Satellite Data Reveals How to Fix a Global Methane Hotspot

(Bloomberg) -- In the western Turkmenistan desert, 29 pieces of oil and gas equipment have been spewing enough methane each year to rival the annual emissions from all the cars in Alabama. According to new research, that damage is mostly the result of poorly maintained or leaky equipment — and largely avoidable.

With the help of satellite data, scientists have identified the biggest sources of emissions in one of the world's methane hotspots. From January 2017 to November 2020, a total of 944 releases were observed from fewer than 30 sources; of those, two dozen came from faulty flares that had stopped combusting super-potent methane into less harmful carbon dioxide. It isn't clear if the flares simply went out and need to be relit — a procedure familiar to most energy operators — or if they had larger glitches.

Without functioning flares, the methane is released directly into the atmosphere, where it has 84 times the warming impact of carbon dioxide. Because they come from commercial facilities, “they represent a key mitigation opportunity," researchers including Itziar Irakulis-Loitxate and Luis Guanter from the Polytechnic University of Valencia wrote. Their paper was published Tuesday in Environmental Science & Technology.

All of the sources were linked to oil and gas fields operated by the state-run companies Turkmennebit (Turkmenoil) and Turkmengaz, according to the study. There were no observable methane plumes from fields managed by five foreign-based operators.

Turkmenistan's Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Turkmennebit and Turkmengaz didn't respond to emails and calls seeking comment.

Natural gas is often produced alongside crude. If operators can't ship it, they may use flares to burn the excess gas. The practice has been used for decades in oil fields in the U.S., the Middle East and elsewhere.

Flaring isn't optimal — it's lost product that could otherwise be sold to generate electricity or heat homes — but it significantly reduces the climate impact of methane.

The massive methane releases in western Turkmenistan were mainly due to venting of gas from oil fields, the researchers said. The rest were mostly linked to leaky pipelines. “Identifying these high emitting sources is fundamental for any short-term mitigation strategy,” they wrote. “Efficiently detecting and fixing them can significantly reduce emissions.”

Turkmenistan holds the fourth-largest natural gas reserves and is a major supplier of the fossil fuel to China. It's also the fifth-biggest emitter of methane after Russia, the U.S., Iran and Iraq, according to an estimate from the International Energy Agency.

Of the 50 most severe methane releases detected by the European Space Agency's Sentinel-5P satellite attributed to onshore oil and gas by monitoring firm Kayrros SAS since 2019, Turkmenistan accounted for 31 of them.

In January, Turkmen President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov announced the country would close a 70-meter wide natural gas crater that's been burning for decades. Nicknamed Gates of Hell, the smoldering pit was the result of a 1970s-era drilling accident and is believed to have been set on fire decades ago by engineers hoping to burn off the leaking methane.