"Enough gas to supply 7 million homes is leaking into the atmosphere above oil fields in Texas and New Mexico—the largest plume of climate change-driving methane pollution ever recorded over a U.S. oil field, a new study from Harvard University and Environmental Defense Fund shows.

The methane over the Permian Basin emitted by oil companies’ gas venting and flaring is double previous estimates, and represents a leakage rate about 60% higher than the national average from oil and gas fields, according to the research, which was published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.

“Our study found that the quantity of methane emitted in the Permian Basin are the highest ever measured from any U.S. oil and gas basin. This is a really big deal from a climate standpoint,” the study’s lead authors, Harvard atmospheric scientist Yuzhong Zhang and EDF scientist Ritesh Gautam, said via email Wednesday."

Bobby Magill reports for Bloomberg Environment April 22, 2020. [2]