Methane Bombs
Methane bombs are fossil gas projects that could emit or even leak over a gigaton CO2 equivalent over their lifetime.
Some of the carbon bombs we have identified previously are mostly fossil gas, and fossil gas is mostly methane – a supercharged greenhouse gas. There are 112 methane bombs operating and being prepared. Below you can find the details of the ones we have found, along with a description of the methods used to identify them. If you would like to help defuse them, find more information, or spread the word about this topic in need of urgent solutions, please get in touch. We are also grateful for donations to strengthen our work of defusing carbon bombs, including methane bombs.
Methane Bombs Overview: Total Emissions Potential
Number of Methane Bombs | Methane Emissions from Gas Leakage (GtCO2e) | Emissions from Burning and Gas Leakage (GtCO2e) |
|||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Minimum | Medium | Maximum | Minimum | Medium | Maximum | ||
Active Projects | 59 | 32.91 | 123.26 | 288.41 | 194.44 | 283.80 | 446.66 |
New Projects | 53 | 20.79 | 77.88 | 182.24 | 122.86 | 179.33 | 282.23 |
Total | 112 | 53.70 | 201.14 | 470.65 | 317.30 | 463.13 | 728.89 |
Method: The minimum, medium and maximum estimates use different leakage rates and different Global Warming Potentials (GWP) for methane. Details and sources can be found in this spreadsheet. In the next two tables we use the medium estimates.
Methane Bombs per Country
Country | Number of Methane Bombs | Emissions from Gas Leakage (GtCO2e) | Emissions from Burning and Gas Leakage (GtCO2e) |
---|---|---|---|
Algeria | 2 | 2.1 | 4.9 |
Argentina | 1 | 1.6 | 3.8 |
Australia | 3 | 2.7 | 6.2 |
Brazil | 4 | 7.0 | 16.1 |
Canada | 4 | 11.3 | 26.0 |
China | 5 | 8.1 | 18.8 |
Colombia | 1 | 0.6 | 1.5 |
Denmark | 1 | 0.5 | 1.1 |
India | 1 | 1.5 | 3.5 |
Indonesia | 1 | 1.5 | 3.4 |
Iran | 9 | 6.5 | 14.9 |
Iraq | 2 | 1.3 | 2.9 |
Israel | 1 | 0.8 | 1.8 |
Kazakhstan | 2 | 1.2 | 2.7 |
Kuwait | 1 | 0.8 | 1.8 |
Mexico | 2 | 4.1 | 9.4 |
Mozambique | 3 | 2.3 | 5.3 |
Norway | 1 | 1.2 | 2.8 |
Poland | 1 | 0.8 | 1.8 |
Qatar | 13 | 24.0 | 55.2 |
Russian Federation | 22 | 49.6 | 114.3 |
Saudi-Arabia | 8 | 7.4 | 17.0 |
Syria | 1 | 1.0 | 2.3 |
Turkmenistan | 3 | 9.6 | 22.0 |
United Arab Emirates | 2 | 2.0 | 4.5 |
United Kingdom | 1 | 0.9 | 2.2 |
United States | 17 | 50.8 | 117.0 |
Note: These emissions are only those from methane bombs, each country emits more than this when including other sources.
List of Methane Bombs
Methane Bomb | Country | Project Status | Gas Percentage of Hydrocarbon Reserve (%) | Emissions from Gas Leakage (GtCO2e) | Emissions from Burning and Gas Leakage (GtCO2e) |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Marcellus Shale | United States | 82.4 | 17.0 | 39.2 | |
Haynesville/Bossier Shale | United States | 97.6 | 9.7 | 22.4 | |
Montney Play | Canada | 74.7 | 7.8 | 18.0 | |
Bovanenkovo Zone (Yamal Megaproject) | Russian Federation | 89.8 | 7.6 | 17.6 | |
Yolotan (Iolotan) South | Turkmenistan | 94.1 | 6.8 | 15.7 | |
North Field | Qatar | New | 74.1 | 6.7 | 15.5 |
Tunguska Basin CBM | Russian Federation | New | 100.0 | 6.6 | 15.3 |
Gazprom dobycha Yamburg | Russian Federation | 88.3 | 6.0 | 13.8 | |
Permian Delaware Tight | United States | 27.2 | 5.2 | 12.0 | |
Utica Shale | United States | 88.1 | 5.2 | 11.9 | |
North Field C LNG | Qatar | New | 74.1 | 4.5 | 10.4 |
Shtokman | Russian Federation | New | 90.2 | 4.2 | 9.7 |
Kuznetsk Depression (Kuzbass) CBM | Russian Federation | New | 100.0 | 3.7 | 8.5 |
Eagle Ford Shale | Mexico | New | 95.0 | 3.6 | 8.4 |
Urengoyskoye | Russian Federation | 85.1 | 3.4 | 7.8 | |
Llandovery Shale | Brazil | New | 95.0 | 3.1 | 7.1 |
Eastern Gas Program | Russian Federation | 89.8 | 2.9 | 6.7 | |
Longmaxi Shale | China | 68.6 | 2.8 | 6.4 | |
North Field E | Qatar | New | 71.2 | 2.6 | 5.9 |
Lensky Basin CBM | Russian Federation | New | 100.0 | 2.1 | 4.7 |
Method: The list of methane bombs was extracted from the Global Carbon Bombs Dataset, published by Kühne et al (2022), a collaboration of LINGO with Urgewald and Global Energy Monitor. We only considered carbon bombs with a high percentage of fossil gas. Methane bombs are thus a subset of the list of 425 carbon bombs. We are only analyzing the gas part of these projects, the total emissions of each project are higher when the oil portion is added on top (or coal, in the case of coal-bed methane projects). For project definitions, we rely on the Rystad database – sometimes whole basins are considered “projects” in that database.