Oil companies leaked less methane in West Texas, a new report says. Environmentalists are skeptical.

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ODESSA — Less methane escaped into the atmosphere from certain oil and gas equipment and oil wells in 2023, according to a report released earlier this month by an energy analytics firm that industry leaders promoted.

Environmental experts said more information was needed.

Equipment used to find and produce crude oil, including those that control the pressure and flow of natural gas, pumps and pipes, leaked 25% less methane than in 2022. The report's findings, published by S&P Global, a New York-based company, also included information on the methane leaking from the 162,000 oil wells, from which emissions also decreased.

The report focused only on the stage of oil production where companies search, drill and draw crude oil, known as upstream.

Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere. It is a particle that scientists say is a main culprit in climate change, with 80 times the potency of carbon dioxide. And it is released in remarkable volumes in the Texas oil fields through unintended leaks and when companies flare or vent gas to relieve gas build-up in the equipment.

Kevin Birn, a vice president at S&P Global that focuses on emissions, said there is no consensus on tracking methane, a colorless and odorless gas, adding that he hopes the report provides a standard.

The report was released ahead of President Donald Trump’s second term. On the campaign trail, Trump promised to relax regulations on oil and gas companies that the Biden administration ratcheted up during the last four years. The report offers evidence that oil and gas companies can reduce methane emissions while still producing a record amount of oil — and profits.

“Behind investments in technologies and manpower is the priority companies have assigned to reducing emissions to protect the environment and advance climate goals, and to capture as much methane as possible,” the American Petroleum Institute, a nationwide trade group, wrote when they announced the report.

The report’s findings used data collected by another company, Insight M, which has been tracking methane emissions for operators since 2014. The company flew an aircraft 15,000 feet above the Permian Basin, a part of Texas abundant in oil and natural gas. Sensors on the craft detected plumes collecting in sunbeams bouncing off the ground. If parts of the sunbeams were missing, it meant methane collected there. The company deployed the plane 700 times in 185 days. It flew above operators who produced no less than 200 barrels of oil daily, accounting for operators producing significant amounts of crude oil and natural gas. The flyovers accounted for 96% of production in the region, the report’s authors said. That includes more than 85% of operators in the region.

Raoul Leblanc, vice president at the firm, said the data collected during those flyovers account for specific sources of emissions, which operators can use to find the equipment that is leaking. He said such information points to a specific process during oil and gas production for emissions that could go undetected.

The report sheds light on the industry's efforts to pollute the air less. Still, it's far from a full understanding of how much methane escapes oil field operations, said Jon Goldstein, vice president of energy transition at the Environmental Defense Fund.

Goldstein said emissions under 10 kilograms, which the sensors could not detect, also account for a significant portion of air pollution, even if it is harder to track. He said that, as a result, the conclusions should be taken with a grain of salt. For equipment releasing less than 10 kilograms of methane an hour, researchers used wind gauges detecting plumes of methane in the wind. This method provided an estimate of how much methane certain equipment released.

eCompanies and regulators can use multiple instruments to track fugitive emissions or gases that leak, such as satellite, aerial, and vehicle trackers. Satellite trackers are older and provide a broader picture of ambient emissions, though he said they are more precise with time. The devices mounted on aircraft, like a helicopter that flies over an oil basin, collect more specific data. Handheld devices that can be used on vehicles can also supply information that is more specific.

Goldstein said that oil and gas operators could be working to comply with methane reduction regulations set by the federal government in 2024, which the industry supported and contributed. Oil and gas companies can be fined if they breach the amount of methane they are allowed to leak. Texas does not require operators to capture methane emissions in their field operations.

“There's no consistency. We're talking about an industry that's incredibly diverse, hundreds and hundreds of companies in the U.S. alone that are engaged in oil and gas development,” Goldstein said. “Each one may have a different voluntary program (to reduce methane emissions) that they're implementing with different technologies, and so it's really hard to have an apples-to-apples comparison.”

Virginia Palacios, executive director of Commission Shift, an oil and gas watchdog group in Texas, said regulatory agencies should be more active in emission reductions. She said that putting rules that push for monitoring, like satellite and aerial technology, could reduce waste.

Oil and gas companies, Palacios said, shouldn’t wait for the market to decide to reduce methane emissions.

“There is still a role for oversight agencies to play in preventing waste and reducing climate-warming emissions when operators lack a financial signal to do so,” Palacios said. “Regardless of cost-effectiveness, the public is harmed when scarce natural resources are wasted or when methane warms the climate.”

Disclosure: The Environmental Defense Fund has been a financial supporter of The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan news organization that is funded in part by donations from members, foundations and corporate sponsors. Financial supporters play no role in the Tribune's journalism. Find a complete list of them here.