In its May 9, 2023 edition, the British newspaper The Guardian reveals that huge amounts of methane, one of the most potent greenhouse gases, are being released from oil and gas production sites in Turkmenistan. The data, observed from satellite images collected over three years, from 2019 to 2022, confirms that this Central Asian country on the Caspian Sea, neighbouring Iran and Afghanistan among others, is the largest emitter of methane on the planet, surpassing the United States and Russia.
The methane emissions come mainly from leaks in the country’s oil and gas extraction facilities and correspond to several tons of gas emitted per hour. The satellite readings are provided by Kayrros, an environmental intelligence company that has developed technology to detect methane from the sky.
In particular, Kayrros has spotted two major leaks from facilities on the Caspian Sea operated by Turkmen Oil, the national oil company. According to the readings, these two leaks would have contributed more to global warming in 2022 than all the CO2 emissions of the United Kingdom, which is ranked 17th in the world in terms of emissions.
The emissions from these two sites would be equivalent to about 366 million tons of CO2 in one year, or half the emissions of a country like France, for example. The origin of the important methane release would be explained by a change in the technique of treatment of the gases resulting from the production of fossil fuels.
The usual technique of flaring the gas released during exploitation is increasingly criticized because it releases CO2 into the atmosphere. In the case of Turkmenoil’s operations, the methane was simply released into the atmosphere, but the consequences of this practice are worse than the previous technique because methane has, according to the UN, a warming power of more than eighty times greater than CO2.
Kayrros president Antoine Rostand told the Guardian that methane is responsible for half of the global warming in the short term and has been completely unmanaged until now, it has gotten completely out of control. Antoine Rostand believes that there is no comparable action in terms of reducing short-term climate impacts than tackling methane emissions and that all the information to tackle its huge leakage is available.
To solve this immediate problem of methane leaks, the first solution would be, in the absence of alternative technologies, to return to the old technique known as flaring, it could also be envisaged to repair the leaks and improve the maintenance of the installations dating from the Soviet era. Experts interviewed by The Guardian suggest that diplomatic action should be taken at COP28 in the United Arab Emirates in December 2023 to urge the Turkmen government to reduce its methane emissions.
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