bp
Robert L. Stout, Jr.
Vice President & Head of Regul atory Affairs

December 4, 2015

BP America, Inc.
1101 New York Avenue
7 '' Floor
Washington. DC 20005

USA

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20460
Via Federal eRulemaking Portal: http://www.requlations.gov. (DOCKET ID No.:
EPA-HO-OAR-201 0-0505)
SUBJECT: BP America Inc. Comments on t he U .S. Environmental
Protection Agency Proposed Regulation Titled "Oil and Natural Gas Sector:
Emission Standards for New and Modified Sources; Amendments to the
new source performance standards (NSPS) for the oil and natural gas
source category by setting standards for both m ethane and volatile organic
compounds (VOCs) for certain equipment, processes and activities across
t his source category. (Docket ID Number: EPA-HO-OAR-2010-0505)
Dear Sir/Madam:
BP America Inc. (BP) appreciates the opportunity to provide written comments to
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA or the Agency) on the abovereferenced proposed ru le (the Proposed Ru le) on behalf of two of its U.S.
businesses, U.S. Low er 48 Onshore (L 48) and BP XP (Alaska) (BP Alaska). Over
the past decade, BP has been America's largest energy investor. It employs
about 17,000 people across the country and supports some 170,000 other U.S.
jobs along the supply chain . In 2014, BP produced 673,000 barrels of oil
equivalent per day in the U.S. It is also a U.S. producer of fuels, lubricants and
petrochemicals and buys, sells and markets energy products throughout the
country. BP is the largest marketer of natural gas in North America.
The L 48 onshore oil and gas production company is one of the largest producers
of natural gas in the U.S. Indeed, seventy percent of BP's global well count is
comprised of gas we lls in L 48. Operating across a vast U.S. geography, from the
onshore U.S. Gulf Coast, north through the Rocky Mountains, BP's L 48 business
has a presence in six of the country's top basins. Headquartered in Houston,
Texas, L 48 employs about 1,300 people in five states. It operates more than
9,600 producing w ells, and has approximately 70,000 royalty ow ners. Wyoming
operations are an chored on the giant Wamsutter t ight gas field in the south
central part of the state. In the San Juan area of Colorado and New Mexico, it
operates the largest coal-bed methane field in the U.S. and produces natural gas
from tight gas sands. Midcontinent operations cover the prolific Anadarko basin,
along with the Arkoma basin and Woodford unconventional gas plays . The
business is also home to the East Texas basin. L 48 also has non-operating

 interests in over 10,000 we lls across the country, with substantia l positions in
both t he Eagle Ford and Fayetteville sha le plays.
BP has also been an Alaska arctic operator for 38 years and current ly operates the
Prudhoe Bay Field, which has produced over 12 billion barrels of oil since 1977
and has a goal to produce at least another 2 billion barrels by 2025 when it
expects to commence natural gas production .
Over the past several years, BP has made significant strides in reducing its
methane emissions including in the United States. This includes participation in
the EPA Natural Gas Star program and vo luntary act ions, including the elimination
of many high-bleed pneumati c controllers, that have been reported to EPA
Natural Gas Sta r. Also, BP Alaska employs a rigorous leak detect ion program in
its north slope operations, spend ing about $1 million annually to protect enclosed
w ells and processing facilities from process safety risks . [Please note that BP
Alaska is a member of the Alaska Oil and Gas Association (AOGA} that is
developing separate comments for EPA in connection with this ru le on the
technical implementation issues of the Proposed Ru le and t he specific problems
in implementing the Proposed Ru le in the Arctic.]

