The International Energy Agency (IEA) published its 2025 Global Methane Tracker today, leveraging data from GHGSat’s groundbreaking fleet of high-resolution satellites as part of its flagship annual assessment of methane emissions and trends from across the energy sector.
The Global Methane Tracker’s analysis fills an important knowledge gap for industry operators and global policymakers, creating a baseline for data-driven decision-making. While emissions from the energy sector represent a significant part of the global methane picture, the oil & gas industry also demonstrates the largest potential for near-term methane reduction. The availability of known technologies that detect and mitigate methane from fossil fuel operations, often at low cost, has meant that in many cases, reducing methane can even be profitable. However, a clear understanding of the sources and prevalence of methane is foundational to abatement efforts.
Founded in 2011, GHGSat operates the largest fleet of satellites dedicated to tracking greenhouse gas emissions from individual industrial facilities in the world, monitoring millions of sites annually. Each satellite in GHGSat’s constellation detects methane emissions as low as 100 kilograms per hour, and traces them to a 25-meter area, in performance unmatched by any government or commercial satellite system.
By attributing methane emissions to individual pieces of equipment, GHGSat data revealed insights into the specific sources of emissions and regional trends for the Global Methane Tracker. Determining if emissions stemmed from flares, equipment venting, or gas lift system vents, for example, enabled analysis of the cost and feasibility of methane abatement.
Drawing on GHGSat’s observations and other data sources, the IEA assessed that reducing emissions can be done cost-effectively for upstream operators, finding that approximately 25 Mt of methane emissions from upstream operations could have been avoided with no net cost. The IEA analysis indicates that downstream operations, which comprised 15% of total methane emissions from oil and natural gas operations, can also achieve near-zero methane emissions. More broadly, the report highlights that a concerted effort to limit methane emissions could make nearly 100 billion cubic metres of natural gas available to the market. In this way, cutting methane emissions can bolster energy security, offering relief in competitive markets.
As international efforts to reduce methane emissions and ensure secure and resilient energy systems intensify, collaborations between organizations like GHGSat and the IEA are critical. Accurate and timely data, in the hands of decision-makers who can take action, enables faster, smarter decisions to reduce methane effectively.
The 2025 Global Methane Tracker is now available at Global Methane Tracker 2025 – Analysis – IEA
