Surveying methane point-source super-emissions across oil and gas basins with MethaneSAT
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (Copernicus Publications / EGU)Luis Guanter and colleagues, with EDF and Harvard co-authors including Steven Wofsy, Steven Hamburg and Ritesh Gautam26 Feb 2026cc-byRead the original
Stated on the page: "© Author(s) 2026. This work is distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License." Confirmed, not assumed. Freely republishable with attribution.
A team led by Luis Guanter reports on MethaneSAT's ability to locate individual high-emitting methane sources in oil and gas basins. The satellite operated from March 2024 to June 2025, measuring in the 1598-1683 nanometre band at 0.25 nanometre spectral resolution, with roughly 100 by 400 metre sampling and about 200 kilometres of coverage at nadir. The authors estimate a minimum plume detection limit near 500 kilograms per hour over bright surfaces in low wind, and an average of about 1,300 kilograms per hour across sites with mixed observing conditions. Applying this to selected datasets, they identify strong and persistent sources in Turkmenistan's South Caspian basin and in the Midland sub-basin of the US Permian Basin, and report large emissions near Maturin in Venezuela, in Iran's Zagros Foldbelt and Widyan areas, and in the Appalachian basin. Further examples come from West Siberia, offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, and waste-sector sites.
Contested
Extract
"Methane emissions from the oil and gas (O&G) industry play a major role in the global methane budget. The MethaneSAT space-based mission, which operated between March 2024 and June 2025, was designed to provide high-quality data on O&G methane emissions, from regional fluxes to high-emitting point sources. This was enabled by MethaneSAT's measurements in the 1598–1683 nm window with a high spectral resolution (0.25 nm), medium spatial sampling (100×400 m2 at nadir), and wide-area coverage (about 200 km at nadir)." "We estimate a minimum detection limit of about 500 kg h−1 for a bright surface and low wind conditions, and an average detection limit around 1300 kg h−1 corresponding to an ensemble of sites with different observation conditions." "We observe particularly strong and persistent sources in the Turkmenistan's South Caspian basin and in the Midland sub-basin of the US Permian Basin, and reveal major super-emissions in Maturin (Venezuela) and Zagros Foldbelt and Widyan (Iran), and the Appalachian basin. We also present other examples of strong methane sources at high latitudes (West Siberia), in offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, and from the waste sector."
Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (Copernicus Publications / EGU) · cc-by · Read the original
The MyGreenSuit briefing
Commentary by MyGreenSuit, not the words of Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics (Copernicus Publications / EGU).
The finding US readers should sit with: the Midland sub-basin of the Permian appears on the same list as Turkmenistan's South Caspian for persistent super-emission. Not comparable in aggregate volume — comparable in the character of the problem.
Two things about the method matter before anyone treats this as a league table. The average detection limit is around 1,300 kilograms an hour, so anything smaller is invisible; a basin's real total is always larger than its point sources add up to. And plume quantification depends on wind-field inputs, which is where most of the uncertainty in any satellite methane number lives.
That is not a reason to discount it. It is a reason to use it for what it is good at, which is identifying which specific sites leak persistently, rather than estimating national totals.
The uncomfortable part is the tense. This instrument operated for fifteen months. What it produced was the best independent check on operator self-reporting anyone had, and the record it built has no successor flying.