Introduction and Summary: The Need for Regulatory Flexibility Permitting
Rapid Adoption of New, More Efficient, and Cost-Effective Methane Leak
Detection and Repair Technologies as They Become Commercially Available
In its Proposed Ru le, the Agency seeks to require oil and gas producers to
implement leak detection and repair (LDAR} programs to reduce methane and
VOC fugit ive emissions at we ll pads and compressor stations . These programs
wou ld entail a periodic survey of all components with the potential for fugitive
emissions followed by repair and resurvey of components where leaks are
detected. The Proposed Ru le would require operators to use optical gas imaging
(OG I} to detect leaks.
As EPA is aware, these LDAR requirements are not f lexible and will be very
costly and labor-intensive to implement. Application of conventiona l LDAR
approaches to onshore natural gas produ ction w ells is particu larly difficult,
cumbersome and expensive. Unlike refineries or other plant environments where
LDAR requirements have more traditiona lly been applied, the proposed rule
wou ld now mandate the testing of literally tens of t housands of well components
at many thousands of wells, widely dispersed and often located at remote sites
across thousands of miles. Costs include t he up-front investment in OG I
cameras and related equipment but, even more signif icantly, the training of staff
in the proper ope ration of the equipment (to avoid the fa lse negatives and
positives that can easily occur} and the implementation of the program across the
wide span of natural gas production sites. The time and resources required to
conduct this monitoring will be significant and the tra ining and record keeping
bu rdens will be substantial, as will the enforcement burden to the Agency.
With the dramatic scale-up of LDAR activities under EPA's Proposed Rule, there
are strong incent ives to develop techno logies that ca n bring down costs and
conserve resources while maintaining and even enhancing leak detection
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 effectiveness. We believe these technologies not only have the potential to
benefit the regulated community, but can offer a more efficient and effective way
of pinpointing and fixi ng leaks to achieve the widely shared goal of mitigating the
most significant sources of methane emissions.
Mindful of these considerations, the Agency has asked f or comment on "criteria
we can use to determine whether and under w hat conditions well sites operating
under corporate fugitive monitoring programs can be deemed to be meeting the
equiva lent of the NSPS standards for well site fugitive emissions such that we
can define those regimes as constituting alternative methods of compliance or
otherwise provide appropriate regulatory streaml ining. "
EPA is also " requesting comment on whether there are other fugitive emission
detection technologies for fugitive emissions monitoring, since this is a field of
emerging technology and major advances are expected in the near future ."
In response and as these requests demonstrate, w hile periodic surveys of oil and
gas we ll pads using OG I may represent today's technology for methane leak
detection, rapid development of new technologies with different and better
detection capability may soon make possible less costly, more efficient LDAR
programs that achieve equal or greater methane emission reductions . We
applaud EPA for recognizing the potential benefits of emerging technologies and
seeking to stay abreast of work underway within and outside government to
bring these technologies to fruition.
So that these technologies can be quickly deployed, EPA should build into its final
rule an "on-ramp " mechanism for rapid introduction of new detection equipment
and monitoring strategies once they are va lidated and shown to be effective.
This should include a streamlined, fast-track review process, with firm deadlines
for decision-making written into the rule, assuring that alternatives to the current
LDAR requirements can be approved without time-consuming amendments to
the NSPS or other potentially complex and cumbersome processes that could
inhibit the rapid development and deployment of such technologies.
To support assessment of alternative LDAR strategies, we urge EPA to stay
abreast of technological developments and closely track the results of research
and testing through an open dialogue with experts in the private sector and
government. Consideration shou ld be given to formation of a technical review
committee open to all interested parties for this purpose.
I. Ongoing Research and Development Activities

The demand for improvements in monitoring technology and methods is already
stimu lating a substantial increase in R&D investment, as EPA notes in its
proposa l. We ca ll to the Agency's attention two ongoing initiatives that aim to
develop improved LDAR technologies for use by companies as they seek to
comp ly w ith methane emissions reduction requirements: a public-private initiative
and a partnership between a number of corporate actors and an environmental
non-governmental organization. These initiatives appear to hold considerable
promise in demonstrating, within the next few years, and potentia lly even sooner,
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 the commercial availability of substitut e tech nologies, equipment and approaches
that are (i) more efficient and cost-effective than t he OG I-based survey approach
mand ated in the proposed rule and (ii) wi ll lead to methane reductions that are at
least as great or greater.

