Flaring

We are working to reduce flaring, which contributes to climate change and wastes valuable resources. We have committed to bringing forward our target. This accelerates our commitment in 2015 to end routine flaring as a signatory to the World Bank’s Zero Routine Flaring by 2030 initiative. All of Shell’s operated assets within the Integrated Gas business already comply with zero routine flaring, as they were designed to gather gas resources to sell and avoid routine flaring. 

Flaring performance

Flaring of gas in our Upstream and Integrated Gas businesses contributed around 7% to our overall direct greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in 2021.

Gas routinely produced with oil, known as associated gas, may be flared. In 2021, around 17% of greenhouse gas emissions from flaring occurred at facilities where there was no infrastructure to capture the gas (down from around 24% in 2020). Overall flaring increased to 4.5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂e) in 2021 from 3.8 million tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent in 2020.

Around 60% of flaring in our Upstream and Integrated Gas facilities in 2021 occurred in assets operated by the Shell Petroleum Development Company of Nigeria Limited (SPDC) and Shell Nigeria Exploration and Production Company Limited (SNEPCo). Flaring from SPDC-operated facilities increased by around 5% in 2021 compared with 2020. Flaring at SNEPCo-operated facilities increased by 160% in 2021 compared with 2020. This was because repairs to a flexible joint on the gas export riser on the Bonga deep-water floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility took longer than planned. A large amount of gas was therefore flared while the FPSO continued to produce oil.

Read more about our flaring reduction commitment at www.shell.com/inside-energy/zero-routine-flaring-by-2025.