Surveying Methane Point-Source Super-Emissions across Oil and Gas Basins with MethaneSAT

Abstract. Methane emissions from the oil and gas (O&G) industry play a major role in the global methane budget. The MethaneSAT mission, which operated between March 2024 and June 2025, was designed to provide high-quality data on O&G methane emissions, including both regional fluxes and high-emitting point sources. This is enabled by MethaneSAT's high spectral resolution (0.25 nm), medium spatial sampling (110x400 m² at nadir), and wide-area coverage (about 200 km at nadir). In this work, we showcase the potential of MethaneSAT to survey high-emitting point sources across O&G basins. We first assess MethaneSAT's performance for the detection, quantification and attribution of methane plumes through the analysis of key observation-related parameters, including wind speed, surface albedo and spatial sampling. We estimate a detection limit of about 500 kg/h for favourable observation conditions, which are mostly facilitated by low winds. We then analyse selected MethaneSAT datasets from the main O&G methane hotspots in the world. We observe particularly strong and persistent sources in the Turkmenistan's South Caspian basin and the U.S. Permian Basin (especially across the Midland sub-basin), and reveal major super-emissions in the Maturin (Venezuela), Zagros Foldbelt and Widyan (Iran) O&G basins, and the Appalachian basin including O&G and coal production. We also highlight other examples of strong methane sources at high latitudes (West Siberia), in offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico, and from the waste sector.