ARLINGTON, VA, March 29, 2010 — The American Carbon Registry (“ACR”) has approved the first U.S. carbon offset methodology for a fugitive methane emission reduction project in the oil & gas sector, which was developed collaboratively by Verdeo Group, Inc. (“Verdeo”) and Devon Energy Corporation (“Devon”).  This methodology will enable oil & gas companies to generate carbon offset credits by retrofitting existing highbleed pneumatic controllers with low-bleed options, thus reducing fugitive emissions of methane, a potent greenhouse gas (GHG).

“We are thrilled to approve the first methodology that provides a framework for oil & gas companies to reduce a significant source of GHG emissions by implementing a technology retrofit solution,” said Nicholas Martin, ACR’s Chief Technical Officer.  “We are confident that this methodology, which was subject to ACR’s stringent scientific peer review process, meets the highest standards of environmental integrity in the market today,” he added.

Pneumatic controllers use a pressurized gas, typically natural gas for applications in the oil & gas sector, to regulate process variables such as pressure, flow rate and liquid level.  While pneumatic controllers are designed to vent emissions of methane under normal operating conditions, high-bleed controllers vent more of these emissions than low-bleed alternatives.  According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”), high-bleed pneumatic controllers are among the largest sources of vented methane by equipment type in the domestic oil & natural gas industry.

Voluntary retrofits of high-bleed pneumatic controllers have long been encouraged by voluntary programs such as EPA’s Natural Gas STAR Program.  Despite the many successes of the Gas STAR Program, oil & gas companies have been slow to retrofit high-bleed pneumatic controllers for a number of reasons: high-bleed pneumatic controllers work well, company-wide retrofits represent a complex undertaking, and the economic value of the retrofit may be small relative to other core business investment opportunities.  As a result, though new wells are typically equipped with low-bleed technology, oil & gas companies have rarely undertaken retrofits of the thousands of wells with existing high-bleed pneumatic controllers.

“The value of this methodology is that it will provide an additional incentive for Gas STAR members or any oil & gas producer to consider voluntary pneumatic retrofits and to verify and register emission reductions using industry best practices,” said John Savage, Managing Director for Verdeo.  “These retrofits, which are driven by the incentives of carbon offset credits, generate permanent emission reductions and result in valuable gas savings,” he added.

These projects are also valuable given that climate change legislation introduced in Congress has proposed recognizing them under an offset program.  For example, reductions of vented and fugitive emissions from the oil & natural gas sector were listed as potentially eligible by both “The Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act” that was introduced by Senators Kerry and Boxer last fall, and the “Clean Energy Partnerships Act of 2009” that was introduced by Senators Stabenow, Baucus, Klobuchar, Brown, Begich and Harkin.

The approval of this methodology has encouraged Devon to undertake a wide-scale retrofit of high-bleed pneumatic controllers with WellMark’s Mizer® Pilot Valves, which are low-bleed pneumatic controllers.  This project, which has achieved certification under ACR and will be verified later this year, is expected to generate significant reductions of methane.  “Devon has a corporate initiative to reduce GHG emissions and create tradable, bankable offset credits,” said Darren Smith, Manager of Environmental Health and Safety for Devon.  “This methodology allows us to quantify and verify GHG reductions in a credible and transparent manner, and sets the stage for us to pursue additional offset project development.”

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The American Carbon Registry is a leading voluntary offset program with strong standards for environmental integrity and over a decade of operational experience in development of high quality carbon standards and methodologies, as well as offset issuance, serialization and transparent on-line transaction reporting.  As the first private voluntary GHG registry in the U.S., ACR has set the bar for transparency and integrity that is the market standard today.  ACR is an enterprise of Winrock International, headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas. www.americancarbonregistry.org 

Verdeo Group, Inc. is a leading provider of capital and project development solutions to mining and oil & gas companies.  Backed by Black River Asset Management, a subsidiary of Cargill, Inc., Verdeo is developing and financing some of the first innovative pre-compliance GHG emission reduction projects in North America.  Verdeo is based in Washington, DC, and has offices in Denver and Austin.  www.verdeogroup.com 

