Methane plume in Canada coincided with work on natural gas pipelines

A plume of methane detected by satellite last month in Canada lined up with the intentional release of the superpotent greenhouse gas from a network of natural gas pipelines.

A plume of methane detected by satellite last month in Canada lined up with the intentional release of the superpotent greenhouse gas from a network of natural gas pipelines. 

SaskEnergy Inc. said its TransGas unit performed relief-valve maintenance at the Rush Lake Compressor station in Saskatchewan on the morning of Sept. 24, releasing natural gas — whose main component is methane — for 10 minutes. A concentration of the gas cloud was observed at 2:15 p.m. local time by a European Space Agency satellite. 

The operator first said it released about 400 gigajoules of gas, but on Wednesday revised that assessment to less than 13 gigajoules, after consulting with onsite teams. Kayrros SAS, a geoanalytics company, estimated an emissions rate of 52 tons an hour based on the satellite data, which is roughly in line with the original figure SaskEnergy provided. 

Kayrros estimated the source of the plume’s location was about 10 kilometers (6.2 miles) from the Rush Lake Compressor station. It was even closer to a TC Energy Corp. pipeline that's part of a vast network that transports natural gas from the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin to eastern Canada and the U.S.

“We cannot confirm that the image presented was caused by our maintenance work,” SaskEnergy said in an email. “The release was unavoidable for safety reasons. When staff work on equipment it has to be in zero energy safe state, which means any pressurized gas and all electricity needs to be shut down.” 

TC Energy said in a statement that it wouldn't “comment or speculate on third-party information or unvalidated imagery and data.''