California Code of Regulations
Title 17 - Public Health
Division 3 - Air Resources
Chapter 1 - Air Resources Board
Subchapter 10 - Climate Change
Article 2 - Mandatory Greenhouse Gas Emissions Reporting
Subarticle 5 - Reporting Requirements and Calculation Methods for Petroleum and Natural Gas Systems
Section 95150 - Definition of the Source Category

(1) Offshore petroleum and natural gas production. Offshore petroleum and natural gas production is any platform structure, affixed temporarily or permanently to offshore submerged lands, that houses equipment to extract hydrocarbons from the ocean or lake floor and that processes and/or transfers such hydrocarbons to storage, transport vessels, or onshore. In addition, offshore production includes secondary platform structures connected to the platform structure via walkways, storage tanks associated with the platform structure and floating production and storage offloading equipment (FPSO). This source category does not include emissions from offshore drilling and exploration that is not conducted on production platforms.

(2) Onshore petroleum and natural gas production. Onshore petroleum and natural gas production means all equipment on a well-pad or associated with a well pad (including compressors, generators, dehydrators, storage vessels, and portable non-self-propelled equipment which includes well drilling and completion equipment, workover equipment, gravity separation equipment, auxiliary non-transportation-related equipment, and leased, rented or contracted equipment) used in the production, extraction, recovery, lifting, stabilization, separation or treating of petroleum and/or natural gas (including condensate). Onshore natural gas processing equipment as defined in section 95150(a)(3) that is owned and/or operated by the facility owner/operator and located within the same basin is considered "associated with a well pad" and is included with the onshore petroleum and natural gas production facility, unless such equipment is required to be reported as part of a separate onshore petroleum and natural gas processing facility. Gas processing plants that have an annual average throughput of 25 MMscf per day or greater are not included in this segment.

This equipment also includes associated storage or measurement vessels and all enhanced oil recovery (EOR) operations (both thermal and nonthermal), and all petroleum and natural gas production equipment located on islands, artificial islands, or structures connected by a causeway to land, an island, or an artificial island. Crude oil and associated gas that is piped to an onshore production facility as an emulsion as defined in section 95102(a) must follow the requirements of section 95156(a)(7)-(10) and meet the metering requirements of section 95103(k) by measuring the emulsion before the first separation tank at the onshore production facility and not at the platform.

(3) Onshore natural gas processing. Natural gas processing means the separation of natural gas liquids (NGLs) or non-methane gases from produced natural gas, or the separation of NGLs into one or more component mixtures. Separation includes one or more of the following: forced extraction of natural gas liquids, sulfur and carbon dioxide removal, fractionation of NGLs, or the capture of CO2 separated from natural gas streams. This segment also includes all residue gas compression equipment owned or operated by the natural gas processing plant. This industry segment includes processing plants that have an annual average throughput of 25 MMscf per day or greater. This industry segment also includes fractionation facilities that have no petroleum and gas production activity within the same basin.

(4) Onshore natural gas transmission compression. Onshore natural gas transmission compression means any stationary combination of compressors that move natural gas from production fields, natural gas processing plants, or other transmission compressors through transmission pipelines to natural gas distribution pipelines, LNG storage facilities, or into underground storage. In addition, a transmission compressor station includes equipment for liquids separation, and tanks for the storage of water and hydrocarbon liquids. Residue (sales) gas compression that is part of onshore natural gas processing plants are included in the onshore natural gas processing segment and are excluded from this segment. This industry segment also includes all booster stations owned and/or operated by the facility owner/operator.

(5) Underground natural gas storage. Underground natural gas storage means subsurface storage, including depleted gas or oil reservoirs and salt dome caverns that store natural gas that has been transferred from its original location for the primary purpose of load balancing (the process or equalizing the receipt and delivery of natural gas); natural gas underground storage processes and operations (including compression, dehydration and flow measurement, and excluding transmission pipelines); and all the wellheads connected to the compression units located at the facility that inject and recover natural gas into and from the underground reservoirs.

(6) Liquefied natural gas (LNG) storage. LNG storage means onshore LNG storage vessels located above ground, equipment for liquefying natural gas, compressors to capture and re-liquefy boil-off-gas, recondensers, and vaporization units for regasification of the liquefied natural gas.

(7) LNG import and export equipment. LNG import equipment means all onshore or offshore equipment that receives imported LNG via ocean transport, stores LNG, re-gasifies LNG, and delivers re-gasified natural gas to a natural gas transmission or distribution system in California. LNG export equipment means all onshore or offshore equipment that receives natural gas, liquefies natural gas, stores LNG, and transfers the LNG via ocean transportation to California.

(8) Natural gas distribution. Natural gas distribution means the distribution pipelines and metering and regulating equipment at metering-regulating stations that are operated by a Local Distribution Company (LDC) within California that is regulated by a public utility commission or that is operated as an independent municipally-owned distribution system. This segment also excludes customer meters and regulators, infrastructure, and pipelines (both interstate and intrastate) delivering natural gas directly to major industrial users and farm taps upstream of the local distribution company inlet.