EQT Corporation, America’s leading producer of natural gas, has officially confirmed the news of achieving its commitment to reach net zero Scope 1 and Scope 2 greenhouse gas emissions across the company’s legacy operations ahead of its 2025 goal.
According to certain reports, the stated milestone covers the entirety of EQT’s upstream operations, inclusive of the recently acquired Tug Hill/XcL Midstream and Alta Resources assets, which were not a part of the original target set in 2021.
More on the same would reveal how EQT was able to clock this goal through extensive emissions abatement, with the offsets coming, by and large, from company-generated efforts rather than purchased credits. On top of that, the company would also leverage operational improvements, strategic local partnerships and growing, building and acquisition of assets responsibly to reach where it did.
“In 2019, EQT announced its vision to become the operator of choice for all stakeholders. As part of our efforts, we assessed our business and established a climate change strategy that set a bold emissions reduction goal. At the time of announcement, this required a reduction or offset of over 600,000 MT CO2e.2 We are proud to reach this historic milestone as the first traditional energy producer of scale to achieve net zero,” said Toby Z. Rice, President and CEO of EQT Corporation.
Another detail worth a mention here is how EQT actively preached in-house emissions reductions that targeted the leading sources of EQT’s emissions, supplemented by carbon offset generation. This, for starters, included Pneumatic Device Replacement. You see, between June 2021 and December 2022, EQT replaced or retrofitted over 9,000 pneumatic devices, thus realizing an annual reduction of approximately 300,000 MT CO2e.
Next up, there was electrification of Frac Fleets, as starting in 2020, the company replaced conventional diesel fleets with electric fleets powered by natural gas-fired turbines using EQT-produced natural gas. This move alone would cut down its carbon footprint by an estimated 35,000 to 50,000 MT CO2e annually.
Moving on, EQT also developed a “combo-development” approach, which applies advanced digital technologies and long-range well planning to its operational strategy. The idea driving such an approach is to improve upon drilling operations by approximately 30%, all while significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Beyond that, the company’s sustainability play included putting emission control devices on acquired assets. This happened after EQT acquired Alta Resources and installed emissions control devices on the latter’s assets so to approximately eliminate 35,000 MT CO2e of GHG emissions from the assets.
The company even conducted Advanced Methane Monitoring and Mitigation. In essence, during 2023, EQT successfully established its Appalachian Methane Initiative. This initiative actually translates to a world-class sector and technology-agnostic methane monitoring network, designed to provide greater efficiency in the identification and remediation of potential fugitive methane emissions from operations in the Appalachian Basin through coordinated satellite and aerial surveys on a geographic-basis.
Rounding up highlights is EQT’s assortment of local carbon offset projects. In case you weren’t aware, the company developed an initiative to offset its remaining 2023 Scope 1 and Scope 2 GHG emissions with nature-based carbon sequestration projects in partnership with the state of West Virginia. The stated initiative included conservation management practices such as the removal of invasive species, wildfire risk monitoring, and native tree and shrub placement. Making these efforts even more important is the fact that they are verified by West Virginia University, ensuring both economic and environmental benefits to the region.
“This achievement undoubtedly reflects the hard work of our incredible team to revolutionize our operations to effectively reduce our emissions while at the same time achieving peak performance and driving value. However, EQT’s becoming the first traditional energy producer of scale in the world to achieve this net zero status is thanks to the low-emissions foundation established within our operating footprint in the Appalachian Basin — one of the largest, low-cost deposits of traditional energy in the world,” said Rice.
