Environmentalists intensify third-party methane monitoring in Permian Basin

Environmentalists are no longer relying on government regulators and oil companies to monitor methane pollution in the nation's largest oil field, they are using planes, helicopters, mobile vans and sensors on top of cell phone towers to get their own data that will be released to the public. As part of the PermianMap project, the New York-based Environmental Defense Fund has teamed up with the University of Wyoming and Pennsylvania State University to intensify independent and third-party monitoring of methane emissions in the Permian Basin of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico. Focusing on the western end of the Permian known as the Delaware Basin, EDF reported in its first batch of figures that oil wells, pipelines and other equipment have an estimated methane leak rate of 3.5 percent, already triple the Environmental Protection Agency's rate. That leak rate is equal to wasting and releasing 1.4 million tons of methane per year -- enough to meet the annual needs of every home in Houston and Dallas combined. The PermianMAP project comes out of time when environmentalists are running out of patience with the industry and regulators to curb methane emissions and other pollution from oil wells and pipelines. EDF and the two universities have been working on the PermianMAP project since the fall. The first batch of data comes from those months of work while new findings will be released every two weeks through December...MORE