Devon Energy Corporation is an Oklahoma City-based independent energy company engaged in oil and gas exploration and production.  Devon is a leading U.S.-based independent oil and gas producer and is included in the S&P 500 Index.  Devon is a member of the EPA’s Natural Gas STAR Program and was named Natural Gas STAR Production Partner of the Year in 2005.  www.devonenergy.com 

WellMark is an ISO9001:2008-certified manufacturer of pneumatic and electric instrumentation, primarily serving the oil and gas industry.  In addition to its broad range of products, including level controls, dump valves, safety relief valves and chemical injection pumps, WellMark continues to help oil and gas producers meet their EPA Natural Gas STAR Program pledge of reducing methane emissions by developing environmentally-conscious alternatives to conventional high-bleed pneumatic devices.  www.wellmarkco.com

Contact:

Mary Grady, American Carbon Registry Tel:  (805) 884-1961 Email:  mgrady@winrock.org

John Savage, Verdeo Group, Inc. Tel:  (512) 695-2110 Email:  jsavage@verdeogroup.com

Darren Smith, Devon Energy Corporation Tel:  (405) 228-8584 Email:  darren.smith@dvn.com

MIDDLEBURG, VA – GreenTrees, America’s first and largest forest carbon origination pipeline, is the first forestry project to be approved  by the American Carbon Registry (ACR). ACR’s  approval indicates that, pending successful thirdparty verification, the GreenTrees project will be listed on the Registry and able to transact high-quality forest carbon offsets with significant environmental cobenefits.  Early this year GreenTrees became the first commercial greenhouse gas offset investment by Duke Energy.

“The focus of GreenTrees is to create a win-win for the private landowner, the environment and the economy. It enables private landowners to benefit from helping us establish a verifiable carbon offset market in the United States to address climate change, while also creating conservation and wildlife benefits along with bio-economic development opportunities for the Mississippi Alluvial Valley,” said Carey Crane, founding partner of GreenTrees.

The GreenTrees program aims to reforest at least one million acres in the Mississippi Alluvial Valley, the nation’s largest watershed, covering approximately 25 million acres in Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Missouri and Illinois. A significant amount of its farmland is considered marginally productive, with the planting of trees potentially the highest and best use of much of this land. GreenTree’s specific planting methodology will accelerate and improve hardwood forest growth in this region.

“Afforestation is not the work of rich men and women but those rich in spirit whose belief that the resurrection of the native ecosystem delivers a dividend far greater than the monetary value of carbon,” added Chandler Van Voorhis, founding partner of GreenTrees.  “Approval by the American Carbon Registry sets the stage to deliver the highest quality premium forestry credit from America’s ‘Ark of Biodiversity’ — the Mississippi Alluvial Valley. As the United States’ first private carbon registry, and in 2008 the most widely used, the American Carbon Registry demonstrates the unique blend of environmental integrity with operational fluency,” said Van Voorhis.

“We are pleased and excited to have GreenTrees, a program recognized nationally for its innovation and conservation impact, as our first approved forest carbon project,” said Nicholas Martin, Chief Technical Officer of the American Carbon Registry. “GreenTrees’ approach to environmental integrity and maximum conservation impact underscores our own values in building the carbon marketplace. With Version 2.0 of the ACR Forest Carbon Project Standard to be released shortly, we look forward to further innovation in forest carbon projects from GreenTrees and others.”

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GreenTrees was created and is privately managed by C2I, LLC of Virginia. The program has been endorsed by a variety of conservation and wildlife organizations, such as the National Wildlife Federation, and was a recipient of the 2009 Innovators Awards from the Southern Growth Policies Board.

