{"id":234951,"date":"2026-04-10T10:14:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-10T15:14:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/non-producing-oil-and-gas-wells-may-emit-microbial-methane-at-rates-1000-times-higher-than-previously-estimated"},"modified":"2026-04-10T10:14:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-10T15:14:41","slug":"non-producing-oil-and-gas-wells-may-emit-microbial-methane-at-rates-1000-times-higher-than-previously-estimated","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2026\/04\/non-producing-oil-and-gas-wells-may-emit-microbial-methane-at-rates-1000-times-higher-than-previously-estimated","title":{"rendered":"Non-producing oil and gas wells may emit microbial methane at rates 1,000 times higher than previously estimated"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/non-producing-oil-and-gas-wells-may-emit-microbial-methane-at-rates-1000-times-higher-than-previously-estimated.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Microbial methane leaking from non-producing oil and gas wells is being emitted at rates about 1,000 times higher than previously estimated, according to a new study led by McGill University researchers. \u201cOrigins of Subsurface Methane Leaking from Nonproducing Oil and Gas Wells in Canada,\u201d by Gianni Micucci and Mary Kang, is <a href=\"https:\/\/pubs.acs.org\/doi\/10.1021\/acs.est.5c07132\" target=\"_blank\">published<\/a> in Environmental Science and Technology.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMethane is a powerful greenhouse gas when released into the atmosphere, regardless of its origin. In particular, this study implies that non-producing oil and gas wells could continue to emit <a href=\"https:\/\/phys.org\/news\/2025-03-soil-play-crucial-role-methane.html?utm_source=embeddings&utm_medium=related&utm_campaign=internal\" rel=\"related\">microbial methane<\/a> long after the targeted formation has been fully depleted,\u201d said Kang, study co-author and Associate Professor of Civil Engineering.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHowever, the exact source of this methane is often unclear because the subsurface is a complex system with multiple gas-bearing formations,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microbial methane leaking from non-producing oil and gas wells is being emitted at rates about 1,000 times higher than previously estimated, according to a new study led by McGill University researchers. \u201cOrigins of Subsurface Methane Leaking from Nonproducing Oil and Gas Wells in Canada,\u201d by Gianni Micucci and Mary Kang, is published in Environmental Science [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-234951","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-engineering"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234951","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234951"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234951\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234951"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234951"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234951"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}