Department of Energy (DOE)! Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy
(ARPA-E)
As of December 16, 2014, ARPA-E had selected eleven private sector projects
involving methane obse rvation netw orks with innovative technologies to obtain
m ethane emiss ions red uctions to rece ive aw ards total ing some $35,000,000
(MONI TOR Program). The objective is t o catalyze and support the development
of transformational, high-impact energy t echno logies that can effectively promote
methane emissions reduction. As the Agency is aw are, ARPA-E has been in
regular communication w ith EPA regarding the MONITOR Program including
throughout the inter-agen cy process leading up to public release of the Proposed
Rule.
DOE's aim is to lower the cost of compl iance through the development of lowcost detection systems coupled with advanced modeling capabilities to pi npoint
major leaks and then prioritize mitigation, with a focus on large r emitters . The
Proposed Ru le' s approach, consistent with current technology, re lies on
detection alone as the criterion to define the need fo r repair, without any
prioritizat ion based on the size of the leak. Generally the t hrust of t he work being
supported by ARPA-E is to develop technologies that allow for examination of
larger areas, continuous in some instances, to ident ify significant leaks wh ich can
then be specifica lly identified and repaired .
ARPA-E is planning within 6-7 months to set up a faci lity where technologies will
be tested in a standardized, rea listic environment outside of the laboratory. This
wou ld be followed by a second round of testing to assess previously
undemonstrated capabi lities and f urther technical gains. AR PA-E believes some
of these tech nologies cou ld become commercia lly available within 2-3 yea rs. The
goal is to demonstrate one or more technologies that do not requi re the
manpower, fleets of trucks and other equipment and surveys necessary for
component-by-component LDAR using OGI. This wou ld greatly reduce the time
and manpower required for compliance, a cost driver that dwarfs the costs of
acquiring an expensive FLIR camera ($90,000). Each of ARPA-E 's partners wi ll
need to demonstrate it can bring th e costs down to $3,000 per site per year
(many of which have multiple well s). The hope and expectation is t hat costs will
be significantly lower and perhaps as small as $1 ,000 per site.

EDF Methane "Detectors Challenge" (MDC)
In June, 2014, the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) along with five corporate
partners, issued a request for a proposa l aimed at innovators f rom universities,
start-up companies, inst rum entation firms, and diversified technology companies
with the capability to develop continuous meth ane leak detection monitoring for
the oi l and gas industry. They also sought expressions of interest in becoming
part of the lab and field tests that would lead to pi lot purchases and testing at oil
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 and gas facilities. The MDC is intended to catalyze and expedite development
and commercialization of low-cost, methane detection technologies that will
improve methane emission reduction in the oil and gas industry. MDC is based
upon the belief that shifting the methane emission detection paradigm from
periodic to continuous will allow leaks to be found and fixed, more readily
decreasing methane emissions significantly. The ideal system would serve as a
" smart" alarm sending an alert to an operator when an increase in ambient
methane is detected that reflects emissions beyond what one w ould normally
expect to see. The MDC identifies cost as a critically important factor and EDF
and its partners have sought out technologies that cou ld reasonably be expected
to be sold f or roughly $1 ,000 or less per w ell pad (or compressor site) when
produced at scale over the following 2-5 years.
The MDC commenced with a set of la boratory tests of five different sensor
technologies in 2014, ca lled "Phase 1". Four of these five technologie s were
selected for further development and assessment in a follow-up effort referred to
as " Phase 2", which tested each technology developer's entire system in
controlled laboratory and outdoor settings in order to ensure that the systems
performed as required. The primary objective of Phase 2 was to determine the
readiness of technologies for pilot testing in the field and to identify continuous
improvement opportunities. A major focus was w hether the systems cou ld
detect leaks in a dynamic environment with minimal false alarms and little or no
maintenance or user interaction. With the completion of Phase 2, the best
performing technologies w ill proceed to an industry purchase and trial
deployment phase, which will determine whether the technologies are ready for
com mercia l deployment.

