(Bloomberg) –BP Plc will spend about $1.3 billion to build a network of pipes and other infrastructure to collect and capture natural gas produced as a byproduct from oil wells in the Permian Basin of Texas and New Mexico, the Wall Street Journal reported.
The plans, to be announced Monday, will eliminate routine flaring of natural gas in the oil field by 2025, the paper said. The burning of gas in this way is prevalent in the Permian because most producers there drill for more profitable oil and often incinerate the gas that comes as a byproduct, it added.
“We will be producing oil and gas for decades, but it will be a certain kind of oil and gas,” Dave Lawler, the chairman of BP America Inc., is quoted in the WSJ. “It’s a highly profitable barrel and it’s a responsibly produced barrel.”
The investment reflects the ever-growing pressure on the industry to reduce its carbon footprint and contributions to climate change. At the end of March, BP announced it had lowered its Scope 1 and 2 emissions, those associated mostly with production, by 16% in 2020.
