U.S. EPA issued five white papers earlier this week (on April 15th - tax day) on potentially significant sources of emissions in the oil and gas sector. From the summary report on completion operations: "Completion is the process of preparing a well for production. Completions of hydraulically fractured or refractured oil wells can be a source of methane and VOC emissions. Hydraulically fractured oil wells also may produce natural gas along with the oil; this gas is often vented during production. This paper resents data and mitigation techniques for emissions from completions and associated gas from ongoing production at hydraulically fractured oil wells, which are not covered under the 2012 NSPS."