II. Creating an On-Ramp for Alternative Monitoring Equipment and
Strategies
Under the LDAR strategies described in §60.5397a of EPA's Proposed Rule, leaks
are to be detected through periodic monitoring surveys, beginning 30 days after
well completion and repeated semi-annually or at longer or shorter intervals
depending on the monitoring results . These surveys must "observe " each
component capable of fugitive emissions using OGI, based on a "defined w alking
path" that " must ensure that all fugiti ve emissions components are within sight
of the path. "
This parad igm - which requires direct manual inspection and measurement of all
well site com ponents w ith leakage potential at specified intervals using hand-held
detection equipment-could be replaced by an entirely new approach if some of
the technologies under development are demonstrated and validated.
For example, the focus of the EDF 's Methane Detectors Challenge, discussed
above, is "shifting the methane emission detection paradigm from periodic to
continuous." This might be achieved through a sensor device installed at a single
location or series of locations that, as described by EDF, "will serve as a 'smart'
alarm, sending an alert to the operator when an increase in ambient methane is
detected." The detection cou ld occur at any t ime, not during a periodic survey. It
would result in direct follow-up at the general location w here methane was
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 detected, including use of OGI to pinpoint the leak and then manual repair of the
leak. However, the time-consuming manual obseNation of every component
necessary during a suNey wou ld no longer be required, greatly reducing cost and
manpower. At the same t ime, continuous automatic monitoring would enable
significant leaks to be detected that would not be found until a periodic suNey is
conducted and hence would shorten the time between occurrence of a leak and
its detection and repair.
It wou ld be unfortunate if deployment of these new strategies were blocked or
inhibited by the more prescriptive LDAR requirements in EPA's rule . To avoid this
and to create a path toward rapid acceptance of new LDAR strategies, we
propose that the rule establish a streamlined, fast-track process for approving
new detection technology and monitoring methods that can be easily substituted
for the OG I-based suNey protocol in EPA's Proposed Rule. Where a new
technology has been adequately field tested and validated through the ARPA-E
MONITOR, EDF MDC or other programs and meets performance specifications
outlined by EPA. the rule should authorize its deployment following a review by
the Agency that shou ld not exceed 180 days from submission of a complete data
package by the technology developer or an oil or gas company. Th is firm
deadline should be included in the rule itself to assure expedited action so the
same or higher methane emissions reductions can be realized wh ile the cost of
doing so is reduced.
A potential precedent for th is approach is the guidance issued by the Colorado Air
Pollution Control Division (CAPCD) under AOCC Regulation No.7, the state's
LDAR requirements for methane and other pollutants emitted during oil and gas
production. The regulation lays the groundwork for approving alternative
technologies by defining "approved in strument monitoring method " (AIMM) as
an infra-red camera, EPA Reference Method 21 or " other Division approved
instrument based monitoring device or method. " The implementing guidance
then outlines minimum criteria for approval of such a device or method, including:
• whether it has " repeatable proven or demonstrated success in the field f or
hydrocarbon leak detection;"
•
•
•

" its leak detection capability and reliability;"
" how leaks and ve nting events are tracked and recorded ;"
" how effective it is under different types of w eather conditions ;"

•

the "proven lower detection limit of the AIMM ;"

•
•

the ideal and maximum "distance for the low er detection limit;" and
whether the AIMM is "capable of identifying specific leak/vent locations ...
or only within a general area."

Under the guidance, the CAPCD will review applications on a quarterly basis and
issue an approval letter after the applicant condu cts a field test attended by
Agency staff and the adequacy of the technology has been verified .
EPA should include in its rule an approval mechanism for alternative monitoring
equipment and methods patterned closely on the Colorado approach and
incorporating simi lar approval criteria. Once equipment and methods have been

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 approved for use at oil and gas well sites, all companies should be free to deploy
them or to continue to implement the OG I-based approach in the rule .
Importantly, there should not be a requirement to demonstrate that alternative
monitoring equipment is " equivalent" in performance to Method 21 or OGI on a
com ponent-by-component basis. This demonstration could require extensive
data and create obstacles to approval. Instead , the focus of the approval process
should be on overall leak detection effectiveness, as determined by
considerations of leak detection capabi lity and rel iability and successfu l
deployment in the field.
We wou ld like to discuss with EPA, in support of timely review and approval of
new technologies, mechanisms through which the fin al NSPS rule could
periodically ta ke account of new LDAR technologies as these become
commercially avai lable. We think the Agency and the industry shou ld reap any
cost-saving and other benefits from the ARPA-E MON ITOR and EDF MDC
programs, and f rom other efforts, as these begin to yield an array of va lidated and
field tested new sensing technologies and revised monitorin g protoco ls after the
fi nal rule is promulgated. Reviews of existi ng technology wou ld help to assess
the capabilities and reliability of new sensing devices and related changes in the
procedures and schedu le for leak identif ication and repair. The Agency has a
chance to write a more flexible rule that can achieve equal or greater methane
emissions redu ctions at signif icantly lower cost.
Th ere are precedents f or building into final emission control regulations " look
back" mechanisms to assess whether changes in technology warra nt alternative
approaches to complying with rule provisions. A leading example is EPA's lightduty vehicle greenhouse gas emission standards for M Y 2018-2025. The goal of
that technology review is to determine whethe r the MY 2022-2025 emission
limits in the rule are feasible given the pace of tech nology development si nce the
rule was promu lgated. The timetable and process for the technology review are
f ormalized in the rule itself (§ 86.1818-12(h)).
BP appreciates EPA's efforts to solicit stakeholder input t o thi s rulema ki ng.
Should you have any questions, please contact me at (202) 346-8566, or via email at robert.stout@bp .com.
Than k you for considering these comments.
Respectfu lly submitted,

Robert L. Stout, Jr.
Vice President and Head of Regulatory Affairs
BP America Inc.

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