Methane leaks uncovered across Australia at gas projects by infrared cameras

Infrared technology captured footage of extensive leaking or intentional venting at facilities run by Santos, Origin and gas pipeline company Jemena.

The alarming findings comes as a new report shows Australia is at the back of the global pack when it comes to methane mitigation, with regulations too weak to stop companies releasing methane freely from their facilities.

The investigation by the Australian Conservation Foundation was prompted by concerns that methane emissions - more than 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over its first 20 years - were under-reported by the resource sector.

Among the field trips findings include 25 leaks along Jemena's JGN and Darling Downs pipelines, 10 leaks from Origin's coal seam gas wells and Shell/QGC gas-gathering pipelines in Queensland, and methane being released from four of Santos' NSW coal seam gas wells.

ACF's lead investigator Annica Schoo said methane leaks were documented by international experts at every stage of the gas extraction and distribution process.

"The fact is, we just don't know how much climate-heating methane is leaking from coal and gas in Australia because the regulations are so weak and under-reporting is rife," Ms Schoo said.

ACF called for the federal government to establish a methane action plan that requires resource companies to accurately measure and report on methane emissions, install methane abatement technology at existing facilities and rehabilitate leaking abandoned mines.

"The plan should require companies to find and fix leaks as soon as they can," Ms Schoo said.

Independent politician Zali Steggall, who saw methane leaking first hand at the Appin East gas drainage plant via an infrared camera, backed the calls for stronger regulation.

The Warringah MP said gas had "completely slipped under the radar" when it came to regulation and safety measures, because it'd been pitched as a transition fuel, despite its short-term global warming consequences.

"What we have at the moment is a huge amount of leaking and there's no requirement for companies to collect data around their methane emissions or fix the leaks," Ms Steggall said.

"If you don't measure it, you don't know the scale of your problem and you can sweep it under the carpet.

"We have the technology, it's not that hard to check that you don't have leaks from pipes, but there is no impetus to do so because we lack federal government legislation."

A new report by Rennie Advisory compared methane regulation in Australia with six other jurisdictions and found the nation was lagging behind other developed economies in fossil fuel methane action.

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Energy Minister Chris Bowen said methane emissions from coal and gas were reported under the National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting Act, consistent with international accounting rules.

"The Safeguard reforms include new transparency measures to publish the methane emissions of all covered facilities each year," Mr Bowen said.

"The government has also referred methane measurement to the Climate Change Authority... to consider whether any further improvements can be made."

The methane leak footage was captured by Théophile Humann-Guilleminot from the Clean Air Task Force, who said he'd never seen anything like the "deeply worrying" situation in Australia.

"I have personally undertaken methane fieldwork in eight countries and filmed at more than 250 fossil fuel sites - doing this work in Australia was on another level," he said.

"In particular, the Talinga and Condomine gas field, operated by Origin, was the most shocking: wherever I pointed my camera, I saw methane pouring out of the equipment, sometimes from three to four different point sources."

An Origin spokesperson said the company had a program of periodic well checks and leak testing across all gas fields.

"The wells referenced have been surveyed within the last 6-10 months and are all operating in line with their design," the spokesperson said.

"Some use gas to power their instrumentation, to open and close valves, resulting in small amounts of gas being vented.

"We are actively converting this older type of well instrumentation to use compressed air or electrification to reduce this operational emissions source."

A Santos spokesperson said it immediately responded to ACF claims about methane leakage and inspected the wells using thermal imagery, but detected no leaks.

The gas giant said the results were consistent with a routine leak detection inspection by the NSW Environment Protection Authority in July and an independent inspection in May.