The American Carbon Registry (ACR) is  a leading voluntary offset program with strong standards for environmental integrity and over a decade of operational experience in development of high quality carbon standards and methodologies, as well as offset issuance,  serialization and transparent on-line transaction reporting. As the first private voluntary GHG registry in the U.S., ACR has set the bar for transparency and integrity that is the market standard today. ACR has issued over 30 million project-based carbon offsets and in 2008 was the most widely used voluntary carbon market registry in the world. ACR is an enterprise of Winrock International, headquartered in Little Rock, Arkansas.

www.americancarbonregistry.com

Contact: Chandler Van Voorhis 540-497-1585

Washington D.C. – As federal cap and trade legislation took one step closer to reality last week with the election of Barack Obama as President, so too did the race to become the EPA „feeder‟ greenhouse gas registries of choice. The quality bar for prospective pre-compliance registries was raised even higher today when Winrock International launched the American Carbon Registry during the Point Carbon Conference in Washington D.C.

Formerly the GHG Registry (the world‟s first carbon registry), the non-profit American Carbon Registry opens for business today as one of the largest and most respected online registries for the U.S. voluntary and pre-compliance carbon markets. With 25 million registered offsets and stamps of approval from both Fortune 500 companies like Nike and mission-driven institutions like the World Bank, the American Carbon Registry enters the pre-compliance market as a leading domestic registry. This position is further strengthened by American Carbon Registry‟s recognition in the Senate‟s “America’s Climate Security Act of 2007” (Lieberman-Warner bill) as a pre-compliance registry of choice.

“American Carbon Registry is an imprimatur for low risk and high quality. We add value by helping our members position themselves to earn early-action credit towards future federal and international GHG regulatory programs,” says Wiley Barbour – Founder and Chief Technical Officer.

Today‟s launch also sees the publication of the American Carbon Registry Standard, the overarching standard which details GHG accounting principles as well as carbon offset and corporate GHG inventory eligibility requirements. Forestry and Agriculture sector standards will be released this year as the first in a series of sector standards that will be published by early 2009 to complete a full range of easy-to-use protocols for its members.

“The American Carbon Registry provides the much needed quality and transparency lacking in today’s domestic market,” says Wiley Barbour. “Every single one of our carbon offsets has a real story behind it and our published standards lead industry standards on environmental quality.” 

To ensure high quality offsets, the Registry will only accept projects that meet its own offset eligibility criteria and allows the use of other quality methodologies in the market including Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), U.S. EPA Climate Leaders, the European Voluntary Carbon Standard (VCS) and WRI/ WBCSD GHG Protocol.

“This will allow our members the flexibility to choose among other specific high-quality protocols, methodologies and tools for greenhouse gas measurement,” says John Kadyszewski, Director of the American Carbon Registry. “Members of the Winrock team have been participants in the development of standards and methodologies for CDM and VCS, among others.”   

The American Carbon Registry and Winrock International not only boast three co-Nobel prize winners for their contribution to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), but also three co-authors of IPCC methodologies and leaders in clean energy, biofuels, methane capture, agriculture practices, nitrogen management, land use change, afforestation, reforestation, forest management and avoided deforestation.  

Founding Members:

The American Carbon Registry, originally founded in 1997 by Environmental Defense Fund, receives the stamp of approval from an impressive array of founding members, including:  Blue Source, Carbonfund.org, Commonwealth Resources Management Corp, Cool Climate, Entergy, E&Co, EcoHatchery, Environmental Capital, GHG Reductions, IdleAire, Inland Empire Utilities Agency, Renewable Choice Energy, Nike, Sterling Planet, US Energy Biogas and the World Bank.

About Winrock International:

Winrock International is a nonprofit organization that works with people in the United States and around the world to empower the disadvantaged, increase economic opportunity, and sustain natural resources.  The American Carbon Registry was founded in 1997 as the GHG Registry by the Environmental Defense Fund and Environmental Resources Trust (ERT). The Registry and ERT joined Winrock International in 2007, expanding the Winrock‟s team of climate change, forestry, clean energy, agriculture, and carbon market experts.

For more information on the Registry and its services, please visit www.americancarbonregistry.org.

Contact: Edelman Mark Grundy, Communications Phone: 212-819-4882 Email: mark.grundy@edelman.com

Edelman Anu Ramamurty, Communications Phone: 212-704-8155 Email: anu.ramamurty@edelman.com

American Carbon Registry Mary Grady, Director of Marketing and Communications Phone: 703-525-9430 x 820 Email: Mgrady@Winrock.org