Methane leaks before COP31: what satellites saw in the last 12 months

Key findings

1. Half of all detections come from four countries. Turkmenistan (2,268), China (1,369), the United States (835) and Algeria (812) account for 53% of the 10,056 plumes. In Turkmenistan and Algeria nearly all of them come from oil and gas; in China, from coal mines.
2. When the UN warns, most operators stay silent. UNEP's Methane Alert and Response System has notified governments about 2,053 emitting sites. Operators have responded on 289 of them (14%). Response rates range from 81% in Mexico and Azerbaijan to zero in Russia, Iran, Venezuela and China.
3. A handful of companies sit behind a large share. Sites we attribute to ten operators account for 43% of all plumes in the period. Turkmennebit alone is linked to 1,753. Most of these attributions are rated plausible: they rest on which company operates the field or region, not on site-level confirmation.
4. Some sites leak over and over. One pipeline site in western Turkmenistan, TKM_S_029, was caught 118 times in twelve months, roughly every three days. UNEP classes 564 sites worldwide as persistent or frequent emitters.
5. The COP31 host is on the map too. Türkiye had 28 plumes, all from waste sites, including about 19,000 kg/h in Istanbul province and 14,000 kg/h on the western edge of Ankara, both on 18 August 2026. None of its sites has been notified by UNEP.
6. Europe imports the problem and has its own. Algeria, a major pipeline gas supplier to Spain and Italy, had 812 plumes; operators responded on 8 of 247 notified sites. Inside the EU, Spain had 46 plumes, all from waste sites and many around Madrid, and Italy 18, mostly in the Po Valley.

What would change these numbers

1. Operators answer MARS notifications. A notification is a free, satellite-verified tip about a leak. Responding, and fixing the leak, is the cheapest climate action there is.
2. Governments publish what they did. UNEP records whether a government responded; the public rarely learns what happened next.
3. Buyers ask. Gas importers, including under the EU's methane regulation, can require suppliers to show they are finding and fixing leaks like these.

Caveats

• Detections are not total emissions. Satellites see only large leaks, cannot see through clouds, and revisit some regions more often than others.
• More satellites now look for methane than in earlier years, so year-on-year growth in detections (4,611 in 2023, 7,644 in 2024, 9,850 in 2025) partly reflects better coverage.
• Emission rates are snapshots at the time of the satellite pass, with UNEP's stated uncertainty.
• Operator attributions are Methane Leaks estimates with confidence levels; operators can reply or correct them at any time.

Use this report

Free to republish with credit under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0: "Data: UNEP IMEO MARS; analysis: Methane Leaks (methaneleaks.com)". Every country, company and site has its own page with a map you can embed. Questions or data requests: info@methaneleaks.com.