EPA proposes letting some gas compressor stations use a methane rule written for Alaska

The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed letting some natural gas compressor stations across the country follow a methane standard it originally wrote for Alaska oil and gas sites that have no electricity.

The change would apply to high-pressure controllers at existing, modified and rebuilt compressor stations. Controllers are the automated instruments that hold pressure, temperature and liquid levels steady. The EPA's 2024 methane rule requires gas-driven controllers to release no methane at all. Under the proposal, those stations could instead meet the standard written for Alaska's off-grid sites.

The agency cites cost and technical limits. In 2024, the EPA estimated that retrofitting controllers at compressor stations would cost under $2,000 per ton of methane cut. Pipeline industry petitioners submitted figures from three companies of about $861,000 to $3.4 million per ton, more than 400 times the agency's estimate.

The EPA checked with vendors and found that electric controllers are too slow for these high-pressure systems. Controllers run on compressed air work, but the agency estimated they'd carry a capital cost of $2.4 million per station to cut 8 tons of methane a year, which it called not cost effective.

Under the Alaska standard, operators can send controller emissions to a device that cuts them by 95 percent, use low-bleed controllers, or use controllers that vent only intermittently and are checked regularly. The EPA estimates that would cost a typical station about $300 a year and cut 5.4 tons of methane.

Newly built stations would still have to meet the zero-emissions standard, since the EPA says zero-emissions controllers can be designed in at about the same cost. So would Alaska sites that have power. The Alaska exemption itself wouldn't change.

The controller change is one piece of a broader proposal revisiting the 2024 rule. It would also scrap the rule's Super Emitter Program and ease requirements for low-producing wells.

Comments are due Dec. 16. The EPA will hold a virtual public hearing Nov. 13.