Recently, satellite data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has estimated that approximately 3.5% of the world’s natural gas supply is wasted by flaring. Flaring is used in gas and oil fields where it is not economically justifiable to capture and use it, for example where there isn’t the infrastructure to transport the gas to market at a reasonable cost.

To give some idea of the amounts of gas flared – more than 143 billion cubic meters of natural gas was estimated to be flared in 2012. While the United States had the greatest number of flares, Russia flared 25 billion cubic meters, the most gas of any nation and more than half of the UK’s natural gas import last year. Iraq and Iran followed behind Russia, flaring 12.5 and 12 billion cubic meters respectively. 

With gas prices recently dipping below figures from 2012, flaring may become even more prevalent than it was…