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technical expertise in handling flares. Regulatory agencies may lack the knowledge and resources to set and enforce rules. • Poor contractual arrangements—For instance, production-sharing contracts (between governments and oil producers) may not allow producers to recover the costs of collecting and transporting associated gas. Or governments may have legal rights to associated gas, but no ability to use it. • Inadequate pricing or access policies—Legal or regulatory caps on gas or electricity prices may dampen incentives to recover flared gas. Subsidies for alternative fuels could have the same effect. To address these barriers, the GGFR set up the following objectives and lines of action:3 • Develop and promote voluntary standards on flaring practice. • “Survey and establish regulations followed by disseminating upstream regulatory best practice,” where “regulation” refers narrowly to flaring and venting practice rather than broad sectoral policies. • Help to “realize gas flaring reduction projects by establishing approThe GGFR has promoted priate incentives mechanisms dialogue, raised (carbon credits for lowered emisawareness, and sion, establishment of methodolodeveloped and gies) leading to a reduction of disseminated knowledge. financial barriers. Carbon credits will be utilized, where feasible, as a possible incentive to develop, especially, marginal fields.” • “Facilitate commercialization of otherwise flared gas in GGFR focus countries through identification of projects and reduction of barriers. This includes achieving access to international markets, local/domestic market development, and small-scale gas use, especially for remote areas and marginal developments.”
But endorsement of and adherence to the flaring standard that it helped to develop have been below expectations. 82
The GGFR has promoted dialogue, raised awareness, and developed and disseminated knowledge. With a direct membership of 14 countries, the partnership now comprises territories
responsible for about 50 percent of flaring. It has sponsored stakeholder dialogue in a number of countries. It has produced informative studies on the state of gas flaring regulation, the causes of gas flaring, and methodologies for assessing the potential of flaring projects to use carbon finance. The GGFR, working in consultation with partners, published a Voluntary Standard in 2004. At its core is a commitment to eliminate “continuous flaring and venting of associated gas, unless there are no feasible alternatives.” Those endorsing the standard commit themselves to develop and implement action plans and to “regular reporting of flaring and venting levels and progress on implementation,” with public reporting required within two years after adoption. GGFR regards the consensus-creation of the standard to be a significant accomplishment. However, endorsement of and adherence to the standard have been below expectations. The standard has been officially endorsed by all the GGFR’s international oil company partners, but by only four national partners: Algeria, Cameroon, Chad, and Nigeria. However, four countries (Equatorial Guinea, Kazakhstan, Nigeria, and Qatar) have deadlines for zero flaring. Only one company and one country have adopted formal implementation plans for gas flaring reductions that are consistent with the Voluntary Standard, although additional partners have similar programs in place. While all companies are reporting flaring and venting data to the GGFR, only four countries (Cameroon, Canada, Norway, and the United States) have reported flaring data for 2006, and venting has been reported only by Canada and Norway. These reports are not publicly disseminated by the GGFR. Slow progress on reporting undermines the flaring reduction agenda and points to deepseated issues. Reporting has been shown to be a key feature of other voluntary environmental standards, and accurate data are essential for tracking progress toward reduction goals. Measuring flaring and venting at the wellhead is technically difficult and expensive, and compila-