Exposing the Environmental Costs of Offshore Oil: Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Oil Slicks, and Flaring
As part of the Open Ocean Project, SkyTruth is making detailed data about threats from floating production and storage vessels (FxOs) and conventional fixed infrastructure available to the public for the first time. Building on our earlier work to map the locations of all offshore infrastructure published in Nature in 2024, we have analyzed satellite imagery to quantify three core elements of the offshore oil and gas sector’s environmental footprint:
- Oil pollution: The presence of oil on the water around offshore facilities; naming the most severely-polluting infrastructure sites in the world for the first time.
- Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions: This includes emissions from the operation of offshore oil and gas (O&G) facilities and the vessels that support them.
- Methane flaring by offshore oil facilities: The commonplace practice of burning off unwanted methane generates CO2 as a byproduct, which contributes to climate change.
View a summary of the report here or download the report and graphics here.