This list shows the 10 sites in the U.S. oil and gas sector with the largest persistent emissions rates, as seen by key satellite instruments in 2025.  At every site on this list, emissions were detected at least three times over the course of the year, and emissions were stubborn: they were seen at least half the time that satellites observed the sites. 

These insights come from Carbon Mapper’s methane emissions data leveraging two space-based instruments: Planet Labs’ Tanager-1 satellite and NASA’s EMIT instrument on the International Space Station. The independent non-profit Carbon Mapper processes the raw data from these instruments to detect, quantify, and pinpoint methane plumes, publishing the results on its data portal. Using published Carbon Mapper data, we selected the 10 largest U.S. emitters in the Oil & Gas category where plumes were detected at least three times and where persistence rates were 50% or higher.  Notably, the sources on this Top 10 list are concentrated in Texas, which houses seven of the ten locations. Top 10 sites are also located in Louisiana and Oklahoma. 

Does the list include every big emissions event the satellites saw in the United States?  No. Because of differences in the satellites’ orbits, some of these sources were seen many times in 2025, others just a few times. So, there are a few oil and gas sector sources with extremely high emissions rates that appear on Carbon Mapper’s portal, but that don’t appear on this list because they were not observed a sufficient number of times, or because their emissions were not persistent enough.

Plumes at these sites were detected at least three times in 2025, and the emission rate reported for each site takes into account the persistence rate — that is, the number of times a plume was detected at that site as compared with the number of times it was observed. Each site on this list has a persistence rate of at least 50%, meaning that emissions were seen at least half the time the site was observed. As the ability and coverage of space-based methane monitoring expands, further assessment of these sites and their emissions will become more robust. Still, the list presented here is a snapshot showing sources of oil & gas methane emissions that are likely to present among the strongest opportunities for near-term mitigation. This list was created from data available as of March 18, 2026. In all other regards, our methodology is the same as previous lists, which we explain here. 

Photo: Nate Watson via Unsplash