April 28, 2021 — 2020 was an unprecedented year for the oil and gas industry and a historic time for the world. The COVID-19 pandemic dampened oil demand, prices and production, while oil-dependent countries experienced negative impacts on their revenues and national budgets. The World Bank’s 2020 Global Gas Flaring Tracker, a leading global and independent indicator of gas flaring, found that from 2019 to 2020, oil production declined by 8 percent, while gas flaring dropped by 5 percent. Nonetheless, the world still flared enough gas to power sub-Saharan Africa. The United States accounted for 70% of the global decline, with gas flaring falling by 32% from 2019 to 2020, due to an 8% drop in oil production, combined with new infrastructure to use gas that would otherwise be flared.
Highlights
- Gas flaring, the burning of natural gas associated with oil extraction, takes place due to a range of issues, from market and economic constraints, to a lack of appropriate regulation and political will. The practice results in a range of pollutants released into the atmosphere, including carbon dioxide, methane and black carbon (soot).
- The Global Gas Flaring Tracker finds that oil production declined by 8% (from 82 million barrels per day (b/d) in 2019 to 76 million b/d in 2020), while global gas flaring decreased by 5% (from 150 billion cubic meters (bcm) in 2019 to 142 bcm in 2020).
- Russia, Iraq, Iran, the United States, Algeria, Venezuela and Nigeria remain the top seven gas flaring countries for nine years running. These seven countries produce 40% of the world’s oil each year, but account for roughly two-thirds (65%) of global gas flaring.