Companies at the heart of the US shale oil boom are burning off enough gas to power all the homes in Chicago and Washington DC combined, in a practice causing growing concern about the waste of resources and damage to the environment.
The volume of unwanted gas being flared off in North Dakota, the state leading the shale revolution transforming the outlook for US energy, rose by about 50 per cent last year. The surge at the state’s Bakken formation is being replicated in other shale regions with Texas’ state regulator issuing 1,963 permits to flare in 2012, sharply up from the 306 in 2010.
The rapid increase has made the US one of the world’s worst countries for gas flaring. The volume of gas it flares has tripled in five years, according to World Bank estimates, and it is the world’s fifth highest, behind Russia, Nigeria, Iran and Iraq.