California Air Resources Board

The California Air Resources Board (CARB or Board) invites you to participate in a virtual public workshop to provide input on potential changes to the California Oil and Gas Methane Regulation. Draft regulatory text, a staff presentation, and an agenda will be posted to the Oil and Natural Gas Production, Processing, and Storage Meetings & Workshops webpage prior to the workshop.

During the workshop, staff will briefly present background information on the regulation and discuss motivations for undertaking amendments, describe potential changes in the draft regulatory text, and solicit stakeholder feedback.

Potential changes in the draft regulatory text are mostly designed to better align the Oil and Gas Methane Regulation with US EPA’s 2016 Control Techniques Guidelines (CTG) for the Oil and Natural Gas Industry (in response to a decision by US EPA) and to clarify or clean up provisions based on implementation experience over the past four years. Additionally, staff are considering draft text that would require operators to investigate and repair leaks reported by remote sensing technologies.

Verbal feedback may be provided at the workshop and staff will also accept written feedback following the workshop through 5:00 p.m. Pacific Time on February 10, 2023. A link to submit written feedback will be posted to the Oil and Natural Gas Production, Processing, and Storage Meetings & Workshops webpage on the day of the workshop.

The workshop will be held via Zoom at the following date and time:

DATE:                January 20, 2023
TIME:                 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. (Pacific Time)
LOCATION:       Zoom

Register

Background

The Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards for Crude Oil and Natural Gas Facilities, or the Oil and Gas Methane Regulation, was adopted by CARB in 2017. It is designed to reduce methane emissions from oil and gas production facilities, natural gas gathering and boosting stations, natural gas processing plants, natural gas transmission compressor stations, and natural gas underground storage facilities. Regulated entities are required to take actions to limit intentional (vented) and unintentional (leaked or fugitive) emissions from equipment and operations.

Measures in the regulation include requirements for leak detection and repair (LDAR), vapor control on uncontrolled tanks above an emission threshold, replacement of high-emitting rod packing or wet seals on compressors, no-bleed pneumatic devices and pumps, additional monitoring at natural gas underground storage facilities, measuring of liquids unloading and well casing vent emissions, and recordkeeping and reporting.

More Information

Contacts

If you have questions about the workshop please contact Jim Nyarady, Manager of the Oil and Gas Section, or Quinn Langfitt, Air Resources Engineer.

If you require a special accommodation or need this document in an alternate format (i.e., Braille, large print) or another language, please contact Quinn Langfitt as soon as possible. TTY/TDD/Speech to Speech users may dial 711 for the California Relay Service.