Field Notes · Gas to power
Burning diesel while your own gas flares
Some remote oilfields truck in diesel for power while their own gas burns in a flare. What that costs in CO2 and in money.
Some remote oilfields run their power on trucked-in diesel while their own gas burns in a flare a few hundred metres away. The numbers on both sides are public.
The carbon
Emissions per kilowatt-hour depend on two things: how much fuel each kilowatt-hour burns, and how much CO2 that fuel carries.
- Diesel carries 74.1 kg of CO2 per million British thermal units, against 52.9 kg for natural gas: about 40% more in the fuel itself (US EIA, 2024).
- In US power plants in 2023, oil-fired power emitted 2.46 lb of CO2 per kWh, against 0.96 lb for gas: roughly 2.5 times as much, partly because oil-fired units tend to be older and less efficient (US EIA).
- At a field the bigger point is simpler: the flare gas burns anyway, so every kilowatt-hour moved from diesel to that gas avoids almost all of the diesel's CO2.
The cost
Back-up generator fuel alone averaged about US$0.30 per kWh, roughly double the cost of grid power (IFC, 2019). That is before the logistics of trucking diesel to a remote site.
The alternative
The fuel is already on site. Gas engines rated for field gas, with conditioning where the gas is rich or sour, can put it to work, displacing diesel and cutting flaring at the same time. Senergy Group's modular gas-to-power blocks are designed for exactly this kind of field and industrial offtake.
Follow Field Notes on Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn. Questions about a field or a project: talk to us.