Satellite data reveals a $400 waste opportunity at LNG liquefaction plants

By Alex Ostridge and Mark Davis, from Capterio.

Given the significance of this paper and its broad relevance to oil and gas companies, investors, traders, regulators, governments, gas importers and civil society, we are making it freely available as an Open Access publication. The paper is freely shareable, while all rights are preserved by the authors at Capterio.

Our new Open Access SPE paper (presented at ADIPEC) delivers the first global, daily, satellite-based analysis of flaring across every LNG liquefaction plant worldwide. We benchmark 160+ facilities, operators, equity partners, and countries — revealing over 100× variation in flaring intensity and major opportunities for improvement.

The findings are simple: reducing routine, upset, and start-up flaring could cut up to 10 million tonnes of CO₂-equivalent emissions annually while unlocking more than $400 million in value. With EU methane rules tightening and LNG markets moving into oversupply, low-emission performance is quickly becoming a competitive advantage.

This work shows how high-frequency, asset-level data can help operators improve reliability, regulators strengthen oversight, governments capture more value, and buyers source lower-emission LNG.

To see a write up of our presentation at ADIPEC see here on our news page.

Suggested citation: Ostridge, A. and Davis, M. (2025) Global quantification of flaring and operational performance of LNG liquefaction plants through satellite analytics. SPE-229086-MS. Society of Petroleum Engineers. DOI: 10.2118/229086-MS. Also accessed from SPE website here.