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BP : Announces New Plan to Lower Methane Emissions

BP PLC (BP.LN) said Wednesday it has partnered with U.S. advocacy group Environmental Defense Fund to lower methane emissions in its supply chain over the next three years through a mix of research, emerging technologies and joint ventures with other oil-and-gas companies.

"The Environmental Defense Fund and BP don't agree on everything, but we're finding common ground on methane," said Fred Krupp, president of EDF.

Methane stays in the atmosphere shorter than carbon dioxide but is 84 times more potent than CO2 for the first 20 years, BP said. During oil drilling and extraction, trapped methane releases into the air.

The British oil-and-gas giant said it will grant up to $500,000 in 2019 to Colorado State University for research developing methane detection and measuring technologies using drones and stationary systems to speed up detection time.

BP said these new technologies need to be rigorously demonstrated before regulators will accept them in the industry.

The energy company said it will also announce a project considering machine learning, artificial intelligence and augmented reality to manage and reduce methane emissions.

Finally, BP said it will identify partnerships with other oil-and-gas companies to lower methane emissions and hold a workshop with industry players on the issue this year.

"We've made great progress driving down emissions across our own business, including meeting our industry-leading methane intensity target of 0.2 percent, but there is much more work to do," said Bernard Looney, BP's upstream chief executive.

On Tuesday, the Financial Times reported that BP had lobbied against methane regulations at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, despite having some of the lowest global methane emissions among major energy companies and publicly championing the issue.

In response to the article, a BP spokeswoman said the company had lobbied for "well-designed" regulations.

"We believe the EPA regulation should be flexible enough to allow for a range of technologies rather than rigidly bound to current tools that may become obsolete tomorrow," she said.

Write to Dieter Holger at dieter.holger@dowjones.com; @dieterholger