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(Bloomberg) -- Glencore Plc’s Hail Creek coal mine in Australia emits between three and eight times more methane than it reports, according to a new study, calling into question the accuracy of conventional approaches for measuring the potent greenhouse gas.
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The analysis, commissioned by the United Nations and published in ACS’s journal Environmental Science & Technology Letters, was based on data from aircraft that flew over the site in 2022 and 2023 equipped with atmospheric sensors as well as a spectrometer pilots used to observe invisible plumes of the gas spewing from the mine. It’s the most comprehensive research on coal mine methane emissions undertaken by the UN’s monitoring body.
“The discrepancy between operator-reported emissions and our two aircraft-based estimates underscores the need for a comprehensive review of the bottom-up reporting methods currently applied at Hail Creek,” the more than 20 authors of the report wrote.
Australia has established an expert panel on measuring fugitive methane emissions, which will examine methodologies such as the ones used in the study and advise the government on their potential use to improve the estimates, a spokesperson for the Department of Climate Change, Energy, the Environment and Water said.
Glencore, the world’s largest coal trader, cast doubt on the peer-reviewed study. The paper relied on “extremely limited aerial surveys conducted over a period representing less than 1% of the mine’s operating time within a two-year period,” the Switzerland-based company said in an email. “This limited data was then used to extrapolate an annual emissions inventory for the mine. The use of such a small data sample lacks credibility.”
The study also fails to assess upwind methane emissions and “simplistically attributes any methane anomalies in the vicinity of the mine to the mine,” Glencore said.
The implications of potentially under-reporting methane emissions from Australia’s coal mines are significant both for the nation’s own climate goals and because undocumented releases could reverberate through global energy supply chains. Australia exports more than half the world’s seaborne metallurgical coal used in steelmaking and the Bowen Basin in Queensland, where Hail Creek is, provides a major share of that.