Natural gas extracted from a new Irish gas reservoir, the Inishkea field, along with the Corrib field off the west coast of Ireland will generate fewer emissions compared with imported gas from the UK and US, a new report suggests.

London-based Europa Oil & Gas, which has published a new report this week, states that the operational life-of-field emissions intensity of natural gas from the Corrib and Inishkea fields would be 3.7kg of carbon for every barrel of oil equivalent (boe).

Europa states that the Inishkea prospect could be connected to the nearby Corrib infrastructure.

This compares with 36kg CO2e/boe for imported gas from UK to Ireland and 145kg CO2e/boe for imported LNG from the US to the UK and then to Ireland.

Intensity

Based on these numbers, Europa suggests that gas produced from the Corrib and Inishkea fields and supplied to the Irish domestic market would be just 11% of the emissions intensity when compared with imported gas from the UK to Ireland and 3% of the emissions intensity compared with imported LNG from US to the UK.

Europa CEO Simon Oddie stated: "This report demonstrates the strategic importance of developing this gas resource, which will not only contribute to Ireland's energy security, in line with the EU's stated goals of diversifying gas supply, but would also lead to significantly reduced emissions during the transition to renewable energy.

“Production from the license would reduce Ireland's absolute emissions associated with imported gas from the UK by over 50%," he said.