OGCI supports the goals of the Paris Agreement and the need for the world to move to a net-zero carbon emissions future.

Through individual and collective action, OGCI and its members aim to reduce greenhouse gas emissions while investing in the energy systems of tomorrow.

The 12 members of OGCI aim to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from operations under their control1 and use their influence to achieve the same in non-operated assets in the Paris Agreement timeframe.2

This includes an ambition to reduce methane emissions from operated assets to near zero and to eliminate upstream routine flaring by 2030.3

OGCI provides a platform that enables its members to share the latest knowledge and best practice about emissions measurement and reduction initiatives among themselves and with the wider industry, and to strive toward common goals and actions.

Through the publication of performance data (Chapter 4), OGCI tracks and reports the progress its members have made toward lowering greenhouse gas emissions from sources such as flaring, methane leaks and venting (Scope 1) and energy used for production (Scope 2).

EY independently verifies the accuracy of the data submitted by the companies and reviews and assures it in consolidated form.

According to OGCI’s aggregated Performance Data for 20244:

  • OGCI member companies’ aggregate upstream operated methane intensity was 0.12%, down 62% compared with 2017.
  • Total operated upstream methane emissions were 0.73 Mt, 63% lower than in 2017.
  • OGCI member companies’ aggregate upstream operated carbon intensity5 was 17.2 kilograms of carbon dioxide equivalent per barrel of oil equivalent (kg CO2e/boe) – a 24% decrease from 2017 and close to achieving OGCI’s 2025 ambition of 17.0 kg CO2e/boe.
  • OGCI member companies’ aggregate upstream operated GHG emissions (Scope 1 and 2)6 were 304 Mt of CO2e in 2024, a 25% decrease since 2017.
  • OGCI member companies’ aggregate total routine gas flared volumes upstream was 1,568 million cubic metres (Mm3). This is 72% lower than in 2018 – the first year of published data for this metric.
Person at Tempa Rossa oil and gas site in Corleto Perticara, southern Italy_TotalEnergies

Credit: Total Energies

Reducing upstream methane intensity

OGCI members have an aggregate average upstream methane intensity ambition for operated oil and gas assets of well below 0.20% by 2025.

In 2024, OGCI member companies’ aggregate operated upstream methane intensity was 0.12%, achieving the ambition of well below 0.20%. The 62% reduction in methane intensity since 2017 corresponds to a 63% decrease in total operated upstream methane emissions over the same period.

OGCI is outperforming the global oil and gas industry in reducing upstream methane intensity and upstream flaring intensity (see charts on page 10).

Because of its success, OGCI’s upstream methane intensity ambition now serves as a benchmark for other oil and gas producers to strive for, and is recognized by NGOs, the UN Environment Programme and many governments as best practice.7

OGCI’s upstream methane intensity ambition is central to the Aiming for Zero Methane Emissions Initiative launched by OGCI in 2022 (see Chapter 2). It is also a core ambition for signatories to the Oil & Gas Decarbonization Charter (OGDC) (see Chapter 2).

Upstream methane intensity is down 62% since 2017

Percentages are rounded. 2023 was 0.144%, 2024 was 0.115%

HOW OUR MEMBERS REDUCE METHANE INTENSITY

Reducing routine flaring of associated gas

Reducing venting in new and existing assets

Optimizing equipment repair and maintenance programs

Innovating facility designs to eliminate emissions sources

Continuous real-time measurement and detection of leaks

Deploying advanced technologies like satellites, aircraft, drones, sensors, and near-continuous monitoring to detect and measure leaks and emissions

Converting natural gas driven pneumatic devices and pumps to non-emitting devices driven by electricity or compressed air

OGCI members’ methane and flaring intensity below global industry average

OGCI vs global upstream methane intensity

Source: OGCI Performance Data, IEA Global Methane Tracker 2025. OGCI upstream methane intensity includes total upstream methane emissions from all operated gas and oil assets. Emissions intensity is calculated as a share of marketed gas.
*Data points extracted using WebPlotDigitizer.

