# Measuring Gas Flaring in Russia with Multispectral VIIRS Nightfire
## 3 Results
### Comparison with the Reported Gas Flaring and Oil Extraction Data  
Annual gas flaring volumes in the oil upstream sector of Russia (i.e., APG flaring) according to the reported data, expert estimates, and VIIRS Nightfire computations are presented in Figure 7 and Table 1. It is observed that while all sources relatively agreed in the 2012-2013 period (with Nightfire estimates exceeding other sources data only by 15%), in the 2014-2016 period, the difference between Nightfire and the reported data progressively increased to 75%. The rising trend of gas flaring volumes in Russia since 2017 is depicted in all sources, although its magnitude varies significantly, with Rosstat data exceeding Nightfire estimates in 2019, while the Cedigaz and Ministry of Energy data value the country annual flaring volumes as being 3 BCM lower. In 2020, the Ministry of Energy reported a decline in APG flaring, while Nightfire estimates indicate an increase of 0.5 BCM in oil upstream flaring. In the same year, although national oil production level dropped by 8.4%, the Ministry of Energy reported a mild (+0.1%) increase in APG production. The general acceptance of VIIRS Nightfire and Cedigaz trends for Russia, excluding 2014, is also notable. Figure 7: Reported and estimated annual APG (associated petroleum gas) flaring volumes (in BCM) in Russia, 2012–2020, according to official sources (Ministry of Energy, Rosstat), expert data (Cedigaz), and VIIRS Nightfire estimates. Histogram presents annual oil production levels in Russia published by the Ministry of Energy [49]. For Cedigaz, the dotted line represents estimates from 2018–2019 not applied in VIIRS Nightfire calibration. Exact numerical data are presented in Table 1.  
The correlation with publicly available gas flaring volume data reported by major oil and gas companies (in annual reports or reports on sustainable development) with respect to joint ventures in Russia is presented in Figure 8. Although the resulting correlation is strong and is in good agreement with the Cedigaz-based correlation coefficient used in radiant heat \(RH^{\prime}\) to BCM conversion (see Section 2.5) as regression slope is close to 1, there are evident biases observed for most companies, while major flaring companies such as Rosneft and Gazprom Neft experience significant scatter on the annual basis. It is worth noting that some of the largest gas flares observed with Nightfire in Russia are also operated by Gazprom Neft or Rosneft, and these companies tend to have their reported flaring higher than what the VIIIRS Nightfire estimates suggest, while other companies and regions, such as Slavneft or Lukoil or Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug data (which have their respective flaring volumes distributed among lesser flares), conversely, have their reported flaring volumes significantly lower than what the Nightfire estimates suggest. Khanty-Mansi Autonomous Okrug data are presented in Figure S4 and Table S4 in the Supplementary Materials text section. \begin{table}
\begin{tabular}{c c c c c c c c c c} \hline \hline
**Source** & **2012** & **2013** & **2014** & **2015** & **2016** & **2017** & **2018** & **2019** & **2020** \\ \hline Flaring (Ministry of Energy), BCM [1,2,30] & 17.1 & 16.2 & 12.3 & 10.5 & 12.4 & 12.9 & 13.4 & 17.4 & 16.5 \\ Flaring, Rosstat, BCM [3] & 17.1 & 15.6 & 11.8 & 9.9 & 11 & 13 & 15.7 & 20.5 & N/A \\ Flaring, Cedigaz, BCM [4] & 18.3 & 15.9 & 16.2 & 15 & 16.5 & 15.2 & 15.9 & 17.5 & N/A \\ Flaring, Nightfire, BCM & 20.3 & 17.8 & 16.1 & 17.2 & 20.1 & 18 & 18.9 & 20.4 & 20.9 \\ Oil Production (Ministry of Energy), mln tons 1[49] & 518 & 523 & 527 & 534 & 547 & 547 & 556 & 560 & 513 \\ \hline \end{tabular}  
* Including gas condensate production. 2 For reference, SLSTR Nightfire product estimate for Russia, 2017 is 18.1 BCM [13].  
\end{table} 
Table 1: Annual APG flaring volumes and oil production levels in Russia.