An updated approach to detect and quantify emissions from highly efficient offshore flares.

The methane pledge brought about during COP26 requires its signatories to reduce their 2020 methane emissions by 30% by 2030 (European Commission and United States of America, 2021). 65 % of all methane emissions are thought to be anthropogenic in nature (Saunois et al., 2025)

One of the major anthropogenic sectors contributing to methane emissions is from the oil and gas industry. Fugitive emissions of methane are one of the major contributors to emissions from this industry, this may refer to unwanted emission during transportation of product (colloquially referred to as gas leaks), or flaring, where methane undergoes combustion to CO2. As of 2023 the oil and gas industry was responsible for 1.2 % of the UK’s methane emissions,  with flaring emissions representing 69 % of this sector's emissions. (North Sea Transition Authority, 2025).

Flaring may occur for one of three reasons; Routine flaring, where an oil producing facility is unable to use the produced gas; Safety flaring, where flaring ensures the safe operation of the facility; Non-routine flaring encompasses all other flaring. The North Sea is one of the most active areas in the world for oil and gas activities. Recent attempts between 2018 and 2022 have reduced flaring activities in the North Sea by 50%, with an aim for zero flaring to take place by 2030. This is an important step to reducing emissions in this region as one fifth of all emissions in the North Sea related to oil and gas production activities are attributed to flaring (North Sea Transition Authority, 2023). While flaring activity continues to be reduced, some facilities require the continued use of flares, in these cases attempts have been made to adapt the flare itself and improve its overall efficiency and ensure that more methane is converted to CO2. 

This work features data collected from one sampling flight of a platform with a highly efficient flare that was intentionally flaring while on task. We explore the feasibility of using previous detection methodologies, such that present in (Shaw et al., 2023), while adding additional stages to confirm the detection of a flare, including source identification using NOx : CO2 ratios as well as modelling the dispersion of multiple sources on the platform using ADMS to understand the likelihood of detecting the flare.