OGCI vs global flaring intensity

Source: World Bank GFMR Global Gas Flaring Tracker Report 2024: Payne
Institute and Colorado School of Mines, NOAA, EIA, and World Bank
Notes:
1. Global flaring intensity data is converted from m3/bbl, on the basis of Mm3/Mtoe = m3/bbl × 7.33
2. OGCI’s upstream flaring intensity is calculated on the basis of the volume of gas flared per million tonnes of oil equivalent produced on an operated basis.

Spotlight

Chevron’s approach to reducing its methane intensity

From 2016 to 2024, Chevron has reduced its methane intensity by over 50%.

To manage methane intensity, Chevron has a threepronged approach that includes facility design, operating practices and advancing technology.

In 2024, Chevron completed its largest methane emissions reduction project in Colorado executing more than 250 facility retrofits to reduce methane emissions.

The facilities were converted to operate pneumatic devices with nitrogen, instead of field natural gas, which helps keep methane in the pipe.

This project started as a pilot to trial technology on three facilities and was quickly scaled up.

Chevron shares lessons across the company, and the same technology is being considered for a pilot in the Permian Basin.

Chevron believes an important first step in mitigating emissions is improving methane detection.

Since 2016, Chevron has trialed over 20 methane detection technologies and incorporates solutions into its methane detection campaign.

Chevron believes that combining operational data with detection information enhances its understanding of methane emissions and recently published its findings in the SPE Journal.

Credit: Chevron
“Chevron remains focused on lowering the carbon intensity of our operations through energy efficiency, methane management, and flaring reduction. Our Colorado facility retrofits exemplify these efforts. We collaborate with organizations like OGCI to advance understanding and share best practices across the industry.”

Mike Wirth, Chairman & CEO, Chevron

Spotlight

Shell achieves methane and flaring targets

Shell QGC (Shell operated), which produces natural gas, has long used advanced technology such as sensors, drones and satellites to detect potential methane leaks from its extensive infrastructure and improve emissions reporting.

This has helped QGC reduce reported methane emissions by 70% compared with 2016.

Shell aims to maintain methane emissions intensity for global operated oil and gas assets below 0.20% (continued to be met in 2024), and achieve near-zero methane emissions intensity by 2030. As of January 1, 2025, Shell no longer routinely flares from its operated oil and gas assets.

LNG facility, Curtis Island, Australia Credit: Shell
“Shell remains a leader in reducing emissions of methane. By the end of 2024, we had reduced total methane emissions from assets under our operational control by 76% compared with 2016. We have also met our target to eliminate routine flaring from our upstream-operated assets, five years ahead of the World Bank Zero Routine Flaring Initiative deadline, as we continue on our journey to deliver more value with less emissions.”

Wael Sawan, CEO, Shell

Spotlight

TotalEnergies deploys continuous methane monitoring

In 2024, TotalEnergies announced a plan to deploy continuous, real-time methane monitoring detection equipment across all its upstream operations – the largest project of its kind in the industry.

The equipment is expected to be installed at every facility TotalEnergies operates, including those under development, by the end of 2025. It includes the use of existing and proven technologies such as Internet of Things sensors, InfraRed
cameras, flow meters, pyrometers and Predictive Emissions Monitoring Systems.

This builds on other initiatives, including TotalEnergies’ successful deployment of Airborne Ultralight Spectrometer for Environment Applications (AUSEA) technology, starting in 2022.

AUSEA comprises a drone-mounted ultralight CO2 and methane sensor and ensures access to hard-to-reach emissions points while delivering readings with high precision.

The successful deployment of TotalEnergies’ AUSEA drone campaign, alongside strategic abatement projects, have helped the company meet its target to reduce its operated methane emissions by more than 50% versus 2020 levels in 2024 – a year earlier than planned.

This puts the company on track to meet its ambition to reduce methane emissions by 80% by 2030 to achieve near zero methane emissions.

