GPA Midstream staff and members of the Environmental Committee traveled to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s air officials at their offices in the Research Triangle of North Carolina to discuss issues critical to the industry.

During the March 22 meeting we discussed comments we filed with the EPA on their proposed methane rulemaking. Our purpose was to further advocate for making needed changes to ensure this proposed rule is workable for GPA Midstream members.

The two most costly issues for GPA Midstream members are the “Super Emitter” portion and the pneumatics section. We discussed these two issues at length with EPA staff.  However, there are several technical issues that we spent most of our time on. The biggest focus was on details about compliance dates, storage vessels and leak detection and repair, or LDAR.

We anticipate a final rule from the EPA in November.

Nearly 20 EPA staff involved in the methane rule writing attended the meeting. GPA Midstream Environmental Committee members engaged in the discussion came from Antero, Western, Targa, MPLX, Williams, Enterprise, and Energy Transfer. A big thank you goes out to our volunteers who were able to make this possible.

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