A methane leak can be repaired in hours. Proving that an oil and gas operation has reduced its methane emissions is considerably harder.
The difficulty begins with measurement. A corporate inventory may estimate methane using equipment counts and emissions factors. A site survey may identify individual leaks. Continuous sensors may detect changing concentrations. Aircraft or satellites may observe unusually large emissions from above. Each method can provide useful information, but they do not necessarily measure the same thing in the same way.
That matters for energy companies across Southeast Asia as attention shifts from methane commitments towards measurable performance. The International Energy Agency’s Global Methane Tracker 2026 estimates that fossil-fuel activities in South and Southeast Asia emitted around 13 million tonnes of methane in 2025. More than 60% came from coal, with the remainder associated with oil and gas operations.
For an individual company, however, a regional estimate does not answer the operational question: where is methane leaving our facilities, how much is being emitted, and did our intervention actually reduce it?
Why Methane Needs a Different Measurement Approach
Carbon dioxide from purchased fuel can often be calculated from relatively stable activity data such as litres consumed or energy used. Methane from oil and gas operations can behave differently.
Emissions may come from routine equipment, intentional venting, incomplete combustion, maintenance events or unintended leaks. Individual sources can also change quickly. A component that appeared normal during one inspection may develop a leak later, while repairing one unusually large source may materially change a facility’s overall emissions profile.
This makes a purely annual accounting exercise insufficient for operational methane management.
The UN Environment Programme’s Oil and Gas Methane Partnership 2.0 reflects this problem by encouraging participating companies to progress from generic estimates towards measurement-based emissions information. The principle is important even for operators that are not participating in the programme: better decisions require increasingly direct evidence of where emissions are occurring.
Start With a Baseline That Can Be Reconstructed
Before claiming a reduction, management needs to establish what the operation is being compared against.
A defensible methane baseline should identify:
- the facilities and assets included;
- the reporting period;
- the emission sources covered;
- the measurement and estimation methods used;
- planned venting or maintenance events included in the inventory;
- significant assumptions and emissions factors;
- the treatment of missing information; and
- any operational changes that could affect comparability.
This is closely related to the discipline required for reliable ESG data collection. The final methane figure is only as credible as the records underneath it.
A spreadsheet containing an annual methane total is therefore not enough. Someone reviewing the result should be able to work backwards from that number to the sites, equipment, measurements, calculations and assumptions that produced it.
Inventory Data and Measured Data Answer Different Questions
An emissions inventory estimates how much methane is associated with defined operations during a reporting period. Measurement tools can provide more direct information about individual sources, facilities or atmospheric emissions.
Neither should automatically be treated as perfect.
| Evidence | What It Can Help Explain | Important Limitation |
|---|---|---|
| Equipment inventory and emissions factors | Creates a repeatable estimate across many sources | Actual equipment performance may differ from generic assumptions |
| Leak detection survey | Locates individual emitting components | Represents conditions during the survey period |
| Direct source measurement | Helps quantify specific detected emissions | Measurement quality depends on method and operating conditions |
| Continuous monitoring | Shows changes and unusual events over time | Requires appropriate placement, calibration and interpretation |
| Aircraft or satellite observation | Can identify larger emission events across wide areas | Detection thresholds, weather and revisit frequency affect observations |
The strongest methane-management programmes therefore do not ask which single technology produces the one correct number. They ask how different forms of evidence can be combined to improve the emissions picture.
The Methane Control Loop
A practical corporate programme can be organised around six repeating steps.
1. Establish
Define the asset boundary, identify potential emission sources and create the starting inventory. Document where values are directly measured and where estimates remain necessary.
2. Detect
Use appropriate leak-detection or monitoring methods to locate emissions that routine inventory methods may not reveal. The technology should match the facility, emissions profile and management objective.
3. Quantify
Where practical, determine the magnitude of important sources rather than simply recording that a leak exists. Prioritisation becomes considerably more effective when operators can distinguish small recurring leaks from major emission events.
4. Repair or Abate
Address the underlying source. Depending on the operation, this might involve repairing components, modifying operating practices, reducing venting, improving flare performance or redesigning equipment.
5. Remeasure
A completed work order proves that maintenance occurred. It does not by itself prove that the expected emissions reduction occurred.
Follow-up monitoring should therefore confirm whether the source was successfully eliminated or reduced and whether another significant source has appeared.
6. Reconcile
Update the emissions inventory using the best available evidence and document why the reported result changed. Differences between engineering estimates, source measurements and wider-area observations should be investigated rather than quietly averaged away.
The process then repeats. Methane management is better understood as an operating control system than as an annual sustainability-reporting exercise.
Which Methane KPIs Should Management Track?