Credit: TotalEnergies
“Continuous, real-time detection will enable our operators to act in an even more decisive manner in order to reduce our methane emissions and to repair leaks to achieve our near-zero methane emissions ambition.”

Patrick Pouyanné, Chairman & CEO, TotalEnergies

Measuring methane emissions

OGCI members share an ambition to achieve near zero methane emissions from operated oil and gas assets and zero upstream routine flaring by 2030.8

To achieve these aims, OGCI believes that enhanced monitoring and measurement of methane could support further emission reduction opportunities, while improving emissions data quality and transparency.

Measuring methane emissions is critically important to help prioritize mitigation activities. Unlike CO2 emissions sources, which tend to be concentrated at single points in oil and gas operations, the sources of methane emissions are dispersed.

Methane emissions have typically been assessed and reported using standard emission factors based on aggregating available global data and data from specific basins.

Newer technologies, including satellites, drones and sensors, make it easier to detect and quantify methane emissions. OGCI’s member companies are
using these technologies to complement existing emissions factor-based inventories and improve the accuracy.

Improving accuracy can include direct measurement of methane emissions at the site level, employing technologies such as drone, aircraft, or continuous-mounted monitoring solutions.

This enables operators to visualize and quantify emissions directly from their assets, reducing estimation where possible.

Many of these techniques take a snapshot over a site or area, and develop an emissions rate based on meteorological factors including windspeed, and other parameters such as background methane concentration.

Although there are uncertainties associated with the calculated emission rates, measurement can help companies better understand their emissions, and is continuing to improve.

It is anticipated that the use of general emission factors will diminish as more methane measurements are integrated into emissions inventories.

OGCI’s member companies are working, individually and collectively, to integrate more methane measurement. (See TotalEnergies spotlight, p. 11)

Ten OGCI member companies are now part of the UN Environment Programme’s Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 (OGMP 2.0).

OGMP 2.0 is a comprehensive, measurement-based reporting framework for the oil and gas industry aiming to improve the accuracy and transparency of methane emissions reporting to aid methane mitigation actions.

At the collective level, OGCI has supported the broader industry in deploying methane detection technologies.

Through its Satellite Monitoring Campaign (SMC), OGCI has helped demonstrate the use of satellites in detecting methane emissions so they can be located and abated. (See Chapter 2 for more detail on the SMC.)

OGCI is also working to pilot aircraft monitoring, which has similar objectives to the SMC. OGCI’s work will continue as measurement technologies evolve.

“We use the source-level quantification as a basis for our methane emissions reporting. However, as technology has evolved, we’re increasingly using site-level measurement to complement our emission inventories. When there are discrepancies between the source-level and the site-level measurements, we investigate and correct the source-level quantification as needed.”

Bjørn Ove Jansen, Equinor Project Manager Sustainability and Climate and OGCI Role of Gas member

Reducing upstream carbon intensity

OGCI was the first industry-led organization to set an ambition to reduce aggregate upstream carbon intensity from operated oil and gas assets. The ambition is 17.0 kg CO2e/boe by 2025. In 2024, OGCI member companies’ collective upstream carbon intensity was 17.2 kg CO2e/boe.

This corresponds to a 25% reduction in OGCI’s aggregate upstream operated GHG emissions (Scope 1 and 2) in 2024 compared with 2017.

Upstream carbon intensity is down 24% since 2017

(kilograms of CO2e per boe)

Percentages are rounded. 2023 was 17.07% with six companies reporting, 2024 was 17.17% with 10 companies reporting. This indicator has been calculated with a mixed approach combining market-based and location-based methodologies with market-based priority from 2017 to 2021, and calculated using a market-based only approach from 2022. 2022 and 2023 data restated. See Chapter 4 Performance Data.

