UN confirms first mitigated methane leaks at Turkmenistan's oil and gas fields

Turkmenistan has started fixing super-emitter sources of methane at its oil and gas fields, and the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) has confirmed the first eight stopped leaks. The first was recorded in November 2024; in February 2026 two leaks were stopped at Dowletabat—one of the country's largest gas fields; the latest confirmed case is dated March 2026 and relates to Lebap province, one of the main gas-producing regions. The International Methane Emissions Observatory (IMEO) publishes cards for confirmed mitigation actions in a UN repository, most of them issued in April 2026; according to The Guardian, the mitigated leaks were linked to pipeline corrosion, faulty wells and failed flare units—a typical set for infrastructure, much of which was built back in the Soviet era.

The MARS alert system sent Turkmenistan 192 notifications of satellite-detected methane plumes over the past year: the system captures a plume from a satellite and notifies the country and the operator, and the response after that remains voluntary. Ashgabat responded to about 20% of the notifications—with ground-based leak data and, in some cases, possible mitigation plans. For comparison: the United States received 138 alerts, responded to none of them and reported no mitigation actions; Mexico, where the world's largest leak was recorded at a rate of 37 tonnes per hour, responded to all 23 alerts, but mitigation there has not yet been completed.

Megan Demeter, MARS programme manager at IMEO, called the first repairs a breakthrough in terms of documenting real mitigation measures, but noted that they have not yet become a breakthrough in the country's overall emissions volume. Other data back up that assessment: ranking all the leaks the system detected worldwide over the past six months, three of the six largest were in Turkmenistan, and nine of the fifty largest were Turkmen; the country accounts for more than a third of all MARS oil and gas observations in Eurasia. According to the International Energy Agency's (IEA) Global Methane Tracker 2026, Turkmenistan and Venezuela have the world's highest production methane intensities; in 2020–2023 emissions from super-emitter events in the country grew by more than 15% a year on average. The volume is known: according to an estimate by the analytics firm Kayrros cited by The Guardian, the two main fossil fuel production areas produced 4.4 mn tonnes of methane in 2022—2.6 mn in the west, on the Caspian coast, and 1.8 mn in the east. Converted using the twenty-year global warming potential, that is 366 mn tonnes of CO₂ equivalent (CO₂e), more than the UK's annual carbon footprint; on the standard hundred-year horizon, it is about 120 mn tonnes.

Public tracking of this issue began in March 2023, when The Guardian, citing satellite data, named Turkmenistan the country with the world's largest methane leaks. On 1 Dec 2023, at COP28, Turkmenistan joined the Global Methane Pledge, which calls for cutting anthropogenic methane emissions by at least 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels. On 1 Nov 2024, the Cabinet of Ministers adopted a roadmap for 2025–2026 to strengthen international cooperation under the pledge: scientific and practical conferences and seminars with international organizations, work with foreign companies, feasibility studies for associated gas utilization projects, and participation in the MARS platform. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs's statement on the roadmap gives no quantitative emissions-reduction targets, and the text of the roadmap itself has not been published.

European regulation sets the economic dimension of this issue. Most Turkmen gas goes to China; since 1 Mar 2025 small volumes have been going to Turkey under a swap scheme via Iran—a contract between Türkmengaz and BOTAŞ for about 1.3 bcm a year—while the Trans-Caspian gas pipeline remains unbuilt. The EU Methane Regulation (2024/1787) introduces requirements for fossil fuel importers in three stages. From 1 Jan 2027, an importer must prove to the competent authority of an EU member state that the producer applies emissions monitoring, reporting and verification (MRV) measures equivalent to the regulation's requirements, or reports at OGMP 2.0 level 5 with independent verification—a level no producer in the world has reached to date. From 5 Aug 2028, an importer must report production methane intensity using the European Commission's methodology. From 5 Aug 2030, that intensity must stay within a maximum value to be set by the Commission—meaning gas with a high methane footprint will not enter the EU market under new contracts. The first two stages apply to contracts signed or renewed after 4 Aug 2024; for earlier contracts, the importer must make “all reasonable efforts,” report annually on the results and explain why the contract could not be renegotiated. Requirements for operators inside the EU itself are broader and include leak detection and repair programmes and limits on venting and flaring; for imports, the first stage requires equivalence of measurement and reporting alone. The Clean Air Task Force has reported discussions with Nury Jumashov, Turkmenistan's deputy minister of environmental protection, in which methane regulation and the EU's import requirements were discussed.