View PDF version

News Release

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EUB SUCCESS IN REDUCING FLARING AND VENTING FEATURED IN BBC DOCUMENTARY
'Billion Dollar Bonfire'
Documentary to air internationally on BBC's 'Earth Report' this weekend

Calgary, Alberta (May 11, 2007) The Alberta Energy and Utilities Board (EUB) will be featured in a BBC-produced documentary entitled 'Billion Dollar Bonfire' this weekend. Billion Dollar Bonfire details the World Bank's efforts to reduce solution gas flaring and venting from the petroleum industry throughout the world.

According to the World Bank, flaring gas adds about 350 million tons of CO₂ in annual emissions worldwide. The World Bank's Global Gas Flaring Reduction Partnership (GGFR) supports governments and companies in their efforts to reduce the flaring and venting of gas associated with the extraction of crude oil.

In the documentary, former GGFR Head, Rashad Kaldany states: "Eliminating gas flaring and venting worldwide would reduce more CO₂ emissions than all the projects currently registered under the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism - these flares are so big they can be studied from space."

The BBC documentary highlights the success of the EUB's flaring and venting reduction efforts. In Alberta, solution gas flaring has been reduced by 72 per cent since 1996, and solution gas venting has been reduced by 59 per cent since 2000. Overall, 96.3% of all solution gas produced in Alberta last year was conserved for use or sale, rather than being flared and vented.

Those reductions have kept 7.2 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions (C0₂ equivalent) from being released into the atmosphere since 1996. According to Climate Change Central, that is the equivalent of taking about 1.5 million cars off of Alberta's roads for one year.

"In the case of Alberta, which is the largest producing province in Canada, our agency was created in 1938 to reduce flaring. There was a lot of flaring going on at the time, in fact it was referred to as 'Hell's Half Acre'. In Alberta over ninety-six per cent of the associated gas is conserved," says EUB Board member Arden Berg in the documentary.

Berg added that the GGFR global flaring and venting reduction initiative is "an opportunity to provide some poverty alleviation benefits and it reduces a greenhouse gas."

The EUB ensures that the discovery, development, and delivery of Alberta's energy resources and utility services take place in a manner that is fair, responsible, and in the public interest.

- 30 -

Link to BBC Earth Report's Billion Dollar Bonfire
http://www.tve.org/earthreport/index.cfm?cat=thisweek

For more information, please contact:
Darin Barter, EUB Communications
Phone: 403-297-4116
Email: darin.barter@eub.ca

Bent Svensson, World Bank
Phone: (202) 473-6976
Email:Bsvensson@worldbank.org

NR2007-16