Newly Released Images from MethaneSAT Demonstrate Powerful Capabilities

(NEW YORK, NY) - Images released today from MethaneSAT demonstrate the satellite’s groundbreaking ability to produce high precision, high resolution quantitative data on methane emissions over wide areas from the oil and gas sector. This includes total emissions coming from smaller, dispersed sources that are largely invisible to other satellites operating today.  

The new images include the Appalachian, Permian and Uinta basins in the US; the Amu Darya and South Caspian basins in Turkmenistan; and the Maturin basin in Venezuela. You can view them HERE. 

These early observations suggest that emissions in North American and Central Asian production basins are significantly higher than currently reported in existing inventories built on engineering estimates. They also align with a growing body of research indicating that smaller emissions dispersed across wide areas are responsible for a substantial share of total oil and gas methane emissions.  

MethaneSAT was developed by a dedicated subsidiary of the non-profit Environmental Defense Fund with support from key mission partners including the Bezos Earth Fund, the Audacious Project, the Government of New Zealand and many others.  

Data from the satellite, which launched in March of this year, will help companies and countries reduce emissions faster while enabling gas importers, investors and the public to compare emissions performance of production basins worldwide. It also offers a valuable way to track progress toward industry commitments like the Oil & Gas Decarbonization Charter established last year at COP28 in Dubai.  

“MethaneSAT is designed to give us the whole picture of emissions for the first time across all types of production basins, both big sources and thousands of smaller ones. It functions like a wide-angle lens, covering large areas in a single image, with great clarity,” said MethaneSAT mission lead and EDF Chief Scientist Dr. Steven Hamburg. “These insights will help stakeholders gain a much clearer understanding of the emission challenges and track progress over time.” 

Based on gross gas production, the loss rate (or emissions intensity) of 1.8% to 2.9% observed in the Permian basin in these preliminary measurements is at least nine times higher than the 2030 target loss rate of 0.2% promised under the industry’s public commitments. In Utah’s Uinta basin with its aging, leak-prone infrastructure and low producing mix of oil and gas wells, MethaneSAT observed loss rates around 9%, ten times higher than in the more productive, gas-dominant Appalachian basin.  

“This groundbreaking technology empowers oil and gas producers to eliminate methane leaks and to play an important and essential role as part of the solution,” said Sir Andrew Steer, President and CEO of the Bezos Earth Fund. “We are proud to be an active partner in this initiative." 

The new snapshots provide a clear sense of the scale of the problem. Total oil and gas methane emissions observed in these images range from roughly 50 tonnes/hour in the Uinta to 280 tonnes/hour in the Permian, and up to 420 tonnes/hour in the South Caspian basin. 

“MethaneSAT represents a significant advance in remote sensing technology that offers powerful insights for many kinds of stakeholders,” said Dr. Ritesh Gautam, Lead Scientist for MethaneSAT. “The ability to quantify total methane emissions over wide areas with high precision and high resolution makes it an effective, complementary and globally accessible tool to track changes in emissions in order to meet global methane mitigation goals.” 

Emissions directly quantified by MethaneSAT are significantly greater than reported based on bottom-up estimates. Subtracting non-oil and gas sources, methane emissions observed in the Permian are still three- to five times greater than estimates by EPA in their 2020 gridded inventory — in line with the data from an aircraft version of MethaneSAT collected in 2023 — while those observed in the South Caspian are over 10 times higher than reported in the independent global 2022 EDGAR emissions database.   

Meanwhile, the Venezuela observation demonstrates the strengths of MethaneSAT in detecting emissions in between clouds across wide regions, due to the satellite’s unique combination of wide swath, high precision and high spatial-resolution measurements.​ This capability fills a major gap in existing regional data because large portions of the information collected by other satellites is discarded due to even modest cloud cover.  

 The instrument will provide much richer insights as data collection continues over time and across additional geographies. Once the MethaneSAT data platform is providing data at full capacity in early 2025, stakeholders will be able for the first time to systematically compare performance over time as well as by geography across all major oil and gas producing regions worldwide. MethaneSAT will also work synergistically with other global mapping and point source focused satellites. 

This set of initial observations made by MethaneSAT are consistent with independent empirical data where available from other sources. Methane is a highly potent greenhouse gas. Emissions from fossil fuel operations, agriculture and other activities are responsible for nearly a third of today’s warming.  

MethaneSAT, LLC is a subsidiary of Environmental Defense Fund, Inc., a leading international nonprofit organization. EDF links science, economics, law, and innovative private-sector partnerships to create transformational solutions to the most serious environmental problems. Follow us on Twitter at @MethaneSAT, or connect with us at www.MethaneSat.org. Copyright © 2024 MethaneSAT, LLC. All Rights Reserved.