Methane emissions from offshore oil and gas production activities in Gabon and Angola: First results from the airborne METHANE-To-Go campaign 2022

Methane (CH4) is after carbon dioxide the second most important anthropogenic greenhouse gas. Due to its comparatively short lifetime of ~10 years, a significant reduction in anthropogenic CH4 emissions would help to reduce the atmospheric concentration within a decade with near term temperature benefits. However, the development of efficient mitigation strategies needs to be informed by identifying, locating and quantifying CH4 emissions from the different sectors. A large part of CH4 emissions from the global oil and gas sector is expected to arise from offshore production, which currently however is understudied. Off the coast of Gabon and Angola, oil and gas production is spread over more than 800 kilometres across a wide variety of offshore installations, covering both shallow waters and deep sea. Here we report on airborne measurements conducted using the DLR Falcon along the west coast of Central Africa in September 2022. The DLR Falcon was equipped with a suite of different in-situ instruments to measure CH4 and a series of other trace species, as well as meteorological variables. Measurements were taken during 15 science flights to quantify emissions related to offshore oil production. We will present and discuss our airborne results on regional and facility-scales, in dependency of e.g. infrastructure type and age, and compare them with available inventory estimates and industry reportings. Our collected data, co-funded by the International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO), will help coal, oil and gas companies and governments, to prioritize their methane emission mitigation .