As the oil and gas industry works to meet aggressive climate goals and ESG targets, certified “responsibly sourced natural gas” is set to help solve a huge branding problem facing the sector, according to Project Canary Co-Founder and CEO Chris Romer.

Project Canary is an international environmental standards company based in Denver working with several notable upstream and midstream operators to produce responsibly natural sourced gas certified by empirical ESG data. Romer recently spoke with Hart Energy to discuss responsibly sourced gas (RSG), ESG and how Project Canary fits into the drive by many across the oil and gas industry to meet aggressive climate goals and sustain a social license to operate.

“The E in ESG is really going to go data-driven… You’re going to have to deliver real ESG data,” Romer told Hart Energy’s Emily Patsy.

During the interview, Romer described the ESG movement as a “100-foot tsunami” facing the energy industry.

“I’ll predict that 100-foot tsunami is only about three feet out of the water and this is going to be a decade transition,” he said.

“The good news is that those of us that want to create clean, responsible and responsibly sourced gas have many decades to go in helping to solve climate change and produce resilient low-carbon energy systems,” he added.

Project Canary provides trusted, independent data and environmental reporting to help the oil and gas industry self-certify their products, Romer said also describing the company as the “Moody’s and S&P” for carbon metrics and related data.

“Effectively the oil and gas industry has a brand problem and that brand problem is currently based on the consumers who want a lower carbon footprint,” he said.

Romer sees addressing issues around methane leaks similarly to how the industry dealt with disclosing chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing.

“FracFocus solved the problem with fracking fluids with transparency,” he said. “We’re going to have to do that with air quality as well as pad-level ESG data.”

Project Canary recently announced a “first-of-its-kind” RSG pilot project with a natural gas producer, infrastructure operator and local municipal utility in Colorado. Other pilot projects include one with EQT Corp. in the Appalachian Basin and another with UP Energy LLC in Wyoming’s Green River Basin.

Jump to a topic:

  • Who is Project Canary? 0:30
  • Industry partnerships 2
  • What is responsibly sourced gas? 4
  • How RSG fits in ESG 6
  • Project Canary’s role 7:20
  • Project Canary technology 9:50
  • Certifying LNG 11:55
  • RSG outlook 13:10
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