HOW OGCI MEMBERS ARE REDUCING CARBON INTENSITY

Working to eliminate routine flaring by 20309

Increasing the use of technologies to measure and detect methane leaks to enable targeted mitigation of emissions

Reducing natural gas combustion emissions by improving energy efficiency through waste heat recovery and process efficiency improvements

Optimizing and improving equipment repair and maintenance

Using low-carbon energy to power some operations, including onshore and offshore oil and gas facilities

Co-generating electricity and using recovered heat

Other measures to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions

In 2024 and into 2025, member companies have continued the implementation of initiatives to reduce Scope 1 and 2 emissions at their own operations and help the industry do the same through:

  • Continuous improvement of data quantification, methodologies and reporting to track measurable progress
  • Work to improve knowledge on emissions abatement options available for the industry
  • Identifying potential pathways to reduce emissions in the refining sector by using low-carbon energy to power some equipment
  • An in-depth assessment on the economics of refinery electrification, assessing operating expenditures considerations and the influence of power, fuel and carbon pricing
  • Evaluation of a range of applications for heat pumps across upstream, midstream and downstream
  • Sharing best practices developed individually and collectively by OGCI and its members to accelerate progress across the industry
  • Intensified engagement with OGDC signatories to share technical expertise and insights (see Chapter 2).

Spotlight

Equinor’s electrification drive reduces emissions

A key pillar of Equinor’s Energy Transition Plan is the ambition to halve net operated GHG emissions from its operations by 2030, compared with 2015.

Electrification of key oil and gas installations with low-carbon power is an efficient way to address emissions while reducing operating expenses and CO2 costs.

Oil and gas production on the Norwegian continental shelf accounts for approximately 25% of Norway’s total CO2 emissions. To reduce emissions from its oil and gas production, Equinor is replacing offshore gas turbines with electricity from the mainland where the energy mix is predominantly renewable.

The Troll A platform was electrified in 1996. Johan Sverdrup, which accounts for around one-third of Norway’s oil production, has been powered from shore since its startup in 2019. At 0.67 kg CO2 per barrel, it has some of the lowest upstream CO2 emissions of any oil field in the world.

Hywind Tampen, developed by Equinor, is the world’s first floating offshore wind farm to power offshore oil and gas installations, has supplied electricity to Gullfaks and Snorre fields since 2023.

Between 2018 and 2024, six other fields and installations have been electrified, and more are planned, cutting emissions and creating low-carbon hubs for tie-in of potential future discoveries nearby.

Hywind Tampen, offshore in the Norwegian North Sea. Copyright: Ole Jørgen Bratland / Equinor
“Electrifying oil and gas installations is an effective and efficient method for lowering operational CO2 emissions. Replacing gas turbines offshore – either fully or partially – with electric power from the Norwegian grid enhances energy efficiency and reduces emissions.”

Anders Opedal, President & CEO, Equinor

Spotlight

bp reduces flaring and emissions at Permian Basin facilit

Since acquiring assets in the Permian Basin, bpx – bp’s US onshore business – has taken a leadership role in advancing technology to reduce emissions and unlock long-term value.

At the center of this effort is bp’s redesign of acquired well site facilities into “hydra” sites, a next-generation infrastructure model that flows production to centralized facilities.

Hydra sites are engineered by bpx to eliminate storage tanks, flares, and onsite compression at new well sites.This enables industry-leading emissions performance.

For legacy well sites, bpx upgraded key equipment, replacing gas-driven pneumatics with air systems to eliminate intermittent methane emissions and expanded vapor recovery to capture more gas that would otherwise be lost.

This integrated and efficient design has delivered measurable impact. Flaring has been reduced by 99%, and bpx eliminated routine flaring. The company has set a strict standard: no new bpx well is brought online unless it’s connected to a gas pipeline from startup.

Through ongoing innovation in site design, equipment, and operating standards, bpx is building a scalable model for low-carbon growth in the Permian Basin, delivering operational excellence while significantly reducing its environmental footprint.

bpx’s Grand Slam facility in the Permian Basin, near Orla, Texas. Copyright: bp
“In the Permian, our bpx team has achieved its accelerated goal of zero routine flaring by 2025 and significantly reduced emissions through next-gen Hydra sites—an innovation that’s reshaping how we design and operate. It’s a powerful step towards our aim to reach net zero operations by 2050 or sooner.”

