Methane emissions from the 2015 Aliso Canyon blowout in Los Angeles, CA

Single-point failures of the natural gas infrastructure can hamper deliberate methane emission control strategies designed to mitigate climate change. The 23 October 2015 blowout of a well connected to the Aliso Canyon underground storage facility in California resulted in a massive release of natural gas. Analysis of methane (CH₄) and ethane (C₂H₆) data from dozens of plume transects from 13 research aircraft flights between 7 Nov 2015 and 13 Feb 2016 shows atmospheric leak rates of up to 60 metric tonnes of CH₄ and 4.5 metric tonnes of C₂H₆ per hour. At its peak this blowout effectively doubled the CH₄ emission rate of the entire Los Angeles Basin, and in total released 97,100 metric tonnes of methane to the atmosphere.