We have long lacked a clear picture of global methane emissions informed by measurements and differentiated down to the scale of actionability. While some useful measurement solutions exist to track leaks, like handheld sensors, these give an isolated picture. Fast forward to today, where we’re in a new era of monitoring—armed with a growing ecosystem of remote sensing technologies from aircraft and satellites that can pinpoint and track emissions across the globe.
Emissions data from these technologies is increasingly available at different levels of granularity. This data can tell us how much methane different oil basins are emitting, where the largest sources of methane occur, when emissions have been addressed, and what the greatest opportunities are for quick methane mitigation wins.
Today’s wealth of data provides critical intelligence for oil and gas producers, who are increasingly taking an interest in these observation technologies. And with the right insights, companies can better curb emissions, prevent product loss, increase global competitiveness, and boost profitability.
Tracking methane through remote sensing observations from oil and gas operations is hard work. Dense networks of overlapping infrastructure can make it challenging to distinguish the exact origin of a methane gas plume. Add changing weather conditions, turbulent winds, and other confounding factors, and the need to cover vast quantities of infrastructure to statistically represent the activity in a basin, and it becomes clear that not one single tool can do all jobs at once. To more completely understand methane emissions at multiple levels, operators need the right data at the right granularity tailored to the specific challenge at hand.
Integrated strategies—combining satellite, aerial, and ground-based data for both point sources and basin-wide emissions—are key to providing a clear picture of methane emissions and dramatically improving risk mitigation. With modern satellites and remote sensing technologies advancing at a remarkable pace, climate data providers can now deliver services with a range of spatial resolutions, geographic scopes, and observation frequencies.
This flexibility supports an array of use cases, from consistent emissions tracking to policymaking and corporate sustainability initiatives. Satellite observations also complement aircraft and ground-based sensing platforms, capturing emissions at both the basin and sub-basin scales. The result: a more nuanced, layered understanding of methane sources, including when and how often they emit. For operators, this means the ability not only to monitor their progress, but to benchmark against peers—unlocking a powerful form of competitive motivation to cut emissions faster.
As more of these technologies come online and emissions data becomes increasingly available, the challenge—and the opportunity—lies in how we put that data to work to accelerate real-world mitigation.
Methane is labeled as a super-pollutant—80 times more potent than CO2 over 20 years—with a large near-term impact on climate change. Today, the oil and gas industry is responsible for about 23 percent of global human-caused methane emissions, primarily stemming from equipment malfunctions, leaks, flaring, venting, and process emissions.
Just a handful of large emissions sources—designated super-emitters by the Environmental Protection Agency when they emit 100 kilograms of methane an hour or more—are responsible for a disproportionate share of methane emissions: as much as 20-60 percent in U.S. basins according to some studies. Identifying and mitigating these super-emitters creates a big and immediate opportunity for emissions reductions.
Super-emitters have historically flown under the radar due to a paucity of comprehensive basin-wide measurements that characterize their prevalence and persistence. While many super-emitters fall into the category of short-lived sources, new direct observations have revealed that some facilities can emit methane continuously for weeks to months or even years on end, often undetected by conventional monitoring or reporting methods. This trove of now-available data allows the oil and gas industry to move beyond modeling or self-reporting of emissions and toward more mitigation action. Ultimately, quantification and characterization of all emissions, large and small, are required to develop operator and basin-appropriate strategies to most effectively reduce emissions.
This type of facility-level data can be a powerful motivator for states, regulators, or operators to act. For example, in states like California and Colorado, where state agencies used remote sensing to spot super-emitter events, observations and resulting operator notifications resulted in mitigation actions taken across the state.
When operators leverage observational data, everyone wins. In one aerial observation study across just five states—Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and Pennsylvania—methane leaks from well sites and midstream infrastructure resulted in an estimated $1 billion in lost product sales. It’s clear that methane mitigation strategies are crucial to operators and their bottom lines.
The impact of methane emissions extends beyond balance sheets, as emission reduction is connected explicitly to near-term climate objectives, in addition to improving air quality and public health that affect industry workforces and communities, assets, and long-term business resilience.
Collaboration, transparency, and actionable data must be part of the solution. Regulators, technology providers, and industry leaders need a common data playing field, requiring coordinated standards and harmonized delivery mechanisms, as well as partnerships to share key data and learnings.
From aircraft and satellites to researchers and international regulatory decision-makers, operators today have both the incentive and the opportunity to play a role in the methane ecosystem together with other stakeholders. The monitoring tools exist. The data is increasingly available and granular. And as the data illustrates, methane mitigation is not just a climate imperative; it’s a competitive one.
Dan Cusworth is Director of Science for Carbon Mapper. Previously, he was a data scientist at the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, researching sources of anthropogenic CO2 and methane emissions. He received his B.S. in Applied Math/Atmospheric Sciences at UCLA and Ph.D. in Atmospheric Chemistry at Harvard University.