Murray Auchincloss, CEO, bp

Murray Auchincloss, CEO of BP PLC

Spotlight

Aramco uses cogeneration to reduce CO2 intensity

Aramco is using cogeneration at many of its operating sites to help lower its upstream carbon intensity by making its operations more energy efficient.

Cogeneration plants typically utilize waste heat from gas turbines to generate steam, meeting both the heat and power requirements of the facility. This process reduces emissions – in Aramco’s case over 7 Mt of CO2 per year have been saved by Aramco’s cogeneration program.

Aramco is working to improve the energy efficiency of its upstream and downstream assets – an ambition that could mitigate 7 million tonnes of CO2e by 2035.

Support provided by Aramco for cogeneration has to date generated 5.3 gigawatts (GW) of power, 4.3 GW of which was used to power operations, with the remainder funneled into Saudi Arabia’s national grid. And there are more to come.

In 2024, Aramco and TotalEnergies’ joint venture Saudi Aramco Total Refining and Petrochemical Company reached a deal with Abu Dhabi National Energy Company PJSC and Japanese power company JERA to develop a state-of-the-art cogeneration plant for the Amiral petrochemical complex due to be built in Jubail in Saudi Arabia’s Eastern Province.

The plant, due to start operating in 2027, will generate up to 475 megawatts of power and approximately 452 tonnes per hour of steam using advanced cogeneration gas-fired technology.

Along with ongoing and planned reductions to flaring and methane emissions, growth in carbon capture, utilization and storage, renewable energy capacity and natural climate solutions, increasing operational efficiency will help Aramco as it continues on its ambition to achieve net zero Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions across all wholly owned operated
assets by 2050.

Aramco’s upstream carbon intensity is one of the lowest among its peers. In 2024 it was 9.7 kilograms of CO2 equivalent per barrel of oil equivalent.1

1 This compares to an average of 22.2 kg CO2e/boe from other international oil companies, based on public disclosures in 2023. www.aramco.
com/-/media/publications/corporate-reports/reports-and-presentations/2024/fy/saudi-aramco-fy-2024-webcast-presentation-english.pdf p.11

Credit: Aramco
“As a founding member of OGCI, Aramco values the sharing of best practices and working alongside peers across the industry to help develop solutions to support emissions reduction. Our innovative lower-emissions solutions, such as cogeneration, reinforce both efficiency gains and our ambition to achieve net-zero Scope 1 and 2 GHG emissions across our wholly-owned operated assets by 2050.”

Amin Nasser, President & CEO, Aramco

  1. Defined as Scope 1 and Scope 2 emissions. See OGCI strategy www.ogci.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/OGCI-Strategy-September-2021-2.pdf
  2. OGCI Strategy www.ogci.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/OGCI-Strategy-September-2021-2.pdf
  3. Per World Bank “Zero Routine Flaring by 2030” initiative. See www.worldbank.org/en/programs/zero-routine-flaring-by-2030/about
  4. OGCI Performance Data, Chapter 4.
  5. Upstream carbon intensity is calculated on the basis of upstream carbon dioxide and methane emissions, both Scope 1 and 2, on an operated basis. It excludes emissions from gas liquefaction and gas-to-liquids.
  6. This figure includes direct (Scope 1) emissions of carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide (for those companies that report it) from all operated activities (upstream as well as downstream, which includes refineries and petrochemicals).
  7. See Environmental Defense Fund’s 2022 White Paper on the Certification of Natural Gas with Low Methane Emissions and the US Inflation Reduction Act, which was signed into law in August 2022 and OGMP2.0 FAQ.
  8. Per World Bank “Zero Routine Flaring by 2030” initiative. See www.worldbank.org/en/programs/zero-routine-flaring-by-2030/about
  9. Per World Bank “Zero Routine Flaring by 2030” initiative. See www.worldbank.org/en/programs/zero-routine-flaring-by-2030/about