Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 16 October 2024 – The ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) is pleased to launch ASEAN’s first Methane Abatement Towards Sustainable Petroleum Industry (MAESTRO) Dashboard, developed to help stakeholders identify emission sources across ASEAN’s oil and gas sector and enable more effective monitoring and abatement strategies, with technical assistance from the World Bank Group’s Global Flaring and Methane Reduction Partnership (GFMR).

As a pollutant that is 84 times higher in its global warming potential than carbon dioxide (CO₂) over a 20-year time scale, achieving the 1.5-degree pathway under the Paris Agreement will not be possible without methane emissions abatement efforts.

A fifth of anthropogenic methane emissions originate from the oil and gas industry, with half of these emissions coming from developing countries. In ASEAN, the region emitted 0.32 million tonnes of methane, with a global warming potential equivalent to about 9 million tonnes of CO₂. Key oil and gas producers in the region – Indonesia, Malaysia, and Thailand – account for nearly nine-tenths of the region’s methane emissions, largely from offshore activities. This accounts for the loss of approximately 0.5 billion cubic meters of gas, or about 7% of Singapore’s liquified natural gas imports in 2023. Consequently,  initiatives on methane emissions were implored by the ASEAN ministers During the 42^nd ASEAN Ministers on Energy Meeting (AMEM) on 26 September 2024 in Vientiane, Lao PDR.

To build awareness and identify large methane emissions sources in ASEAN, with the overarching aim to guide and urge high-level decision makers and operators on their methane management journey, the MAESTRO Dashboard was developed.

Figure 1. Snapshot of the MAESTRO Dashboard

Formally launched during the 7^th ASEAN Energy Sector Methane Roundtable at the 49^th ASEAN Council on Petroleum (ASCOPE) Meeting in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, the Dashboard captures the methane emissions and locations of key sites in upstream, midstream, and downstream sectors in 2023. Users will be able to toggle between units, absolute emissions, emissions intensity, and estimated value loss impact, with the ability to break down emissions by country, by sector, and onshore or offshore.

Building upon the achievement of the MAESTRO Dashboard, greater ASEAN collaboration and initiatives on methane emissions abatement may be envisaged.

The Dashboard is now readily accessed here: https://aseanenergy.org/maestro/about/

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About ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE)

Established on 1 January 1999, the ASEAN Centre for Energy (ACE) is an intergovernmental organisation within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations’ (ASEAN) structure that represents the 10 ASEAN Member States’ (AMS) interests in the energy sector. ACE supports the implementation of the ASEAN Plan of Action for Energy Cooperation (APAEC), a blueprint for ASEAN energy sector. The Centre is guided by a Governing Council composed of Senior Officials on Energy from each AMS and a representative from the ASEAN Secretariat as an ex-officio member.

The three key roles of ACE:

• As a catalyst to unify and strengthen ASEAN energy cooperation and integration by implementing relevant capacity building programmes and projects to assist the AMS develop their energy sector.
• As the ASEAN energy data centre and knowledge hub to provide a knowledge repository for the AMS.
• As an ASEAN energy think tank to assist the AMS by identifying and surfacing innovative solutions for ASEAN’s energy challenges on policies, legal & regulatory frameworks and technologies.

Keeping the region’s improvement, sustainable and harmless to the ecosystem is a fundamental concern of the ASEAN energy sector. Hosted by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources of Indonesia, ACE’s office is located in Jakarta, Indonesia. For more information on ACE website: aseanenergy.org

For further information, please contact:

Aurelia Syafina, Communications Team at ACE: [email protected]