Although drillers in North America’s biggest oil field are burning off more natural gas than ever before, industry advocates say it’s not as bad as it looks. Methane-emissions intensity in the Permian Basin plunged 64% in the past seven years, even as crude production surged, according to a report by Texans for Natural Gas, the Permian Basin Petroleum Association and the New Mexico Oil and Gas Association. Emissions intensity is a measure of how much methane is burned in flares or allowed to waft off into the atmosphere for every barrel of crude produced. By that metric, if the Permian was a country, it would rank 45th worldwide, behind nations such as Venezuela and Iran, the groups said Tuesday in the report titled Flaring Progress in the Permian: The Untold Story. Permian […]