Mexico issued amounts “extreme” of methane from a natural gas pipeline running through Durango, a northern border state in the country in 2019, research published Tuesday showed, citing data collected by satellites.
Methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that traps heat in the atmosphere and warms the planet much faster than carbon dioxide in the short term, is considered a major threat to the climate.
Harvard University scientists, led by Marc Watine and Daniel Varon, identified a hot spot in Durango that released thousands of metric tons of methane over two months.
Watine said the team was able to trace the methane leaks to the El Encino-La Laguna pipeline, which runs through the states of Chihuahua and Durango, transporting natural gas from the United States to Mexico.
“Our analysis shows that there were emissions from several different parts of the pipeline between April and May of that year”Watine said in an interview. “Not everything came from one place”he added.
On May 12, 2019, between 260 and 550 tons of methane per hour were released from one location, totaling between 1,130 and 1,380 tons in three hours, scientists found.
It was unclear what caused the emissions or which company was responsible for them. According to government documents, the pipeline, owned by the state electricity company, CFE, is managed by Fermaca Pipeline El Encino.
The CFE did not immediately respond to a request for comment and no contact information for Fermaca Pipeline El Encino appears in public documents.
Scientists have said Mexican companies, including state oil company Pemex, are behind on their obligations to identify, report and mitigate emissions from their infrastructure.
In September 2022, another group detected two methane leaks from Pemex infrastructure at the Ku-Maloob-Zaap oil complex in the Gulf of Mexico.
Methane, the main component of natural gas, is invisible and odorless. However, in recent years satellite technology has evolved to make its detection possible and more precise.
The latest research was published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Source: Gestion
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