Colorado Flaring and Venting

# For general data science
library(tidyverse)

# For working with datetime
library(lubridate)

# For pretty tables
library(gt)

knitr::opts_chunk$set(echo = TRUE)

Introduction

Oil and gas companies in Colorado are required to file monthly production reports (called a form 7) with the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, reporting an estimation or measurement of the volume of gas they flared or vented. More information on the form 7 and what it reports can be found on the Commission’s website. Instructions can be downloaded here, and an example of a filled out form is available here. Reported gas flared or vented is measured in thousand cubic feet (Mcf).

An annual compilation of production reports can be found on the commissions downloads page under all production reports received by year. This analysis uses annual reports from 2012-2020. (Please note that reports from previous years are sometimes included in each zip.) The data dictionary is available from the commission, here This data is current as of August 6, 2021.

Load data

We compiled and cleaned all this data from the state regulatory agency and saved it to new data sets available from the Howard Center here. (For more information about our data cleaning, please contact: howardcenter@asu.edu).

load(url("https://cronkitedata.s3.amazonaws.com/howard/gaslit/co_flaring_and_venting.rda"))

Analysis

FACT: Oil and gas operators reported flaring and venting a combined 45,228,287,000 cubic feet of gas.

We arrived at these totals by aggregating flaring volumes for every year. We first extracted the year from the reported_date variable, then grouped by year to calculate annual totals. Using the gt package, we arrive at a total for volume flared from 2012 - 2020.

co_annualtotals <- co_flaring_and_venting %>%
  mutate(year = year(report_date)) %>%
   filter(year >= 2012 & year <= 2020) %>%
   group_by(year) %>%
   summarise(Total = sum(flared, na.rm = TRUE))

co_annualtotals %>%
   gt(rowname_col = "year") %>%
   tab_stubhead(label = "Year") %>%
   tab_header(title = "Flaring Volumes Reported to COGCC",
              subtitle = "Flaring volumes in Mcf (thousand cubic feet)") %>%
   fmt_number(column = "Total",
              decimals = 0) %>%
   grand_summary_rows(fns = list("Total" = "sum"),
                      columns = "Total",
                      formatter=gt::fmt_number,
                      decimals=0)

Flaring Volumes Reported to COGCC
Flaring volumes in Mcf (thousand cubic feet)
Year	Total
2012	6,513,957
2013	7,954,644
2014	5,416,003
2015	4,304,852
2016	2,776,755
2017	4,520,429
2018	6,353,177
2019	5,904,044
2020	3,070,101
Total	46,813,962