TotalEnergies and ONGC in India join forces to detect and measure methane emissions

At India Energy Week 2024 in Goa, TotalEnergies and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) have signed a Cooperation Agreement to carry out methane emissions detection and measurement campaigns using TotalEnergies’ AUSEA (Airborne Ultralight Spectrometer for Environmental Applications) technology.

The Cooperation Agreement was signed by Dr. Sangkaran Ratnam, Country Chair of TotalEnergies in India on behalf of TotalEnergies and Sushma Rawat, Director (Exploration) Oil and Natural Gas Corporation on behalf of ONGC.

ONGC has been inviting international technology partners to help reduce its methane emissions in India by 2030, while TotalEnergies has decided to share its AUSEA technology in an effort to pivot the whole industry towards zero methane emissions by 2030. Both companies are party to the Oil and Gas Decarbonization Charter (OGDC), global industry initiative launched at COP28.

ONGC joins a growing list of national companies who have signed cooperation agreements with TotalEnergies for the use of AUSEA including Petrobras in Brazil, SOCAR in Azerbaijan, Sonangol in Angola and NNPCL in Nigeria.

“Our industry’s priority in the fight against climate change is to slash methane emissions from operations. Aiming for zero methane emissions by 2030 is our collective ambition as signatories of the OGDC at COP28. We are pleased to collaborate and make our AUSEA technology available to ONGC, in India, to detect, measure and eventually reduce methane emissions on their own assets”, said Patrick Pouyanné Chairman and CEO of TotalEnergies.

Commenting on the pact, Shri Arun Kumar Singh, Chairman and Managing Director of ONGC, said “In line with our collective ambitions as signatories of the OGDC at COP28, ONGC is scouting for new technologies to reduce its methane emissions by 50 % by 2027 and by 80% in 2030 compared to 2020. The introduction of the AUSEA technology will further strengthen our efforts to achieve zero methane emissions by 2038.”