As emissions reporting requirements increase across the oil and gas sector, many operators assume regulatory risk comes down to one thing: whether their emissions number are “high” or “low”
In reality, regulators are far less concerned with headline figures than most companies realize. What they evaluate instead is data integrity, traceability, and governance. Most enforcement actions and audit failures stem from weak systems, not excessive emissions.
A common misconception is that regulators are primarily looking to penalize companies with high emissions.
In practice, regulators focus on:
If two companies report that same emissions total, the one with clear documentation and defensible methodology is significantly less exposed to regulatory scrutiny.
Regulators expect companies to demonstrate a clear audit trail from operational activity to reported figures.
Regulators look for the following:
Frequent unexplained changes, even if small, are often flagged as indicators of weak internal controls.
Consistency matters more than precision
Perfect precision is rarely expected. Consistency is.
This entails:
When emissions data cannot be traced back to its operational inputs, regulators interpret this as governance failure. Not a clerical error.
Accountability frameworks reduce regulatory risk
One of the most common gaps regulators identify is unclear ownership.
They expect companies to be able to answer:
When accountability is diffuse or undocumented, risk increases, even if numbers appear reasonable.
Most compliance failures are preventable
In AIREBON’S experience, regulatory exposure typically arises not from non-compliance, but from:
These are structural issues, and they are correctable.
Emissions compliance is not about producing the “right” number. It is about producing a defensible number.
Companies that invest early in data governance, documentation, and workflow design place themselves in a far stronger position with regulators, and counterparties.
AIREBON works with operators to identify emissions data gaps, reporting risks, and compliance exposures before they become regulatory issues.
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