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New images released by the Environmental Defense Fund's MethaneSAT project reveal much more methane is being wasted in Western oil fields than previously thought. The first-of-its-kind technology gives a full picture of oil and gas methane emissions over wide areas, including emissions from smaller sources that are largely missed by other methane-monitoring satellites.
The new images align with a growing body of research that indicates smaller emission sources dispersed across wide areas are responsible for a substantial share of total oil and gas methane emissions. Methane is more than 28 times as potent as carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“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 of the Bezos Earth Fund, which helps fund MethaneSAT.
The new images include the Appalachian, Permian, and Uinta basins. They reveal the methane loss rate observed in the Permian basin is at least nine times higher than the 2030 target loss rate of 0.2 percent promised by the oil and gas industry. In Utah’s Uinta basin, which has aging, leak-prone infrastructure and low producing wells, MethaneSAT observed loss rates around nine percent—ten times higher than in the more productive Appalachian basin.
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As America’s first conservationists, hunters have a century-old tradition of protecting public lands habitat and fighting those driven by myopic greed. Although greed never sleeps, neither do we when it comes to the protection of our wild public lands, waters and wildlife.” 
