A $134 million satellite that keeps an eye on some of the world’s biggest companies has disappeared

An $US88 million ($134 million) satellite backed by billionaire Jeff Bezos that detected oil and gas industry emissions of the powerful greenhouse gas methane has been lost in space, the group that operates it said on Tuesday.

MethaneSAT had been collecting emissions data and images from drilling sites, pipelines, and processing facilities around the world since March, but went off course around 10 days ago, the Environmental Defence Fund, which led the initiative, said.

Its last known location was over Svalbard in Norway and EDF said it did not expect it to be recovered as it had lost power.

“We’re seeing this as a setback, not a failure,” Amy Middleton, senior vice president at EDF, told Reuters.

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“We’ve made so much progress and so much has been learned that if we hadn’t taken this risk, we wouldn’t have any of these learnings.”

The launch of MethaneSAT in March 2024 was a milestone in a years-long campaign by EDF to hold accountable the more than 120 countries that in 2021 pledged to curb their methane emissions.

It also sought to help enforce a further promise from 50 oil and gas companies made at the Dubai COP28 climate summit in December 2023 to eliminate methane and routine gas flaring.

Methane is a potent greenhouse gas, with 80 times the warming power of carbon dioxide over a 20 year period.