A single percentage reduction rarely gives management enough information to understand performance.
| KPI | Management Question |
|---|---|
| Total estimated methane emissions | Is the overall reported methane footprint increasing or decreasing? |
| Methane intensity | Are emissions changing relative to an appropriate level of operational activity? |
| Number of detected emission sources | Where are operational problems recurring? |
| Estimated emissions from major sources | Which sources should receive priority? |
| Average time from detection to repair | How quickly does the organisation act? |
| Percentage of repaired sources rechecked | Does maintenance closure include emissions verification? |
| Repeat-leak rate | Are repairs addressing root causes? |
| Share of inventory supported by direct measurement | How much of the emissions picture depends on estimates? |
Both absolute emissions and intensity can be useful, but they answer different questions. Asia ESG’s guide to absolute and intensity sustainability metrics explains why efficiency improvements should not automatically be presented as reductions in total environmental impact.
Southeast Asia Is Building Methane Measurement Capacity
Methane management is increasingly receiving dedicated regional attention.
The ASEAN Centre for Energy, ASEAN Council on Petroleum and World Bank have developed a Methane Management Roadmap for Oil and Gas in ASEAN. Its core areas include monitoring, reporting, verification and abatement.
The World Bank’s Global Flaring and Methane Reduction Partnership is also supporting work involving Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand to strengthen methane baselines and monitoring capabilities.
These developments matter because methane performance depends on infrastructure as much as ambition. Operators need trained personnel, appropriate detection technology, consistent reporting rules and a process for turning detected emissions into repair decisions.
Avoid Turning a Repair Programme Into an Unsupported Climate Claim
Methane communication should distinguish activity from outcome.
Activity: the company inspected 1,000 components.
Finding: the inspection identified methane-emitting equipment.
Action: the company repaired identified sources.
Measured result: follow-up measurement demonstrated that methane emissions from the defined sources decreased.
Corporate claim: total methane emissions across the stated organisational boundary decreased against a defined and comparable baseline.
Each statement requires more evidence than the one before it.
Companies should therefore resist converting the number of inspections, sensors installed or leaks repaired directly into claims about total emissions reduction unless the measurement system supports that conclusion.
Verification Becomes More Important as the Claim Gets Bigger
A maintenance engineer may only need enough evidence to confirm that a component was repaired. Management needs stronger evidence before incorporating the result into an environmental KPI. An externally published sustainability claim requires another level of confidence.
The stronger the claim, the more important it becomes to document:
- the baseline;
- the organisational and operational boundary;
- measurement methods;
- equipment calibration where relevant;
- inspection dates;
- identified emission sources;
- repair records;
- follow-up measurements;
- calculation methodologies;
- material assumptions; and
- review or assurance performed.
Companies preparing environmental information for independent review can also use Asia ESG’s guide to ESG assurance and sustainability-data verification.
When a Measured Reduction Becomes an Exceptional Achievement
Routine methane management and record recognition serve different purposes.
A company is expected to control environmental impacts, comply with applicable requirements and improve operational performance. Record recognition does not replace any of those responsibilities.
However, an initiative may occasionally produce a result that is exceptional in scale and can be expressed using an objective, reproducible measure. In that situation, the same evidence disciplines used to establish methane performance also become useful when evaluating whether the result can be independently documented as an achievement.
Asia Record describes its verification approach around clearly defined claims, consistent measurement conditions and supporting evidence. An organisation considering an Asia record application should therefore begin with the underlying result rather than the recognition itself.
A potential Asia Record holder would still need to establish exactly what was achieved, how the measurement boundary was defined and which evidence supports the claimed result. Asia record certification is separate from emissions assurance, regulatory compliance and environmental certification, and should never be presented as replacing them.
For businesses researching record recognition Asia or asking how to apply for Asia Record, the useful question is not whether a methane project sounds impressive. It is whether an exceptional result can be objectively measured, compared and verified.
Five Questions to Ask Before Publishing a Methane Reduction Claim
- What exactly decreased? Specify the gas, facilities, sources and reporting boundary.
- Compared with what? Use a documented baseline based on a consistent methodology.
- How was it measured? Separate direct measurements from engineering estimates and generic emissions factors.
- What operational change caused the result? Distinguish real abatement from production changes, asset sales or methodology changes.
- Can somebody reproduce the result? Preserve the source records, calculations, monitoring evidence and review trail.
Better Methane Management Starts With Better Evidence
Methane reduction is often described primarily as a technology challenge. Detection technology matters, but technology alone does not create a credible environmental result.
Companies need a baseline that can be reconstructed, monitoring that can identify important sources, operational systems capable of correcting them and follow-up measurement that confirms whether those interventions worked.
That evidence improves maintenance decisions, environmental reporting and management accountability at the same time.
The objective should not be to produce the largest possible reduction claim. It should be to build a measurement system strong enough that management, investors, customers and external reviewers can understand exactly what changed—and verify the evidence behind it.
