APIA has been busy providing input on behalf of the natural gas transmission industry on the NGERS. A series of discussions with Department of Climate Change officials, three submissions and an invitation for the Director of the Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Taskforce to speak at APIA’s recent Adelaide dinner demonstrate how seriously the industry is viewing the new system.

Under the NGERS, from 1 July 2008, any corporation will be required to register and report if:

it controls facilities that emit 25 kilotonnes or more of greenhouse gas (CO2 equivalent), or produce/consume 100 terajoules or more of energy; or its corporate group emits 125 kilotonnes or more greenhouse gas (CO2 equivalent), or produces/consumes 500 terajoules or more of energy. Under the NGER, the corporation with the greatest authority to introduce and implement operating and environmental policies is taken to have operational control over that facility and therefore be liable to register and report. It is expected that a facility operator will generally be taken to have operational control over a facility in preference to the facility owner.

The department’s draft technical guidelines have provided a default emission factor for high pressure natural gas transmission pipelines of 8.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e) per kilometre of pipeline.

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As part of the notes for this figure, the guidelines state that emissions from high pressure transmission pipelines may “occur as a result of compressor blowdowns for maintenance at compressor stations, maintenance on pipelines, leakage and accidents”.

APIA has had to consistently emphasise to departmental officials that, unlike distribution or network pipelines, gas transmission pipelines DO NOT LEAK.

Gas transmission pipelines generally have the following sources of greenhouse gas emissions:

- Exhaust gases from compressor drivers – gas turbines of gas engines - Blowdowns from compressors stations - Blowdowns of scraper traps – generally during pigging.

These emissions are typically measured and accounted for by pipeline companies as part of the gas accounting for shippers of system use gas and will, for most pipelines, be readily available for the purposes of the NGER.

This system-use gas, or operational emissions for gas pipelines, will vary with pipeline size and throughput and will depend on whether pipelines have compression facilities or not.

The pipeline industry takes its responsibilities as an active member of the energy sector extremely seriously and through APIA will continue to assist the Government develop and implement the NGER.