Updated LCI for the supply of oil and gas considering all methane releases

The webinar discussed the updated life cycle inventory (LCI) of the supply of oil and gas considering all methane releases which was recently done by ESU-services, which updated the LCI data for several hundred datasets for crude oil and natural gas extraction and transportation in the last years.

The webinar discussed for example implications for the LCA of fossil based products and showcased that greenhouse gas emissions in 2019 are for example considerably higher than estimated in older inventories such as ecoinvent v3.6. This is mainly due to inclusion of unintentional methane release which now can be recorded using satellite measurements. It also makes a difference if natural gas can be transported by pipeline or if it is imported as LNG. These changes are relevant for products and services derived from these products e.g. transportation, heating, plastics, power plants, etc.

During the webinar the findings were presented by Niels Jungbluth, Christoph Meili, Maresa Bussa from ESU-services in more detail.