Emissions and Climate Change

COMMITMENT TO METHANE EMISSIONS REDUCTION  

Natural gas is the catalyst for a more sustainable future. No fuel has contributed more to the United States’ leadership in emission reductions than natural gas. Replacing higher emitting fuels and imported LNG with resources produced safely in the Appalachian Basin, is the best option for meeting growing energy demand while furthering environmental progress. The Appalachian Basin is the lowest methane emission intensity basin in the United States, and CNX is a leader in the basin in driving meaningful methane emission reductions.

CNX’s Emission Reduction Task Force (ERTF) consists of members from various operational, environmental, engineering, and data management teams and focuses on reduction of CNX’s methane emissions. The ERTF meets regularly to prioritize opportunities with the greatest potential to reduce CNX’s overall emission footprint.

From 2020, through the end of 2023, CNX produced 2.5 quadrillion BTUs of life-sustaining energy—enough equivalent energy to power nearly 8 million homes per year¹—while reducing operational methane intensity by 52% in our production segment, and by 31% in our gathering and boosting segment. These improvements were achieved primarily by controlling vented emissions from our pneumatic devices and by managing the emissions related to water handling during well completions and well liquid unloading events, which led to significant reductions.

In 2023, we allocated $7 million of capital investment to methane emission mitigation efforts. This capital was used to make changes to our pneumatic devices and our liquids unloading procedures, resulting in an annualized methane benefit of over 85,000 tons CO₂e.

In 2024, we plan to continue our methane emission mitigation efforts by spending $5 million on similar projects, in addition to mitigation efforts related to our dehydration units, with expected annualized benefits of over 85,000 tons CO₂e. The resulting projected methane intensities will reinforce CNX’s position as a leader in the lowest emission basin in the United States.

Since 2021, executive compensation has been tied to annual methane intensity reduction targets through our long-term incentive program, explicitly linking pay to ESG performance. For the third straight year, CNX outperformed against these targets and—due to the strength of our team and their commitment to innovation and continuous improvement—we are confident that we can achieve our future milestone reduction goals by focusing on efficiency and utilizing new technology.

1. U.S. Energy Information Administration.

For the last four years, CNX has drastically reduced our methane intensity. This trend will continue in 2024, where our goals are to reduce both production and gathering and boosting segment methane intensities to approximately 0.02% or lower, resulting in reductions of approximately 71% and 43% respectively, since 2020.

Because of its high radiative efficiency compared to carbon dioxide, mitigating methane emissions and methane intensity in the oil and natural gas industry has been recognized as one of the best opportunities for reducing near-term global warming. The Inflation Reduction Act, passed by Congress in 2022, incentivizes methane emission reductions by creating a methane fee, which applies to oil and gas operators with methane intensity levels in excess of specified thresholds. CNX will be nearly 90% and 75% below the methane fee thresholds for the two industry segments that we operate within, thanks to our past and ongoing methane emission reduction efforts.

In addition to our operating methane emission reductions, CNX actively reduces methane emissions from other industries through our waste methane abatement initiatives. We capture approximately 9.1 million tons CO₂e of waste methane annually, which is significantly more methane than we emit from our operating activities CMM section. This residual waste methane would otherwise be vented to the atmosphere during the mining process. Methane emissions from coal mining activities represent nearly 10% of all U.S. methane emissions. Rather than releasing it to the atmosphere, CNX captures, processes, compresses, and transports waste methane to market for beneficial use—one of only a handful such projects in the nation.

For more information visit http://www.wastegascapture.com/

CNX goes beyond regulatory requirements to drive improvements in our operating workflows, practices, and procedures in our production and midstream operations. Our leak detection and repair (LDAR) process utilizes proprietary software, developed in-house, to provide automated repair work order notifications and leak detection tracking. This process allows for timely repair of leaks well within regulatory requirements. We also aim for earlier and more effective detection of fugitive emissions and more expeditious mitigation of leaks at the source. CNX utilizes multiple early detection devices, including drone technology and OGI camera surveys, and continuous monitoring ground detection systems. A more complete description of our methane detection program can be found on our Radical Transparency program website.

CNX is a member of the Appalachian Methane Initiative (AMI), a coalition of leading U.S. natural gas companies, independent methane monitoring survey providers, technical consultants, and top-tier universities engaged in scientific analysis. The coalition aims to further enhance methane emissions monitoring and reductions throughout the Appalachian Basin through a cooperative approach and sharing of best practices. AMI’s 2024 campaign is expected to monitor more than 20,000 square miles of the Appalachian Basin, including gas production facilities representing 31.5 bcf/d of production capacity (roughly 90% of the daily production within the basin), approximately 6,000 oil and gas sites, and approximately 180 non-oil and gas sites, such as coal mines/vents and landfills.

CNX’s Regulatory Reporting Group is responsible for enhancing our regulatory and environmental compliance data management processes. Given the importance of environmental data integrity and transparency and validation of emissions data, this team is devoted to non-financial regulatory data gathering, validation, and reporting. This has improved the timeliness, reliability, and accuracy of our reports, providing emissions data to stakeholders and improving our environmental performance as we utilize the data in our operations. CNX shares best practices with peer companies to help lead the domestic energy industry in this important arena.

In addition to reporting direct Scope 1 emissions, CNX reports both Scope 2 and Scope 3 emissions, which are indirect emissions related to the generation of the electricity that we purchase and the estimated downstream use of our natural gas production. All three categories are reported in the ESG Performance Scorecard.

Commitment to GHG Emissions Reduction

CNX’s GHG emission reduction efforts include:

Adopting green completions across all of our operations, in which gas produced during flowback operations is captured, rather than being vented to the atmosphere. Improvements include use of CNX patented technological development. See Process Innovation

Improving our environmental management information system by leveraging existing supervisory-control and data acquisition systems to further automate data collection.

Installing emissions controls on tanks and storage vessels located at unconventional well pads.

Reducing fugitive methane emissions from pipeline pigging activities via predictive maintenance, redesigned work procedures, and state-of-the-art methane capture technology.

Increasing frequency of routine monitoring for leaks at all well sites and compressor stations.

Conversion to an electric frac fleet and electrified drilling rig.