Mercuria CSR Report 2021 - Flipbook - Page 46
Pipeline transportation
Pipeline transportation comprises movement of natural gas and crude within North America and
Europe. Emissions from the pipeline transportation and shipping dominate our Scope 3 Category 9
emissions. Shipping emissions associated with the delivery of commodities makes up 864,974 tCO2e.
Our North American operations make up 48% or 835,197k tCO2e of the Scope 3 Category 9 emissions we
report. This is an estimate of the emissions associated with the movement of product to our customers.
Although our traded volumes show higher European natural gas volumes, in terms of physical delivery,
the North American natural gas movements are significantly higher. The approach we have followed for
2021 reporting continues to be based on an emission factor per unit of energy transported. We extract
the total quantity of energy from our systems and apply an emission factor (in gCO2e/MJ). For 2021 we
have estimated both the emissions from fugitive sources as well as the combustion emissions associated
with gas used to compress the network, including quantity of lost gas during each trade, the equivalent of
the gas received from the supplier less the quantity delivered to the customer in any trade during the year.
Methane emissions have seen increased focus in recent years, most notably at COP26 in Glasgow where
105 countries pledged to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030 (compared with 2020 levels). The high
global warming potential of methane means that the small transmission leaks can become a material
source of emissions.
For 2021 we have calculated emissions using IPCC (the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change the
technical body that published the country level accounting standards) fugitive emission factors. For
2021 reporting we have adjusted our calculation to include only gas transported and screened out gas
traded within a hub.
Looking forwards, we plan to develop our processes to enable a more accurate approach that utilises
the ever-improving information for the different pipeline operators that provide greater detail regarding
the amount of gas lost between two points in terms of fugitive emissions and gas used for compression.
Shipping – from chartered vessels
Around 50% of the Category 9 emissions came for the chartering of vessels (Minerva fleet emissions are
reported under Scope 1). For 2021 Mercuria saw 864,974 tCO2e from charter activities.
To estimate our 2021 charter emissions we have worked with a company specialising in shipping
optimisation that utilises the details of each voyage to estimate fuel consumption and emissions. The
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