At the Heart of a Global Methane Hotspot: Signs of Progress

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(Bloomberg) — About half a century ago, geologists searching for hydrocarbons accidentally shattered the roof of a huge underground gas deposit, leaving a 60-meter (197-foot) wide crater. Instead of allowing the powerful methane fumes to escape uncontrollably, engineers ended up igniting the gas, presumably assuming it would burn quickly. However, this was not the case and the site is believed to have burned continuously since then.

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Dubbed the “Gates of Hell,” Darvaza Crater has been promoted as a tourist attraction in the Central Asian country of Turkmenistan for years and has even been named the “longest-burning methane crater” by Guinness World Records. But global concerns about the climate impact of methane and carbon dioxide emissions have increased, and in 2022, then-President Gurbanguly Berdymukhamedov announced a plan to close the site. To stop the release, the government proposed drilling a well to extract gas from the reservoir that supplies the crater so that the fuel could be transported to market, where it would likely be burned more efficiently to produce electricity or heat to create.

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Satellite data now shows that the plan could work. According to an analysis by Mark Davis, CEO of Capterio Ltd., the amount of gas burned at the site has fallen by about 50% since August. Capterio Ltd. uses satellites to track flaring worldwide and works with oil and gas producers and governments to reduce emissions through operational optimization. Davis estimates that the site currently burns one million standard cubic feet of gas per day.

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Turkmenistan’s foreign ministry did not respond to an email seeking comment.

“While the scale of emissions reductions is modest compared to the potential opportunities in Turkmenistan, the success of the intervention is symbolically important,” Davis said. “Darvaza has been unresolved for decades and the fact that real progress has been made should inspire confidence that Turkmenistan is truly committed to meeting its climate commitments.”

Read more: Asia’s secretive gas dictatorship poses a climate catastrophe

Methane is the main component of natural gas and has more than 80 times more warming power than carbon dioxide in its first 20 years in the atmosphere. Curbing the release of the powerful greenhouse gas from coal, oil and gas operations is widely considered one of the fastest and most cost-effective ways to reduce global temperatures.

Methane sometimes leaks accidentally, but can also be intentionally released into the air or burned when infrastructure is insufficient to get the fuel to market – a practice that remains common in other countries, including the United States .

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While much of the gas emitted from Darvaza Crater is burned into CO2, it probably still emits some methane. Turkmenistan has the world’s fourth-largest natural gas reserves and data from the International Energy Agency shows the country emits more methane per unit of oil and gas production than any other major supplier. Any progress in curbing the potent greenhouse gas emanating from the sparsely populated country’s oil and gas infrastructure would be a significant climate victory.

And yet much more still needs to be done. Global methane emissions from fossil fuels were near a record high last year, the IEA said in its annual Methane Tracker report earlier this year.

In December, Bloomberg Green reported that foreign petroleum engineers in Turkmenistan were laying the groundwork for a plan to curb the country’s huge methane emissions, possibly with help from the United States. The technical experts worked closely with officials from state-owned oil and gas companies to investigate the source of the emissions and possible methods to contain them as they prepare for future site visits. People familiar with the matter asked not to be named because the initiative was yet to be officially announced at the time.

Turkmenistan announced late last year that it would join the U.S.- and European Union-led Global Methane Pledge. The agreement includes more than 150 nations that have pledged to reduce global emissions of the potent greenhouse gas by 30% from 2020 levels by the end of this decade.

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