Satellite monitoring can be used to monitor for flares with anomalous methane emissions. Whilst several technologies are now available, and further systems and services being launched in the coming years the technology can be broadly classed into two types of activity:
There are advantages and challenges associated with both technologies but both rely upon additional information – such as visible imagery or VIIRS to differentiate flaring from other potential sources of methane, such as intentional venting.
In addition to satellite operators, there are a growing number of service organisations that will process publicly available or privately sourced data and use analytics to give insights to an operator.
How it Works
Oil/gas production, flaring radiant heat, and TROPOMI NO2 column mixing ratio in eastern Mexico. (a) Oil production from the Hydrocarbon Information System 540 (https://sih.hidrocarburos.gob.mx/, accessed in June 2020). The unit Mbd is thousand barrels per day. (b) Same as (a) but for gas production. The unit MMcfd is million cubic feet per day. (c) Gas flaring radiant heat from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) data (Elvidge et al., 2015). (d) Tropospheric column density of NO2 from TROPOMI. All data are averages for May 2018 – December 2019 in eastern Mexico.
Remote sensing using satellite technology is emerging as a powerful tool for investigating methane emissions of all kinds. Where a large number of flares are operated over wide or inaccessible areas the satellite may be effectively used to highlight locations that require closer inspection. Monitoring technology is either based upon methane itself or the distinct thermal signature of a lit flare.