Charlie Barrett walks through an oilfield in New Mexico's southeastern desert, where the air smells of rotten eggs and old pumpjacks sit among shrub oaks, and turns on an infrared camera that can detect emissions from oil and gas equipment.
Barrett, who works for environmental group Earthworks, is hunting for methane - a greenhouse gas accounting for about a third of global warming that has become a focus for the oil industry's and the Biden administration's climate agenda.
That is about to change: Early next year, an affiliate of the Environmental Defense Fund , a climate activist group that aims to slash methane emissions from energy and farming by 30% this decade, will launch a satellite dedicated to finding methane emissions. Unlike existing commercial operators that operate on subscription, MethaneSAT will freely provide its location and methane scale data to the public. The company aims to scan 80% of the world’s oil and gas producing regions.
New Mexico accounted for half of all the new U.S. oil production last year and its output rose 66% between 2021 and the start of 2023. But despite a reputation for enacting regulations, the state lacks the inspectors to fully ensure that emissions from its oil and gas infrastructure do not go unnoticed or ignored.
That gap has created an opening for local activists such as Earthworks. Last year, the group filed 67 reports on potential releases in New Mexico's southeast Permian basin and 11 from an area in the northwestern part of the state, Barrett said. Permian Resources and Avant did not respond to a request for comment. Tascosa Energy Partners said it had reached out to the regulator to clarify what happened and why flaring was the best course of action.
The state's oil regulator in 2021 implemented a rule to curb routine methane venting and flaring, while a separate initiative by the state's Environment Department cracked down on leaks, particularly from smaller facilities.
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