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- Methane emissions from major U.S. oil and gas basins have decreased 44% since 2011.
- The decline occurred despite record-breaking energy production, with the U.S. leading in crude oil output.
- Efforts include voluntary initiatives and new regulations, but more action is needed for climate goals.
SALT LAKE CITY — Methane, a potent greenhouse gas and characterized as a major contributor to climate change, is both naturally occurring and a result of human activity.
It has long been a target of federal regulatory agencies who seek to rein it in and a call for environmental groups to reduce it as well because of its harmful health and environmental effects.
But there is good news from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's greenhouse gas reporting program, as reported by Energy Indepth and reiterated by the Utah Petroleum Association.
"Methane emissions from the country's top oil and gas-producing basins have fallen 44% percent since 2011," the article said.
It added that what is even more stunning is that the decline in greenhouse gas emissions has happened "even as the country has managed to shatter energy production records — the United States produced more crude oil than any nation at any time for the past six years in a row."
The Energy Information Administration reports that this trend has continued for six years.
"The crude oil production record in the United States in 2023 is unlikely to be broken in any other country in the near term because no other country has reached production capacity of 13 million barrels per day. Saudi Arabia's state-owned Saudi Aramco recently scrapped plans to increase production capacity to 13.0 million barrels per day by 2027."
The major basins being examined
The data looked at the seven top oil and gas producing basins in the United States: Williston, San Juan, Permian, Anadarko, Gulf Coast, Arkoma and Appalachian. It did not look at eastern Utah's Uinta Basin because it is not in the same league as those others in terms of production.
The Energy Information Administration says three basins saw their methane emissions fall by more than half from 2019 to 2023 — Williston Basin (which covers parts of Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota), Appalachian Basin (which spans a long stretch down nine eastern states including Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia) and Arkoma Basin (covering parts of Arkansas and Oklahoma). Arkoma Basin emissions plummeted most drastically — declining 87%.
In the Permian Basin, which spans West Texas and eastern New Mexico, total methane emission fell 32% between 2019 and 2023, or by 2.4 million metric tons. Annual reporting from Texans for natural gas has shown an ongoing decline in methane intensity in the Permian over those years as well — from 0.29% in 2019 to 0.12% in 2022.
Permian production increased 51%, from nearly seven million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2019 to 10.6 million barrels in 2023. What's more, those production numbers are only set to rise.
Why the decrease?
Rikki Hrenko-Browning, president of the Utah Petroleum Association, said it is a combination of factors.
"I think it's a mix operators have taken on — a mix of both voluntary and new regulations that are driving that reduction in methane emissions," she said.
New rules adopted by the Harris-Biden administration are helping to drive emission reductions for operators.
"Operators, particularly here in Utah and the basin, have taken a lot of initiative to get in front of this issue, and have made a lot of changes and investments in infrastructure and operational practices that are significantly reducing emissions as well," she said.
She added that the American Petroleum Institute's environmental partnership has made a voluntary commitment in which producers reduce emissions with routine venting and flaring.
Locally, the Utah Petroleum Association has its "latch the hatch" program in which there is a voluntary but what she described as a firm commitment to reduce emissions that go beyond federal regulatory requirements.
Franque Bains, the director of the Sierra Club in Utah, acknowledged the declines, but said more needs to be done.
"One of the quickest, most cost-effective ways to help combat the climate crisis is to reduce methane, a potent greenhouse gas that is 80 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. The oil and gas sector is one of the largest sources of methane in the country, and through a combination of technological innovation and protective federal safeguards, we've seen noted declines in methane emissions from oil and gas infrastructure in the last few years," she said. "However, much more is needed for our country to meet our greenhouse gas reduction targets and to achieve a pathway toward climate stabilization. That's why the Biden Administration finalized the strongest-ever methane standards for the oil and gas sector last year and approved legislation requiring companies to pay for their waste emissions."
