Williams entered agreements Dec. 8 with Coterra Energy and Dominion Energy Virginia to establish the first next-generation natural gas certification process, the company said in a press release. 

The result will be a value chain that gathers, markets and transports low-carbon natural gas from well-head to end-user, Williams said.

Williams plans to use blockchain secured technology to track and measure end-to-end emissions through Context Labs’ Decarbonization as a Service (DaaS) platform. The collection and reconciliation of data from Williams’ and Coterra’s platforms will provide “path-specific methane intensity certification” that meets or exceeds industry protocols. 

Emissions data will be collected from multiple sources, including ground-based optical gas imaging cameras, flyovers, satellite monitoring and internal operational systems.

“We are thrilled to be working with Williams and its supply chain ecosystem partners to produce the energy industry’s premier end-to-end next generation natural gas certification transactions,” said Context Labs’ founder and CEO Dan Harple.

KPMG LLP will provide verification of the methane intensity certification.

“Coterra is pleased to partner with Williams in deploying this exciting new technology which has the potential to change how we measure and report emissions data,” said Blake Sirgo, Coterra’s senior vice president of operations. 

To support the project, Williams is forming a marketing platform through its Sequent Energy Management business to “sell trusted low-carbon and net-zero next gen natural gas” to clean energy users including utilities and LNG export facilities. 

During the year-long project, the pathway is estimated to avoid 120,000 metric tons of CO₂e emissions compared to the national average methane emissions for the production, gathering and transmission segments. William’s gathering and transmission operations and Coterra’s production in northeast Pennsylvania will supply Dominion Energy a differentiated low-emission gas product. 

“Certified, low-emissions natural gas is a vital part of achieving our goal of net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050,” Cedric Green said, senior vice president of power generation for Dominion Energy. “We look forward to continuing this [partnership].”

Williams said the certification program will meet Quantification, Measurement, Reporting and Verification (QMRV) measurement standards and will be the first full value chain methane emissions certification program to do so. The standards are laid out by the multi-stakeholder Oil and Gas Methane Partnership, which was developed by the U.N., the Environmental Defense Fund and the Climate and Clean Air Coalition. 

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