natural gas, estimated at some 140 billion cubic meters per year by the International Energy Agency, has not been economically feasible. University of California, Berkeley, chemists have now come up with a simple and green way to convert these gases — primarily methane and ethane — into economically valuable liquids, mostly alcohols like methanol and ethanol. The liquids are also easier to store. The alcohols can be used as feedstocks for production of numerous other petrochemical products, providing an additional revenue source for oil and gas companies but also lowering carbon dioxide emissions from flaring. Flaring is used to mitigate the more harmful effects of directly ventin...